Newbie question

Ocean Forest is already a “hot” and fairly airy mix, so you don’t need coco just to make it work. Lots of people run it straight. For autos I personally like to cut it with extra perlite to make it a bit lighter: • ~20–30% perlite mixed in is perfect (better drainage, more oxygen, less chance of overwatering). Coco only makes sense if you really want a coco blend and are ready to adjust watering + nutrients like in coco (more frequent feeds, cal-mag, etc.). You don’t have to add it for a successful auto grow. If you’re worried about it being too hot for seedlings, you can: • start them in a small plug/light mix and transplant into Ocean Forest, or • fill the pot mostly with Ocean Forest and put a small “core” of lighter soil where the seed goes. TL;DR: no coco required, a bit more perlite is helpful, and be gentle with autos at the start because Ocean Forest is pretty rich.

Adding some perlite or vermiculite to bring the 'drainage' amendments up to ~1/2 volume would be wise. OF comes with 'some' already. Do a little algebra and add accordingly. If you ever go with lower water-capacity medium, you need less perlite or similar, too. e.g. that's why coco only needs 33% of volume. Hence you see 70/30 coco+perlite options, not coincidentally. By doing this, you make drowning the roots virtually impossible to do... impossible by adhering to basic watering procedures. A more optimal gas:water ratio in the rootzone allows for greater growth above ground.

No you should be fine. Some people like to start their plants in something with less nutrients in it. But Ive been using it for years with no issues. Some key things though, is don't feed for about a month. There's enough in there for the plants for at minimum a month but don't get comfortable because it will drop off pretty dramatically around that same time. So if you're using organics and dry amendments, id start around week 3 ish so they have them ready. Since they're autos, you may get away with not needing to feed for veg and just start feeding flowering nutes since autos flower around 3 -5 weeks.

Nope, you don’t have to add anything. Use it as is from the bag. You should see the little white perlite chunks in there