Drip Manifold Design Questions & Thoughts

Aloha from Maui

So........ I am over hand feeding my plants every other day. I have been scooping 1L of nutes out of the 7g bucket per plant, 7-8 times per feeding. Its a lot of bending and a lot of scooping. Enough already hahahaha. So I want to automate my feed delivery. And since I have been top feeding/DTW, a top drip system is the logical path to take.

Here's how things are looking in the garden for some visual reference.
As you can see... its kind of tight quarters to be bending and scooping and pouring... especially when your backside is rather large.

Each row of (8) plants is 18ft long... so I am going to be doubling up the design - one for each row.






So.... manifold design....
I've been keen to Pico's PVC design: https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=62654

I like the heavy duty-ness the 3/4" pvc pipe provides... especially since the garden is outside exposed year-round to elements like pounding rain and the hard hitting Maui sun. I also like that for flushing, I can switch lines and just hook up the garden hose the end and turn on the water at the spigot BAM flush. Smooth.

Now some questions.
And more LOL.


About manifold design....
Pico's design is "looped"; Other designs I have seen are "closed end"...
Is there an advantage of a "looped" system design over "closed end"?
Can I just use a simple straight pipe/line and hook up my feeder lines off of that?
Which system will ensure a more even distribution of water?
"looped" example:


"closed end" example:


"straight pipe/line" example":



and....
About pump size and emitters and GPH....
Currently I give each plant (in a 7G container of promix) 7-8L of nutes over the course of 15/20 minutes to achieve the desired amount of run off I like to see. In total I feed/deliver almost 15gs to the 8 plants... I have been thinking of placing 2 "sites" per plant.

Uhhhhhhhh.... now what??? hahahahaha
What do I need to do to achieve feeding each plant 7-8Ls per session? What pump size and GPH emitters do I need?
Is there some sort of mathematical equation to figure out the length of time the pump should be on for.... or do I just need to get a measuring cup and count "1-2-3-4-5...", and mulitply by x number of watering events? LOL


Any answers, tips, opinions, experience, ill-will... whatever... its all welcome. Bring it.

Mahalo Nui

PetFlora said:

I top feed with Hydro Halo rings, but it would be costly for you

For that size grow, I would get a ~ 40g barrel + a big pump + hose + shower head type attachment

Click to expand...

Aloha PetFlora

I saw those rings and was like "whoa cool" cause you can just slide it around the plant. It'd be perfect to do right at transplant time. But I am unsure how they will allow tomato cages to sit....

Black Hole emitters look pretty slick, with 6 drip points....

Funny you mention the hose with showerhead attachment....
After every feeding, I like to give the plants a little extra plain water to "wash everything down" kinda like an after dinner drink. So i just fire up the spigot on the garden hose with the wand set to "shower" and get into the cage and hit every plant.

I was thinking of just getting a simple pump and sticking that in a rez of some sort, and just "count off" 1L increments as I hit each plant, and just going forward as I am. But... I HAVE THE BIG BUTT THING GOING ON. LOL When I turn to deliver water to one plant, I am almost knocking off another plant from its brick stand. Or I am knocking arms of buds around - i recently bumped off an good sized "arm" from a plant... it was only maybe 7g of buds on the branch, but that 7gs I wont be working with.

So yeah, I am trying to stay out of my plants' way hahaha
Automated delivery for the win

The reason for a closed loop manifold is to more closely maintain even water pressure.

have you considered running blumats? A couple blumat maxi's to each planter should do the trick I think. Then you can setup the reservoir outside the grow cage and access it without interrupting your plants. The initial cash outlay is a little high compared to pvc manifold, but for me everytime I build one setup with drip lines and manifolds I end up redoing three or four times to achieve the right result and each time the cost increases. Just throwing out some other options for ya.

RonSmooth said:

The reason for a closed loop manifold is to more closely maintain even water pressure.

Click to expand...

RonSmooth with the basket!
that makes sense.. even water pressure
mahalo

sahdgrower said:

have you considered running blumats? A couple blumat maxi's to each planter should do the trick I think. Then you can setup the reservoir outside the grow cage and access it without interrupting your plants. The initial cash outlay is a little high compared to pvc manifold, but for me everytime I build one setup with drip lines and manifolds I end up redoing three or four times to achieve the right result and each time the cost increases. Just throwing out some other options for ya.

Click to expand...

I have thought about blumats. really have.
the main issue with that though is that then I would need 2 reservoirs (one for each row.. each row is on a different "stage"). 2 55g reservoirs and i don't have the room for them to store them inside. thats part of why i am handcuffed to mixing fresh nutrients for each feeding. that, and i like getting fresh water at 68f plants like it hahaha

but..... argh!!!!!!

i just got a new mac and I'm trying to figure out how to use it. i think there is some program where i can draw up some plans... i have a couple of ideas id like to illustrate. i... just have to... learn how to do the illustrations hahaha

so.... im not savvy with things
so no pretty pictures to illustrate my designs.... sorry

but i have decided and started building a set of manifolds that are based on Pico's design
i was having troubles deciding between going closed end/single pipe and looped. my ocd would't let me off easy. it was a battle. but finding the emitters i desired made things a bit more easy to swallow. more on the emitter in a bit... but the big problem i had to get over was the fact that my plants sit in single rows, not grouped together on a table.

so my looped manifolds are big fucking rectanglesauruses - 204" long and 12" "wide".
rectanglesauruses indeed. they are gonna sit right around the blocks that hold my pots off the ground. and i will have a feed line off of each side of the row's manifold going to each plant (so each plant will get 2 feed lines). its overkill I'm sure.

what am i gonna do about emitters? well, what i wanted was heavy duty spray action. i want the top soil moving and being aerated and even distribution of water/nutes... the openly thing I've seen that does that is either real "sprinklers", or a hose wand set to spray. But I found these, and they look mighty interesting: Toro Pot Spray Stakes
https://media.toro.com/CatalogDocuments/Product%20Literature/ALT031-0406%20Pot_Spry_Stks6.04.pdf

I was originally set on these but couldn't get a response on where i can find them for sale... maybe they'll get back to me and if the toros don't make me happy ill give them a try
http://www.antelco.com/usa/sprays/downspray.html

So I'm now just waiting for the top hat grommets & spray stakes to arrive next week sometime... in the meantime, i need to finish harvesting a row of plants. then ill drill my feed line holes into the pipe, and glue the manifolds together/put them in place. so at least they will be ready....

i am still undecided on the pump part...
i have a sump pump thats rated at 1000gph, but I think that may be a little strong.
i checked the water pressure out of my spigot, and it comes out at 780gph. Maybe 1000 is aok?

i still need to finish harvesting ughhhhhhhhh solo action blows.
thats all for now
happy easter everyone
and happy 420 too

Hi Greyskull!

Pls could you give me dimension of your Circular Trellis - Tall, wide at the top and wide at the bottom?

Thanks a lot!