First time using LECA?
I have an alocasia corm propagating in water that I'm planning to put in leca when it's ready. I need my setup to be as inexpensive as possible. A few questions:
- Should I/how should I sanitize leca?
- I'm thinking about using a net pot inside a cache pot. Do I need to use a wick, or can I go without?
- Is it really necessary to have 2 or 3 different nutrient solutions, plus pH tests and buffers?
Any other tips, experiences, or tried-and-true methods are welcome and appreciated. Thank you!
#alocasiaaddicts #happyplants #corms #leca #semihydroponics
- Should I/how should I sanitize leca?
- I'm thinking about using a net pot inside a cache pot. Do I need to use a wick, or can I go without?
- Is it really necessary to have 2 or 3 different nutrient solutions, plus pH tests and buffers?
Any other tips, experiences, or tried-and-true methods are welcome and appreciated. Thank you!
#alocasiaaddicts #happyplants #corms #leca #semihydroponics
4ft to light, indirect
3” pot with drainage
Last watered 6 months ago
19
Best Answer
Hello and welcome to the wonderful world of LECA!! I’m super happy for you because while you might have a bit of a learning curve up front, it’s SUPER fun and easy to care for your plants this way.
1. you don’t need to sanitise the LECA unless you are reusing old LECA that was previously being used for a different plant. All you have to do is rinse it to get rid of the clay dust. You won’t get rid of it all in one go, you’ll see bits of it in your reservoir for a while - that’s fine and won’t hurt your plant. Just give it a good rinse first. I usually do it in bulk - I fill up a tub with water about half way and dump the LECA in. It will float so don’t put too much in :) I use my hands to agitate it going back and forth a bunch until I get sick of it and then pour the e water out onto my outdoor plants/grass. Best not to pour down the sink as the sediment might eventually cause drain issues. Anyway, refill again once and do it again. I then just either leave in a tub to dry out until I want to use it.
Before using, I take the amount I need for my pot and dump it into a tub to soak overnight in water with nutrient solution for root growth mixed in.
Side note, if you want to sterilise your LECA at any point, dump it into a tall cooking pot and fill with water, bring to the boil, boil for 5 mins. Wait to cool. Done!
2. No, there are brands out there that do all in one nutrients. I have only ever used 2 brands but my go to is Growth Technology. I do use additives now but that’s because I’ve been doing this for a while and my plants are well and truly used to the straight up simple nutrients solutions I was mixing. For starting cuttings or transitioning to LECA, I use Clonex Clone Solution (CCS) plus Root Zone (can both be added together OR you can just use CCS as that’s the actual “fertiliser” whereas Root Zone is more like Superthrive additive). I use this until it’s time to transition to LECA. Once transitioned, I use Foliage Focus (plus Root Zone but again not necessary). Done. My tip is to buy some 5ml, 10ml and 20ml syringes online so you can draw up the exact amount you need (according to the bottle instructions) for your bottle of water.
3. Yes, you need to test the PH and to adjust it. Why? Because nutrients are only bioavailable to the plant roots within a certain PH range in a hydro environment. Although this applies to soil plants too, in soil there are microbes and fungi etc that make the nutrients available to the plant roots. In water, you don’t have that. So you need to create the correct environment yourself. My suggestion is to buy an inexpensive digital PH meter online. Don’t bother using the dye solutions where you check against the colour etc, it’s such a hassle and I personally can never get the colours right. This will be your lifesaver. I usually use it straight out of the box. I have only bought PH 7 and PH 4 buffers recently but tbh my PH meter was only off by 0.25 PH which in the scheme of things isn’t enough to worry about. Up to you. Anyway, please also buy some PH up and PH down liquid (don’t buy the powder, it’s a nightmare to mix and takes too long). Actually depending on the PH of the water you use you may find you only need to ever use one or the other. I only ever use the PH down (to make the solution more acidic). This seems to be the case irrespective of whether I start with rain water, distilled or tap. I’ve only ever used PH up once and that was because I put in too much PH down.
4. As for the pot, for alocasias, use the wick style setup with your inner pot, not the setup where the bottom of the inner pot touches the bottom of the cache pot/bowl/vessel. I have found their roots grow crazily fast into the reservoir with the wick setup. If you’ve already got a net style pot you mentioned, the lip of it will most likely fit nicely over a plastic PET bottle from your soda or coke drinks so use that as your outer pot! Just cut it so you have a space of maybe 1.5 inches between the bottom of your net pot and the bottom of your outer lot. To prep the net pot, insert your wick (I cut up old socks or underwear into long strips about an inch in width) through one of the holes. Hold it up in place while you fill the cage pot to 1/4 to 1/3 of the way with LECA. Lay the wick top over the LECA. The bottom of it will dangle into the nutrient solution. Put in your plant. Gently top up with LECA. Water with nutrient solution from the top initially with enough solution to fill the reservoir but not touch the net pot. Let the wick do the feeding work for you. I know bottom watering is the idea but I’m lazy and I water from the top pretty often. Especially when the plant is young. Eventually you can just fill the reservoir up only. That’s what I’ve found works for me.
5. Final tip: try to use rain water or distilled. Especially if you only have a small amount of plants in semi-hydro. Why? Because tap water is so often so unstable and the PH will often just return to its baseline. Or it does where I live - it’s usually around 8.5 and if I make a big batch of nutrient solution all perfectly mixed to the right PH, the next time I measure the solution in the bottle it’s back to 8.5. This annoys me to no end and I’ve just moved to a house that has a rain water tank so happy days. Before that we had a rainy few weeks and I collected the rain water in big tubs outside.
Lol thanks for coming to my ted talk 😂😂😂 anyway good luck and always happy to answer any questions! 🌿🌿🌿
1. you don’t need to sanitise the LECA unless you are reusing old LECA that was previously being used for a different plant. All you have to do is rinse it to get rid of the clay dust. You won’t get rid of it all in one go, you’ll see bits of it in your reservoir for a while - that’s fine and won’t hurt your plant. Just give it a good rinse first. I usually do it in bulk - I fill up a tub with water about half way and dump the LECA in. It will float so don’t put too much in :) I use my hands to agitate it going back and forth a bunch until I get sick of it and then pour the e water out onto my outdoor plants/grass. Best not to pour down the sink as the sediment might eventually cause drain issues. Anyway, refill again once and do it again. I then just either leave in a tub to dry out until I want to use it.
Before using, I take the amount I need for my pot and dump it into a tub to soak overnight in water with nutrient solution for root growth mixed in.
Side note, if you want to sterilise your LECA at any point, dump it into a tall cooking pot and fill with water, bring to the boil, boil for 5 mins. Wait to cool. Done!
2. No, there are brands out there that do all in one nutrients. I have only ever used 2 brands but my go to is Growth Technology. I do use additives now but that’s because I’ve been doing this for a while and my plants are well and truly used to the straight up simple nutrients solutions I was mixing. For starting cuttings or transitioning to LECA, I use Clonex Clone Solution (CCS) plus Root Zone (can both be added together OR you can just use CCS as that’s the actual “fertiliser” whereas Root Zone is more like Superthrive additive). I use this until it’s time to transition to LECA. Once transitioned, I use Foliage Focus (plus Root Zone but again not necessary). Done. My tip is to buy some 5ml, 10ml and 20ml syringes online so you can draw up the exact amount you need (according to the bottle instructions) for your bottle of water.
3. Yes, you need to test the PH and to adjust it. Why? Because nutrients are only bioavailable to the plant roots within a certain PH range in a hydro environment. Although this applies to soil plants too, in soil there are microbes and fungi etc that make the nutrients available to the plant roots. In water, you don’t have that. So you need to create the correct environment yourself. My suggestion is to buy an inexpensive digital PH meter online. Don’t bother using the dye solutions where you check against the colour etc, it’s such a hassle and I personally can never get the colours right. This will be your lifesaver. I usually use it straight out of the box. I have only bought PH 7 and PH 4 buffers recently but tbh my PH meter was only off by 0.25 PH which in the scheme of things isn’t enough to worry about. Up to you. Anyway, please also buy some PH up and PH down liquid (don’t buy the powder, it’s a nightmare to mix and takes too long). Actually depending on the PH of the water you use you may find you only need to ever use one or the other. I only ever use the PH down (to make the solution more acidic). This seems to be the case irrespective of whether I start with rain water, distilled or tap. I’ve only ever used PH up once and that was because I put in too much PH down.
4. As for the pot, for alocasias, use the wick style setup with your inner pot, not the setup where the bottom of the inner pot touches the bottom of the cache pot/bowl/vessel. I have found their roots grow crazily fast into the reservoir with the wick setup. If you’ve already got a net style pot you mentioned, the lip of it will most likely fit nicely over a plastic PET bottle from your soda or coke drinks so use that as your outer pot! Just cut it so you have a space of maybe 1.5 inches between the bottom of your net pot and the bottom of your outer lot. To prep the net pot, insert your wick (I cut up old socks or underwear into long strips about an inch in width) through one of the holes. Hold it up in place while you fill the cage pot to 1/4 to 1/3 of the way with LECA. Lay the wick top over the LECA. The bottom of it will dangle into the nutrient solution. Put in your plant. Gently top up with LECA. Water with nutrient solution from the top initially with enough solution to fill the reservoir but not touch the net pot. Let the wick do the feeding work for you. I know bottom watering is the idea but I’m lazy and I water from the top pretty often. Especially when the plant is young. Eventually you can just fill the reservoir up only. That’s what I’ve found works for me.
5. Final tip: try to use rain water or distilled. Especially if you only have a small amount of plants in semi-hydro. Why? Because tap water is so often so unstable and the PH will often just return to its baseline. Or it does where I live - it’s usually around 8.5 and if I make a big batch of nutrient solution all perfectly mixed to the right PH, the next time I measure the solution in the bottle it’s back to 8.5. This annoys me to no end and I’ve just moved to a house that has a rain water tank so happy days. Before that we had a rainy few weeks and I collected the rain water in big tubs outside.
Lol thanks for coming to my ted talk 😂😂😂 anyway good luck and always happy to answer any questions! 🌿🌿🌿
Adding my Leca teacher ✨🌱🤩 @WelsomeRhodotus 🌟✨🪴 congratulations on your gorgeous corm!! Following to see the beauty grow🥹🌱 @CopiousDracena
- I did not sanatize my Leca. I did some thorough rinsing 🥹
-yes wick esp for water loving plants 🤩🌱
-yes otherwise they don’t grow correctly :,) right ? @WelsomeRhodotus
-yes wick esp for water loving plants 🤩🌱
-yes otherwise they don’t grow correctly :,) right ? @WelsomeRhodotus
@Prentyce @WelsomeRhodotus awwwww thank you both!! This is exactly the level of detail I was hoping for, 10/10 ted talk 😄 i may be back with questions/updates when I get it going!
YAYYY!! Thank you so much! I can’t wait to see all the progress and wonderfulness 🤩✨🌱 TYSM @WelsomeRhodotus IM CAPTURING MORE NOTES BHAHAHA
@WelsomeRhodotus @Prentyce
updates -- my corm is sprouting and I have a leca pot ready for him 🥺🥹 I think I'll let the leca soak in the solution overnight and do the transfer tomorrow!!
updates -- my corm is sprouting and I have a leca pot ready for him 🥺🥹 I think I'll let the leca soak in the solution overnight and do the transfer tomorrow!!
@CopiousDracena 🤩✨🌱 CONGRATULATIONS EEEK!! That so so so exciting!! How special 🥹😭✨ thank you SO MUCH FOR SHARING THE UPDATE!!! Eeek!!🤩🌱
@Prentyce omg that is so unbelievably adorable!!! Bestest of luck with this experiment!! Because the rootsies are still so very teeny tiny and these particular LECA balls are uniformly on the larger side you could mix the LECA with smaller LECA balls or with pumice or with pon or even perlite just so that your roots have a bit more of something to cling onto between the big LECA gaps. Or not! If I have nothing like that on hand, I just roll with it and see how it goes and hopefully it’s all fine :) I’ve started getting the LECA that has a bit more variety in ball sizes to accommodate the fact that some plants will be tiny when you start them out. But also you can just go as is! Please do keep us updated!!! 🌿🌿🌿
@WelsomeRhodotus thank you for all of your help! I tried to bury the little rootsies with small LECA pieces. I'm so proud of my little guy 🥹 !!!
@CopiousDracena EEEK!! CONGRATULATIONS LITTLE ONE!! You’re home🤩🥹😭 I’m so excited!!! ITS POTTED!!!! EEEEK🤩🥳🌱 happy birthday little one!! Bahahaha :)
@WelsomeRhodotus question! Could you tell me about flushing LECA? I'm guessing I won't have to do it super often because I'm using distilled water, but how do I know when it's time? And if you have any tips for the process, I'd be interested to hear them :)
@WelsomeRhodotus @Prentyce Also thought I'd share a little update about the mother plant of the corm--
Her one and only leaf took a beating from a couple of mistakes I made, so I chopped her down to the base... 👀 look at her! she's regrowing! 🥹
Her one and only leaf took a beating from a couple of mistakes I made, so I chopped her down to the base... 👀 look at her! she's regrowing! 🥹
@CopiousDracena it’s less about the water and more about the salt buildup from the nutrient solution. I personally use inner pots with drainage and air holes and outer pots without so flushing is a breeze - I just water through the inner pot, allowing the water to come out of the holes and then pop the inner pot back into the outer pot to add the nutrient solution. I do this every 2 weeks or so and although I try to use rain water for the actual nutrient solution, I flush with tap water :) You should be aiming to flush at least monthly if you can. It’s much more of a pain to do when you do your semi-hydro in glass jars without an inner pot - I only have one like this and it annoys me so much 😅😅😅
@CopiousDracena ooh yay how exciting! Look at that teeny weeny baby leaf coming out! 😍😍😍