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Blumat auto watering

Hemphrey Bogart

Active member
Veteran
If all goes as planned with this run I'm hoping to run these with Air Pots... that should be exciting. :biggrin: I also like the idea of a large tub bed grow... :chin:


Yeah, those airpots are nice. I like the large bed idea, but don't have enough clones to justify it right now. Starting all new stuff from seed, so it's gonna be a bit before everything is tested and selected. A bed grow sounds like it would be perfect for these, given what I've read so far.
 

Lazyman

Overkill is under-rated.
Veteran
Ok I got my first 60 BLumats set up today, piece of cake, took about one hour. Remember to open the carrot and fill the ceramic cone with water, then soak the thing in water for a day or so. Then they are ready to use! Use 3/32" plastic barbed tees from kentsystems.com, they fit the 3mm OD blumat tubing just perfect.
 

Grizz

Active member
Veteran
well they sound great, if this question has been asked please forgive me but i got tired of reading. can you hook these up to a sub pump and leave it on? I run a stadium grow and my res sits lower than my stadium trays, there all drained back to rez to catch the runoff.
 

Lapides

Rosin Junky and Certified Worm Wrangler
Veteran
well they sound great, if this question has been asked please forgive me but i got tired of reading. can you hook these up to a sub pump and leave it on? I run a stadium grow and my res sits lower than my stadium trays, there all drained back to rez to catch the runoff.

You can hardline it to your spigot with a pressure reducer they sell. There is no power or electricity with these drippers.
 
G

Guywithoutajeep

damn it!!! i only have another 40 days of hand watering to go...
 
I

inphu510n

So awesome. +rep around.
Will be doing the same setup as you Green Mountain though prolly with modified soma beds. Sooooo glad someone makes something like this. One less thing to have to worry about.
 

Blckbrd

Member
Anyone ever thought of going digital with pumps and soil moisture metres?? Getting a couple of these http://www.fourier-sys.com/pdfs/sensors/soilmoisture_dt171a.pdf and going to make a bit of software for the pump controls.

an electronic digital blumat ... cool! I'd be interested!

You ever see the pump trigger on the phototrons? It had some kind of a glass encased sensor - looked almost like a lightbulb filament - that, when dry, would trigger the switch to the nutrient pump. Damn I wish I saved that thing. I suspect it also (or a switch mechanism like it) could be adapted to automatically trigger a nute feeding pump that would turn itself off when it sensed moisture.
 
Just finished my first run with Blumats, they are F@#$@# amazing. All in all they have probably saved my crew and I 100 hours of labor in the past 2 months. They may be pricey but definitely worth every penny.

Only downside like Sunny has said is the possibility of floods its definitely a good idea to either have your drain trays plumbed to drain or use a res so you can limit the damage.

Overall though like i said before worth any penny. Someone let me know if Blumat goes public cause i definitely want to get my hands on some of that stock.

:tiphat:
 
Hello all great information and great responses!! I love it!

I was watching a video on their website saw that they hooked up drip stakes to the end of the their Blumat wanted to see if anyone else has done this?

I also saw someone asked about hooking a drip ring up to the end, that sounded like the best idea because of the even water dispersal. Anyone use the Blumat like this?

Also one last thing, would putting the res higher than what you need increase the pressure of the water in the Blumat? It seems like should..

Thank you all :tiphat:
 

Lazyman

Overkill is under-rated.
Veteran
Yes, I have pretty good head pressure as my rezzes are a couple feet higher than my pots. Drip rings shouldn't be necessary, a single blumat is plenty for a 5gallon pot, I'd use two (or one maxi blumat) on larger pots.
 
Thanks for the reply Lazy, what about using drip stakes inline with the Blumat?

If just using the Blumat do you have it set it to drip or is it a stream?(A single drip and single stream for smaller pots two for larger pots?) Sorry for all the questions I am setting up a Coco drip to waste system but am very interested in the lack of pumps and such..

Thank you again LazyMANNNN
 

Lazyman

Overkill is under-rated.
Veteran
Yep I have some 4 gallon pots for moms, they drip, drip, drip pretty much constantly, but if it needed to there is enough head pressure to flood them in a minute. It's amazing, I use a 10" saucer under 8" pots, so this at least allows me to see at a glance if its overwatered (saucer overflows.) The difference between just right and overwatered is about 1/16"th of a turn on the Blumat valves, but I like have that flexibility.

Like I said, I never want to use anything else again, they're just too cool!
 

Lazyman

Overkill is under-rated.
Veteran
Oh and it doesn't need drip stakes, sorry. The little end of the hose that comes out of the valve is only a few inches long typically, I just put the valve closer to the edge of the pot and point the hose across the plant towards the middle so it has to saturate the medium to turn the valve off. Blumat does make a dripper that goes on the end of the valve, but I would think they would clog if not feeding plain water. IMHO they wouldn't be needed anyway, the valve does just dandy by itself.
 

sunnydog

Drip King
Veteran
Hello all great information and great responses!! I love it!

I was watching a video on their website saw that they hooked up drip stakes to the end of the their Blumat wanted to see if anyone else has done this?

I also saw someone asked about hooking a drip ring up to the end, that sounded like the best idea because of the even water dispersal. Anyone use the Blumat like this?

Also one last thing, would putting the res higher than what you need increase the pressure of the water in the Blumat? It seems like should..

Thank you all :tiphat:

Hi. I do not recommend using the little brown "slave drippers", as these can clog and fail. If you are using huge pots-7+gal. just use two drippers.
I also DO NOT recommend hooking to a water tap indoors.....should any type of failure occur, there would be an infinite supply of water,and y'all would hate me!

I strongly recommend buying a 30m roll of DRIPPER HOSE, the brown, rubber hose, as the miserable little length supplied is nearly worthless. The store will probably have to order this for you.

The bottom line with these is the are VERY SIMPLE to use and work extremely well, don't make it more difficult by adding this and changing that .

SD
 
Hi. I do not recommend using the little brown "slave drippers", as these can clog and fail. If you are using huge pots-7+gal. just use two drippers.
I also DO NOT recommend hooking to a water tap indoors.....should any type of failure occur, there would be an infinite supply of water,and y'all would hate me!

I strongly recommend buying a 30m roll of DRIPPER HOSE, the brown, rubber hose, as the miserable little length supplied is nearly worthless. The store will probably have to order this for you.

The bottom line with these is the are VERY SIMPLE to use and work extremely well, don't make it more difficult by adding this and changing that .

SD

Thank you all veryyy much!! SunnyDog when you said DRIPPER HOSE were you indicating getting the hose with the holes drilled in it? and have that come off the end of the Blumat valve? Like this http://www.dripirrigation.com/drip_irrigation_info.php?cPath=121&products_id=1167
 

sunnydog

Drip King
Veteran
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