Water kefir Second fermentation with Coconut water

As stated in the title, I did a second fermentation with coconut water.  I only read advice regarding adding grains to induce first fermentation, but I wanted to see how a second fermentation went.

I added 4 ounces of coconut water to 8oz of water kefir and after 3 days,  noticed two things:
1. The caps to my mason jars weren’t as pressured from the gas produced by the kefir.  I could still push down on the lid and make the top pop back up.  This wasn’t the case on my other fermentations when I added things like crushed blue berries or tart cherry juice.  So, when I burped the coconut water + water kefir mixture, I could audibly hear less gas coming out of the jar

2.  The bubbles produced by this combination were much larger. Usually, I see small bubbles sitting on top of the 2nd fermentation but this time around when. I opened the jar, the bubbles were very odd (see picture).

Can anyone offer an explanation?  Does coconut water not contain the right sugars to help the bacteria/yeast thrive?

Did you add anything for the Water Kefir to eat other then the Coconut Water?  (Glucose 50% Sucrose 35% Fructose 15%) This is the breakdown on the type of sugar in Coconut Water.

I've noticed a trend on enthusiast sites where sugar suggestions are heavily influenced by their mineral content. I mostly stick to cheaper pure sugars and use blackstrap molasses(sometimes sea salts) to provide minerals. If coconut water gives you good growth, I'd keep at it. You're going to need to supplement whatever sugar you use with an amino acid source. There are at least 3 known strains that can build the polysaccharide of the "grain", one of them consumes predominantly sucrose another predominately glucose and one can use either. Also, ph balance matters a lot (grain grow is best at ph between 6.5 and 5.5).

Lifestyle of Lactobacillus hordei

My guess is the type of kefir, need more sugar*, on the second fermentation it ran out of food.  While I rarely use Coconut Water, I have had this happen to me before.

What I would do is feed the kefir grains, and focus on building up a good grain set, then start to train the grains to accept different types of sugars, and see what they do best. You can train them to use the different type of sugars but it does take a little while.

Justyn -'Doc'