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Have my cocopeat broken down?

Has my cocopeat broken down?

Hey guys, want to talk about experimenting with medium here

I've been soaking and rinsing some cocopeat with distilled water to remove its salt content. I've found out that after the 7th time rinsing, it has pretty nice texture which I can't describe here. After the 8th and 9th rinsing, it turned into mush. Could it be that excessive soaking break down the texture of the medium? I'm afraid I can't use them because I don't want the growing medium for my nepenthes to become too compacted and unhealthy for the roots. To describe it would be the medium has lost its coarse elements and after 12 hours to 20 hours soaking they sinked down to the bottom of my bucket. I can send you guys picture but maybe later cause I can't at the time. Anyone who have experienced something similar can give me opinions?

Thank you
 
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Just soaking for a week isn't going to cause cocopeat to degrade. It would be useless as a soil component if it happened that quickly. It certainly is possible that the coarser particles have separated, but you can always recombine them. Keep in mind that cocopeat actually breathes very well - even though it looks very dense it allows a lot of air in.
 
Just soaking for a week isn't going to cause cocopeat to degrade. It would be useless as a soil component if it happened that quickly. It certainly is possible that the coarser particles have separated, but you can always recombine them. Keep in mind that cocopeat actually breathes very well - even though it looks very dense it allows a lot of air in.

Oh I'm glad, that's a relief then. How do I tell the signs if a growing medium have broken down??
 
Generally when media is breaking down there will be an increase in fungus and other things growing on it, the plant may provide some signs of stress, or there will be an unpleasant smell (especially from the bottom of the pot.) It can be difficult to tell sometimes.
 
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