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Irrigation Problem

Hey guys. I'm wondering if I've overlooked part of my irrigation system. It is a simple sump pump to a timer. PVC to 'Xeri-Bird' manifold heads. When the timer turns the pump on, everything is equally pressurized, but when it stops, leftover water in the lines pours out of a few of the manifolds, flooding those sections of the garden. Here are some poorly drawn representations. Thank you for any help.
 

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40AmpstoFreedom

Active member
ICMag Donor
Veteran
I am reading up on irrigation now and I believe an anti siphon valve is what you need. Someone correct me please if I am wrong.
 
Oh I knew I'd forget to include something in the OP. I do have an anti siphon valve at the res. It's not that the water is flooding in enormous amounts, but in amounts equal to about how much water would be in the lines after the pump turns off. Plants attached to the flooded manifolds receive perhaps 3x as much water as the rest of the garden.
 

brickweeder

Well-known member
maybe raise your tray and feed lines from the horizontal hard line so that the top of the manifolds are higher than the horizontal main line. If you do this, the water in the piping cannot drain out the manifolds after the pump shuts off.
 
maybe raise your tray and feed lines from the horizontal hard line so that the top of the manifolds are higher than the horizontal main line. If you do this, the water in the piping cannot drain out the manifolds after the pump shuts off.


That's a good idea. I can't raise the trays due to very limited ceiling height, but I can lower the PVC lines lol. I'm going to give that a shot and update this thread.


Not a big deal, put best growing plants with the lines that give extra water.


It was a big enough deal to warrant fixing. I grow relatively big plants in 1 gallon pots, so they are fed 8 times per day. I've worked with coco for 3 years now and have never experienced them being overwatered until this last run. The girls who's roots were constantly soaked had a noticeably lower yield and weren't on the same page as the others nutrient-wise, sometimes showing burn while everyone was happy and sometimes showing fade while others were happy. I figured that this was due to them being essentially flushed thoroughly every day with whatever nutes I was running, so if I made a slight ppm increase, they would show burn very quickly, and vice versa with deficiencies. The others were only showing a few drops of runoff per watering, which is how I like to do it, so they had some 'buildup' in the coco that means their reaction would be slightly slower on newer feeds.

Plus it was a huge waste of nutes.
 
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