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Blumats with botanicare nutes

Vanilla Phoenix

Vanilla Phoenix

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ICMag Donor
I'm about to go out of town in a few weeks for a week or so, and thought now is the best time to maybe jump on the Blumat train! :dance013: So I'm getting all the Blumat stuff soon in the mail. And yes, I did read most of that 247 page novel on blumats! Good read, :good: but WHOA, :yoinks: it's a lot to take in! Hahahaha!

Anyway, I have a few questions about the res and nutes.

1) do you guys think it'll work out running pbp soil, FF bigbloom, calmag, sweet, and hydroplex thru the Blumat system? I know I should get some drip clean too, from what I read. Probably gonna get some.

2) gonna be using a 32 gal Brute as a res but only plan on having up to 5 to 10 gal of mixed nutes in it. So, what's the best way to keep it circulating and mixed properly? Simple air stone?

3) once I do get it circulating and staying mixed well, how bad, if any, will the pH swing?

Any help or advice is greatly appreciated. 🙂
 
cocktail frank

cocktail frank

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Best way to run blumats is to have a larger feed line.
They sell 3mm barbs you can punch into a larger fed line "1/2", 3/4" whatever you need dictated by plant count.
This way if you have a clog, it's easy to massage the 3mm drip line.

You could drop a small pump into the brute to move the solution around.
An air stone will make your ph drift up too btw.

As far as normal ph swing in your rig, depends on your source water tbh.
 
Vanilla Phoenix

Vanilla Phoenix

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ICMag Donor
What size pump do you think I should get? Should I run it on a timer? Temps in room where res is located is always around 68F. Not sure if pump would heat up solution.

I've got plenty of extra 3mm line coming. Sounds like I need to get some 3/32" barbs for them. I'm only running 5 plants on the Blumat setup. Do you still think I need to upgrade the feed line to a larger diameter? I also ordered some Superflex 8mm tubing to replace the shitty stiff black feed line.
 
cocktail frank

cocktail frank

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Any size will do IMO , you're only moving solution around in the res, no head (water rise) on the pump to wear her down.

The larger feed line just keeps things from clogging too easily, if you're only running a few plants, you'll prolly be ok with the 8mm tbh.
You could put it on a cycle timer or a regular timer if you want.

I've had res temps get close to 80 with no ill effects with top feed.
 
ChasingGreen

ChasingGreen

Member
An airstone will not make your ph drift up unless you have bacteria and the added oxygen is fueling their growth by the way. Just wanted to clear that up. Having run DWC a LOT, I can run a res for a full 2 weeks without more than a 0.2 change in PH.

I also run an air pump for about 8 hours every time before I use a 5 gal bucket of city water to evap the chlorine (chlorine, not chloramine) and the ph doesn't change at all. If it does, as I said, that's a different bacteria related problem. The bacteria growth will spike your ph.
 
Vanilla Phoenix

Vanilla Phoenix

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ICMag Donor
Thx for the advice, frank. Sounds like I'm on the right track. Just never messed with a res in the 15 yrs I've been growing. Gonna get a timer and turn the pump on for 15 min every hour. Hopefully pH stays around 6.5, I'm using tap that sits out for 24 hrs before mixing nutes in it.

One other thing, the bottom of res is only 2ft above top of containers. I know the higher the more pressure, but do you think that'll be high enough? I estimate the feed line should only be 12ft max looping from and back to res.
 
Vanilla Phoenix

Vanilla Phoenix

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ICMag Donor
ChasingGreen said:
An airstone will not make your ph drift up unless you have bacteria and the added oxygen is fueling their growth by the way. Just wanted to clear that up. Having run DWC a LOT, I can run a res for a full 2 weeks without more than a 0.2 change in PH.
Click to expand...

So you think I should add it? If so, think I can put it on the pump timer? Or should I run the air stone constantly?
 
T

thcrefugee

Member
I also use PBP, and a 30 gal resevoir, but with drippers, not sure what the blumat drip hole size looks like (as far as clogging goes)

I use the smallest water pump i could find at the hydro shop, and a couple air stones. Without the small pump, the solids seem to "settle out". The pump keeps everything well mixed For SURE! highly recommended.

The pH stays steady when I mix with RO, but seems to drift wildly, daily, when using tap water (8.0 pH to start). The RO seems to come out more neutral and, "pH naked"..
fwiw, I mix PBP Bloom Soil, CalMag+, and Protekt. stays within 0.1pH for a week.
 
T

thcrefugee

Member
Vanilla Phoenix said:
Looking at getting a 100 gph/5 watt pump. If I run it constantly, how much do you think it would heat up the 5 to 10 gal res if temps in res area stay 68F? Would it be a problem?
Click to expand...

Ive never had it be a problem with the 160 gph/ 9w pump i use. I actually hoped for a 1 or 2 degree rise in resevoir temps, cause it always feels chilly to me. I run drip to waste, so no recirc as well.

Maybe since you want to run a small amount of water in your cans, it may heat faster. I usually keep about 20-25 gallons in mine at a time.

In short, No, dont worry about it heating things up.
/stoned rant.
 
Vanilla Phoenix

Vanilla Phoenix

Super Lurker
ICMag Donor
thcrefugee said:
Ive never had it be a problem with the 160 gph/ 9w pump i use. I actually hoped for a 1 or 2 degree rise in resevoir temps, cause it always feels chilly to me. I run drip to waste, so no recirc as well.

Maybe since you want to run a small amount of water in your cans, it may heat faster. I usually keep about 20-25 gallons in mine at a time.

In short, No, dont worry about it heating things up.
/stoned rant.
Click to expand...

Kool. Guess all there is to do is run it and see what happens. :biggrin: Hopefully worse case scenario is I run air stone constantly and play with the pump and timer. I could add more liquid to res but wanna make sure a don't get any run aways before doing so.

Really appreciate all of you guy's help. I'll be sure to post back when more questions arise. :)
 
Vanilla Phoenix

Vanilla Phoenix

Super Lurker
ICMag Donor
UPDATE

UPDATE

Everything turned out great! :woohoo: pH stabilized at 6.8 in reservoir. Been running an air stone and circulation pump 24/7.

In reservoir I've been running per gallon:
15 ml PBP Bloom
5 ml CalMag
1 ml Drip Clean
1/2 ml each part of Flying Skull Z7

Also, once a week I hand water to runoff with
15 ml PBP Bloom
15 ml Foxfarm Bigbloom
5 ml CalMag
5 ml Sweet
2.5 ml Hydroplex

And got some Jamaican guano and EWC underneath the drip.

I did have trouble with one plant that ran away every five days. This happened twice. And each time I replaced it with another Blumat I had already soaking. The other four plants haven't had any problems at all. Just to throw it out there, after dialing back to a clinging drop, I dialed them 1.5 arrows back and only had to adjust one open more. And I only barely moved the dial more open, maybe 3 of the grip lines on the dial, and it corrected it no problem. :dance013:

Over all, THESE BLUMATS ARE DA BOMB.COM!!!!!!! Lmao!

And thanks again guys for all of your advice! Couldn't be so successful without you. :tiphat:
 
Last edited:
LostTribe

LostTribe

Well-known member
Premium user
Vanilla Phoenix said:
Everything turned out great! :woohoo: pH stabilized at 6.8 in reservoir. Been running an air stone and circulation pump 24/7.

In reservoir I've been running per gallon:
15 ml PBP Bloom
5 ml CalMag
1 ml Drip Clean
1/2 ml each part of Flying Skull Z7

Also, once a week I hand water to runoff with
15 ml PBP Bloom
15 ml Foxfarm Bigbloom
5 ml CalMag
5 ml Sweet
2.5 ml Hydroplex

And got some Jamaican guano and EWC underneath the drip.

I did have trouble with one plant that ran away every five days. This happened twice. And each time I replaced it with another Blumat I had already soaking. The other four plants haven't had any problems at all. Just to throw it out there, after dialing back to a clinging drop, I dialed them 1.5 arrows back and only had to adjust one open more. And I only barely moved the dial more open, maybe 3 of the grip lines on the dial, and it corrected it no problem. :dance013:

Over all, THESE BLUMATS ARE DA BOMB.COM!!!!!!! Lmao!

And thanks again guys for all of your advice! Couldn't be so successful without you. :tiphat:
Click to expand...

Are you still using them with PBP?
 
LostTribe

LostTribe

Well-known member
Premium user
Vanilla Phoenix said:
I’m not. I didn’t ever setup an elevated res to keep the pressure regulated so I kept having run aways
Click to expand...

I was less than impressed last run but they did keep them alive for a week but there was a run off even with elevated res and just RO.
 
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