Need some suggestions for outdoor drip system

So im tired of hand watering my outdoor 25 gal coco pots twice a day and I want to set up a drip system. I have a 20 gallon res and i plan on sticking two 1gph dripper stakes in each pot, with a total of 5 pots 2 are smaller so probably only 1 dripper in each of those. Although I have no clue when it comes to pumps and recirculating pumps, can someone suggest some for me? Thanks in advance trying to keep it simple. I'm running maxibloom for nutes if that matters.

a simple diaphragm pump, accumulator, solenoid and pressure regulator set up would work fine.

at 5 emitters total... you are at insanely low volumes, so a variable speed diaphram pump would probably not work well.

also i would reevaulate your plan to use the same emitters for the smaller containers... whats going to happen is your small containers will be recieving to much feed, and running off too much when you adjust the run times to adequatly soak the larger containers.

also i would suggest multiple stakes per container... larger containers will not wet evenly with pure coco. the bottoms will wet fine, but the top few inches will not.

how much of a difference will even wetting make? IDK, probably not much of a difference to be honest, but when you put say...3 per large container, you can then put 1 or 2 in the smaller containers and get approximatly identical flows per cubic foot of media.

also maby consider netafim spray stakes. much higher flow rates, but this just means you run much shorter irrigation periods.

oh yea... btw be very careful with folks that reccomend dosatrons for your setup... your flow rate is VERY low.

the smaller dosatrons need like .25 gpm to dose accurately i think? i might be wrong here ( check for yourself please.)


if you do ever up the flow rate of your proposed setup... dosatrons ARE very very very solid devices... very high quality and very reliable... just spendy is all.

the smaller containers are just the same 25 gal smart pots but rolled down halfway. so instead of 2 1gph emitters per big container i should do say 4 .25gph emitters and maybe 3 for smaller containers? Not to sound dumb but whats an accumulator, solenoid and pressure regulator setup?
Personally i think my setup is too small scale for a dosatron system.

also what should I be looking for pump wise for a 20 gallon res although i want to get a bigger one soon since each day takes 10 gallons

Squirly_wrath said:

the smaller containers are just the same 25 gal smart pots but rolled down halfway. so instead of 2 1gph emitters per big container i should do say 4 .25gph emitters and maybe 3 for smaller containers? Not to sound dumb but whats an accumulator, solenoid and pressure regulator setup?
Personally i think my setup is too small scale for a dosatron system.

Click to expand...

just throw a measuring tape across your pots and calculate the volume.

the ratio between the big pots and the small pots should the same ratio of your drippers.

so... say you get 2 cubic foot in the larger container and 1 cubic foot in the smaller container, you then want twice the flow rate on the larger.

the setup im talking about is basically a small scale well system like you would see in a house.

the pump fills up the accumulator( bladder tank?). the solenoid holds the wate pressure back.

the regulator regulates the water pressure out of the tank to a reliable PSI that will not change.

diaphragm pumps have built in pressure switches... so when the pump starts, your accumulator fills up untill the pressure reaches the cut off pressure and the pump shuts down.

the solenoid is controlled by a simple irrigation controller.

its is simple as that.

check this diagram out.



just ignore the whole hot water side... this is for a boat water system or something.

now just replace the shower valves with a solenoid. thats what im talking about.

oh yea... also add a pressure regulator, otherwise your pressure in the dripper system will run up and down along with the cut in and cut out pressure.

if you want to use pressure compensated drippers like the netafim wood peckers then i guess a regulator would not be needed, but i would add one regardless.

you have made everything clear to me now