Thoughts on a new room design, input pls.

[DaveTheNewbie]

Using your example, what if you had a pot that was a mile tall and 1ft wide? In this case would the blumat would turn off long before the bottom media was saturated? Maybe 1 mile tall is a bad example...

I thought about this some more. Assuming zero evaporation (not gonna happen in a smartpot) and zero roots (whats the point) the blumat would water a small depth horizontal section then shut off. Then the water would go down thanks to gravity and the blumat would turn on again. In this fashion the blumat would eventually water the 1 mile deep pot in waves. A bigger blumat such as a maxi would have bigger waves and do it faster.

The reality is that the water from 1 blumat would evaporate and the plant with roots 1 mile deep would use whats left long before it hit the bottom of the pot.

The purpose of these musings is to realise that having a big pot with 1 blumat and just lengthing the L 1mm hose is a fail destined for flooding.

Brain says either :
1) get back to 2 blumats per 7 gal
2) go with 5 gals
3) just roll with dry spots in the pot.

 

[DaveTheNewbie]

Firstly this weeks photos

2 weeks flowering, Some small flowers are coming along :

And 1 week veg under the 400mh, they are a little yellow, too much light too early i suspect.

 

[DaveTheNewbie]

Heres the thing : I checked the pots tonight and one was very dry.

I turned up the blumat a bit and nothing happened. Turned it up alot and nothing happened. I took the 1mm hose out of the blumat and nothing happened.
So i sucked on the pipe and got things flowing.

For whatever reason the pipe was blocked.

So i wonder about the set and forget theory of blumats.

I also observed that playing around with the hose was awkward with only 2 pots in an 8 pot tent. If there was 8 pots in there i wouldnt have room to crawl about as i just did.

This has nothing to do with the pot size or medium. It may have alot to do with what im putting in the water to feed the plants.

 

[bobblehead]

It has more to do with air getting stuck in the tubing, the remaining water evaporating, and the residual nutrient salts holding the tubing closed. I found that pulling the tubing back and forth through the blumat w/o adjusting the knob can get the water flowing again. The tubing is being held closed directly under the knob. You're right though, blumats just aren't set it and forget it, until you have all the kinks worked out and the blumats are dialed. You might want to try running the end of the feed tube up above the reservoir and leave the end open... So the air is purged 24/7. I've been playing around with just under 100 of them... So I feel your pain. I've had lots of problems and some dead plants. DTW and E&F are truly set it and forget it. My $0.02.

 

[DaveTheNewbie]

It has more to do with air getting stuck in the tubing, the remaining water evaporating, and the residual nutrient salts holding the tubing closed.

ok im more than happy to take your word for it.

You're right though, blumats just aren't set it and forget it, until you have all the kinks worked out and the blumats are dialed.

damn thats not what i wanted to hear, i just dont have the room to fuck about like this when the tents full

You might want to try running the end of the feed tube up above the reservoir and leave the end open... So the air is purged 24/7.

I had to think about this a sec but i get where your going. does it help? It wont take much plumbing to run the 13mm hose to the top of the tent and attach it there somewhere.

 

[DaveTheNewbie]

just a thought i had : you dont see many systems that are gravity fed with timers running solenoids to open and close the water flow. That seems like a winner to me

 

[bobblehead]

That will be how I set up my dtw grows... US made brass ball valve solenoids are less likely to fail than cheap chinese pumps...

 

[DaveTheNewbie]

That will be how I set up my dtw grows... US made brass ball valve solenoids are less likely to fail than cheap chinese pumps...

yup.

Does that mean your moving away from blumats then?

 

[DaveTheNewbie]

Ok i have been thinking some more. Ignore Blumats for now. Ignore smart pots for now.

Every pot has a width w and a height H and some medium in it. All medium has a rate at which it absorbs horizontally and vertically, and a ratio between the 2. I will call the rate R.

If a pot only has 1 feed line or dripper, there is a point at which the pot is too wide W for its height H given the media it holds. The rate R is such that it floods before it fills the pot.

So if a 3 gallon smartpot is as high H as a 5 gallon smartpot is as high H as a 7 gallon smartpot, but 2 inches wider and 2 inches wider W again, then at some point the smartpots are going to be too wide W for the height. This point of breaking (or flooding) I am going to call F. It will vary for different media. This is true of all pots not just smartpots, but they are my example.

Pots filled with hydroton will reach the point of flooding F quite quickly whereas the same pots wont reach that point as quickly in soil because they drain slower and spread faster. Coco and pearlite sit somewhere in between i believe

There is no doubt in my mind that my 7 gal smartpots can't be filled to capacity in the medium that i use without flooding a little first. The flood is really a few puddles on the floor.

So i am left with 5 choices :
- have the medium drier than desirable (i assume this would affect yields)
- use 2 water sources per pot (there are issues here with tuning 2 blumats in 1 pot)
- use smaller smart pots (a real option, the cost isnt much for 12 x 5 gals)
- change the medium to something slower draining (lose the pearlite for example)
- let the bastards flood a little (i mean its all in a self contained tent anyway)
- put a T piece on the dripper and drip in 2 places at once with the one blumat

Im thinking that when i have 8 pots in the tent the issue of a few puddles on the floor will be no issue at all. I mean if one leaks a little the next pot will soak it up anyway. Im not against throwing away my 7gals and going to 5, or dropping the pearlite from the medium mix either so i have options. I dont really want to go back to 2 blumats per pot, that seemed more trouble than its worth. And if 1 clogs you will never know as long as the other keeps working.

So my current plan is : to do nothing

EDIT :

As an aside : if i was to run 4 plants dougnut around 1 600w light, 4 weeks veg and 8 weeks flower, would 3gal pots cut it? That would cut down on medium costs and handling. Maybe the trick is to go 8 3 gal pots around the light? I have enough blumats here already.

Rereading the last 10 pages of Bobbleheads great thread : https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=226172 there are alot of pro people talking at the serious end of the scale. I noticed a few people talk about problems due to pots, especially large ones. People (lots of them) state that blumats are the shit and are set and forget once you get it dialed in. This is what i want.

SO : any thoughts on 3 gal smart pots for finishing in?

 

[Guest 88950]

if you go w/ 4 plants around a 600w i would have them in 5 gal buckets......maybe even 5 gal hempy style DTW.

 

[DaveTheNewbie]

if you go w/ 4 plants around a 600w i would have them in 5 gal buckets......maybe even 5 gal hempy style DTW.

awesome advice, this is what i was thinking : 5 gal x 4 or 3 gal x 8

 

[cody2white]

I like my 3 gallon better than the 5 with blumats. Even when my rez runs dry all I do is fill it up and its back to rockin. No turns or bleeding valves. Maybe im a lucky sob but I also dont get runaways. Goodluck

 

[St3ve]

I think if you just went smaller smart pots you would be fine. You have having trouble with the blumats because of the large containers.

For the size plants you are flowering I would have gone 3g at the most. I have 2g pots with big plants in them. Hell, I've grown 4oz plants in a 6" rockwool block before... you got have to water more often.. but thats where the blumats shine.

 

[Chunkypigs]

like high CDB strains before I tried them, I also thought that blumats would be the answer to my prayers after hand watering. I found that I had to pick up every pot everyday and constantly chase clogs and floods. I'm willing to accept user error but handwatering took less time and I went back to it. now I'm working on DTW. best luck!

 

[DaveTheNewbie]

I think if you just went smaller smart pots you would be fine. You have having trouble with the blumats because of the large containers.

3 votes for pots are too big, get smaller ones. Here we have agreement.

if you go w/ 4 plants around a 600w i would have them in 5 gal buckets

1 vote for 5 gal pots

For the size plants you are flowering I would have gone 3g at the most. I have 2g pots with big plants in them

I like my 3 gallon better than the 5 with blumats. Even when my rez runs dry all I do is fill it up and its back to rockin. No turns or bleeding valves. Maybe im a lucky sob but I also dont get runaways

2 votes for 3 gal pots

... you got have to water more often.. but thats where the blumats shine.

1 vote for blumats rock

like high CDB strains before I tried them, I also thought that blumats would be the answer to my prayers after hand watering. I found that I had to pick up every pot everyday and constantly chase clogs and floods. I'm willing to accept user error but handwatering took less time and I went back to it.

1 vote for blumats suck

 

[Chunkypigs]

For the record I don't think Blumats suck... I had a hard time and didn't run them a second time. I was just convinced from what I saw here that they were going to be the best thing in the world. they might be if you get them dialed. it was one of my 1st times in coco and
I was shocked that the plants looked pretty similar health wise but some were always soaked and others pretty light. It's not the same as soil. but when they are small and
growing into their pot I found that too wet meant slow veg. I only read back about a page into your thread but I'm finding that I like a small fabric pot that is almost
rootbound going into 12/12. so if you only want to veg 4 weeks try a 2 gallon and try
filling around 3/4 full. my 5 gallon and larger coco pots only got tried once, and i'm seeing great results switching from 3's to 2's this year. it's also less work and money.
my 2c. I say try it all and see what you like. good luck! and OVERGROW!

 

[DaveTheNewbie]

awesome chunky, i was paraphrasing grossly when i said that

The one thing thats obvious is that having 1 blumat in a 7gal pot was a fail move.
I have the ability to put 2 blumats per pot, but when running 4 plants per 600w its still overkill

 

[Guest 88950]

using a 5 gal bucket hempy style will have ~ 3 gal of medium but with only 4 wk veg you might be better off going smaller.

 

[DaveTheNewbie]

on a different note im a big reader of these forums, even tho i dont post in others threads (i dont know enough to tell others what to do)

I notice that everyone prunes heavier than i do. i talk about pruning a bit earlier, but i thought i would revisit it

I repruned one of the 2 plants and left the other alone to see what the real difference is. I suspect i went too far, but the first round is all about learning.

anyway the plant i didnt touch :

and the one i went to town on :

 

[bobblehead]

yup.

Does that mean your moving away from blumats then?

At the remote location, certainly. I might try the blumats at the new spot cause I'll be there a lot more often. When the blumats work, they work great... When shit goes wrong, you have to be there to catch it, or you're fucked.