[rives]

Originally Posted by Red Swan

I just set up a blumat res with an upper and a lower with overflow , but made the mistake of making the overflow from the rez the same size and it overflowed all right. The line attached to my pump is 1/2 inch. How big do I need to make the overflow for a constantly on pump? 3/4"? 1"?

Thanks.

I used 3/4" on the feed line from the pump and 1-1/4" for the return. The 3/4" wasn't necessary for the pump volume that I have, but the pipe was much more rigid and my upper reservoir is up pretty high as you can see by the picture in my earlier post. The return line is probably overkill, but you get almost 60% more area in an 1-1/4" pipe over 1" for almost the same cost.

[Tyga]

Don't have any pics of mine... But Mine is in one of those 27gal heavy duty storage bins Black with the yellow lid I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. Have that ontop of an old bird cage raised to about 3ft off the floor. 1st line from the thru-hull connector goes to a T, one line goes down the the blumats, the other is an open line that I feed back to the rez above water level.<--- Read it helps from keeping air bubbles out of the line.
Bluelab guardian mounted on the wall right about the rez, 3 holes drilled in the lid... 1 for the Temp/conductivity probe, 1 for the PH probe, and 1 for the submersible pump cord.
Submersible pumps are preferred because I guess using regular air pumps will cause air bubbles to get caught in the feed line.

[Kit Kat]

This is my dirt simple 5g bucket res. I just used what came in the patio kit, with the exception of two control valves. One valve is right up at the bucket and the other is at the end of my line inside the tent for drainage.



At first I would turn off the bucket valve, disconnect, dump the bucket, refill, reconnect, open the valve, and then drain for 30 seconds to make sure all the air was clear - now I just keep a 5g jug ready to go and keep it topped up. No runaways or dried out plants at all yet.

I love the ease of blumats.

[Tyga]

Just for you guys!

[Mister_D]

Elevated res with air release



1/2" Feed line (green) and 1" overflow



Overflow tee's off into two 65 gal. res on the floor.



The 65 gal res tee together and feed the elevated res via 500gph pump.

[budman678]

i was going to be doing something along the lines of the 5gallon bucket setup...you are just constantly topping it off? go down there and fill up every other day? i have a similiar size tent it looks like

[Kit Kat]

Yep, just topped it off continously. I would fill five gallon carboys with RO water, then mix nutrients, ph, and let them sit nearby. During the peak of stretch it would need topping up every day. With the H&G line it really was a quite the time investment.

When I set back up again I'll certainly use a larger res, or a five gallon bucket with an automated top off system like others posted here.

[budman678]

i assume one the rex goes below half it loses head pressure and the flow of water isnt as good?

[Kit Kat]

I only had six drippers total, and the bucket hull through was maybe 6" above the soil at most and it was never a problem for me. A few times it got down to a few inches of water total even.

I seriously don't recommend allowing that but in my specific case it was never an issue. For larger runs from what I've read in sunnydogs thread it would be a disaster.

[budman678]

wow, this is valuable...thanks homie. appreciate it much`