Cracked Blumat caps - Blumat soaking

[FlowerFarmer]

Hey all,

I just finished setting up a boatload of blumats and noticed that I have a lot of broken caps. The caps are broken where the top threads are.. where the brown adjusting knob tightens down.

I've found one like this in the past and didnt think anything of it.. however after having around 50 blumats soaking in a bucket of water for a few months I went to set them up again and discovered 10 more cracked like this.

Now.. I'm not sure if they came like this but I've used all of these before. Perhaps the cracks are not bad enough to render them worthless or perhaps the cracks are occurring during my soaking of them. Or maybe I've just over tightened them..but I don't recall. I do normally fill..tighten brown cap to 'closed' position..and then soak. Is this correct?


I have a quick question... as I no longer have the instructions nor am I sure if it was every specified. After filling and soaking the blumats do you have your brown nut tighted down all the way.. or loose...(allowing the white pin to come up).


I cant get any clear shots.. but check your blumats folks. This could be the cause of those experiencing run-aways. Its not really noticeable. Small cracks.. causing a detachment from where the green threads connect to the 'body' of the cap..right where the little high area is that you use to pointpoint your arrows when adjusting..


I put this in the coco section vs. the equipment section because there are a lot of coco growers using blumats.

 

[rives]

I always soak mine without the caps on, and only install the caps just prior to usage (keeping them submerged and after purging out air bubbles with a syringe). I never tighten the adjustment cap down all the way - I've found that they are normally set pretty close if the adjustment cap's lower edge is pretty close to the same elevation as the top of pointer (see picture), so I just set them there as a preliminary setting and then do the "adjust to cling" deal.

 

[FlowerFarmer]

Interesting..... didn't even think of soaking without the caps.

I do think that they are cracking due to some expansion or something while soaking. Almost as if the white 'pin' is pushing up during the soaking process and cracking the threads.. I cant imagine I've had such good luck with these things (no real dry ups or run-ways) if they've been like this the whole time.


I wonder if I can get some replacement caps or have to buy all new carrots. I could always order more and claim they came cracked, but don't want to be a slime ball if I had anything to do with why the threads are splitting.

Thanks for the tip rives..


PS - for those not sure where I'm talking about... my crack/seperation occurs in the bottom left hand corner of that small open square we see in rives picture where the brown cap and pointer come together.

 

[FlowerFarmer]

Just went and uncapped all of my unused blumats which have been soaking for several months in RO water with a little bit of Zone in it to prevent it from getting funky.

All of them had pressure built up in them which is causing the caps to break. I had 10 broken caps out of 50 or so blumats. It was definitely a problem that would have continued to ruin my blumat caps had I let them continue to soak the way I was doing it.

Not sure if this is due to air bubbles (expanding and contracting?) which were there upon capping or bubbles that have developed while soaking.... or simply caused by having the brown nut tightened down all of the way while soaking.


These are blumats that I filled and capped all while totally submerged under water. They've been soaking for a long time.. 6+ months likely.


Going to soak no caps now.

 

[purpleurksme]

How long should you be soaking them for? Just got a set and the instructions read no less than 1 hour, but ive had them in for about 12

 

[moodster]

you do know that zone is a kind of bleach and bleach eats away at blumats that's why when running blumats you should put bleach in the res it will break them in the end

 

[purpleurksme]

you do know that zone is a kind of bleach and bleach eats away at blumats that's why when running blumats you should put bleach in the res it will break them in the end

Are you saying I should add bleach to the rez? You say it eats away at blumats and breaks them in the end? Also do you guys had weak nutes to your rez or do you just use water.

 

[rives]

I think that he left off the "nt" at the end of "should" - bleach has been shown to break down the components in the blumats over time. A very weak solution might work, but....

Chemical (salt) based nutes are fine running through the blumats, while thicker, organic nutes will plug them very quickly.

 

[moodster]

yes sorry my typing error no bleach/zone anywhere near them you said you stored them in zone maybe that's why they cracked I just leave mine stood in plain water when not in use and mine have not cracked hope that helps

 

[thelaughingman]

what is "Blumat soaking"

 

[thelaughingman]

Sou ka, I had the wrong Idea..now that I had more time to google, I understand what a blumat was, haha <- instructions
I concur the caps could break due to thermal expansion..