Blumat auto watering

[Ez Rider]

These days I run a DR120 Twin. So its 4x4x5. I place a piece of, slightly larger than the measurements of the tent, sheetrock over the top.(supported with 2x6's) This allows me to put rez and fan/filter on top rather than inside the tent. It also provides the illusion of an attempt at fire safety.
I use 1 and 2 gallon airpots. I usually run around 3-8 plants depending. GPW is easy.
Folate

I've been looking at doing something similar. Reinforce the top of my veg tent, and put my res up there. I've currently got a 40 gal res, sitting on a table inside my veg tent. My veg plants are sitting on the res lid...not an ideal situation. FYI, I hand water the veg plants, since they're still easy to handle.

I'm starting to think the 40gal res is overkill, although I am running 32 in a 5x9. Mostly untopped sourbubbles in 8l superoots air-pots. I started with the 40gal to be safe.... I'm working odd hours, with lots of overtime. I just started flowering, so in a few weeks, I should have a good idea of daily water usage. I've only had the plants on blumats since last week, and half I didn't get hooked up until saturday. So far water use from the res has been very light...only a few gallons/day. I did just transplant last weekend, and the pots were soaked both at transplant, and again before installing the blumats. A few weeks of flowering should tell the tale. I'd like a res that could go at least 2 days in a pinch.

Are most people refilling the res every day? I'd like to run a larger res, and refill less, if possible.

 

[Lungy]

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Are most people refilling the res every day? I'd like to run a larger res, and refill less, if possible.

You can run as big of a res as you want if you use a smaller res up high feeding the blumats then water pumping up from big res to top it off. Just make sure you have a overflow from upper to lower res.

 

[rives]

You can run as big of a res as you want if you use a smaller res up high feeding the blumats then water pumping up from big res to top it off. Just make sure you have a overflow from upper to lower res.

This is the ticket. I use 3/4" pipe for the pump feed just because 1/2" is too floppy, and use 1-1/4" for the return line so that there is no possibility of over-running the overflow.

 

[Vivianna]

Thanks!

 

[Ez Rider]

You can run as big of a res as you want if you use a smaller res up high feeding the blumats then water pumping up from big res to top it off. Just make sure you have a overflow from upper to lower res.

Thanks for the idea Do you use a float valve, or run the pump 24/7, or something else?

This is the ticket. I use 3/4" pipe for the pump feed just because 1/2" is too floppy, and use 1-1/4" for the return line so that there is no possibility of over-running the overflow.

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Double thanks for the pics

Same question about float valve ect, although it appears you're using timers.

I've got my blumats fully up and running now. I adjusted wet pots to a hanging drip, then dialed back 2 arrows, and they seem to be working great. The top 1/2" of the readygro dries out, but I can feel moisture if i push my finger in...does this sound about right? The plants seem very happy too. I'm not seeing any runoff in my trays, so at least I know they're not set too "wet". My 40 gal is only elevated 32", but the flow seems fine. I am going to switch to something like your pics as soon as I get a better idea of water use. The sustainable village guy says I shouldn't need more than 1qt/plant/day...opinions?

My feed is running ~600ppm/1.2ec...this sound reasonable? My understanding is that you want a pretty mild feed solution with blumats.

 

[Dave Coulier]

Thanks for the idea Do you use a float valve, or run the pump 24/7, or something else?

Double thanks for the pics

Same question about float valve ect, although it appears you're using timers.

I've got my blumats fully up and running now. I adjusted wet pots to a hanging drip, then dialed back 2 arrows, and they seem to be working great. The top 1/2" of the readygro dries out, but I can feel moisture if i push my finger in...does this sound about right? The plants seem very happy too. I'm not seeing any runoff in my trays, so at least I know they're not set too "wet". My 40 gal is only elevated 32", but the flow seems fine. I am going to switch to something like your pics as soon as I get a better idea of water use. The sustainable village guy says I shouldn't need more than 1qt/plant/day...opinions?

My feed is running ~600ppm/1.2ec...this sound reasonable? My understanding is that you want a pretty mild feed solution with blumats.

You can do better than having the top 1/2" dried out. If you do it just right, the top of the media will be just moist enough for strong healthy root growth. With my media, clinging drip +2 arrows isn't quite right. I prefer +1 arrow, but your media will differ from everyone elses so there will be some slight variation.

Maybe tweak the setting a little, and search for that perfect moisture content throughout the meida. A tensiomter helps as well.

A good way to know if you've got them working well is to tug on your lower leaves of your plant. If they come off easily, your likely not giving the plant enough moisture. If theyre turgid and resist coming off your usually golden, but Ive had dry zones far away from the dripper that never became moist but actually dried out. Now I like to finger all the holes of the bottom of my pots to be sure their moist throughout.

As for your Res EC. I had my res set to 50% feed solution during the stretch period and within a week I was seeing soil solutions with EC of 10+ mS, but because the media is always moist and never dries out they've suffered almost no signs of Leaf Scorching that you'd expect. I can even see white fuzzy roots near the root holes. Blumats do amazing things for your garden even when you fuck up. Not even a brown tip on a single lady. Of course thats still way too high of EC as the plants growth kinda stalled. I dropped the EC of res down to .2, then .1 and now EC levels have begun to drop pretty quickly, and they're growing fast and strong even at 6.5 mS.

Get yourself a Hannah Suction Lysimeter. You can monitor media EC on a daily basis with this simple tool as long as you have an EC meter as well.

 

[Lungy]

Thanks for the idea Do you use a float valve, or run the pump 24/7, or something else?

Simple timer 15 min on 4 times a day works for me.
Just whatever it takes to keep that top res topped up.

 

[rives]

Same question about float valve ect, although it appears you're using timers.

I've got my blumats fully up and running now. I adjusted wet pots to a hanging drip, then dialed back 2 arrows, and they seem to be working great. The top 1/2" of the readygro dries out, but I can feel moisture if i push my finger in...does this sound about right? The plants seem very happy too. I'm not seeing any runoff in my trays, so at least I know they're not set too "wet". My 40 gal is only elevated 32", but the flow seems fine. I am going to switch to something like your pics as soon as I get a better idea of water use. The sustainable village guy says I shouldn't need more than 1qt/plant/day...opinions?

My feed is running ~600ppm/1.2ec...this sound reasonable? My understanding is that you want a pretty mild feed solution with blumats.

I just use timers. If you set the timers so that the pumps run longer than needed to refill the upper reservoir at maximum usage, the large overflow pipe lets the excess return to the main rez. I have fairly large capacity pumps with quite a bit of lift, and they run twice a day for 3 minutes each time.

It sounds like I run my media a little more moist than that - I try to stay just short of having run-off. I pre-moisten the media in a large pan prior to transplanting, and get it to what I would like to ultimately have for moisture content. The blumat is then set to a clinging drip after being installed for a few hours (pinch the feed line off) so that it holds that level.

The higher the reservoir, the better it is going to work for you.

The SV guy hit it pretty close - I've seen a bit more usage than that, but only with full size plants in full flower, warm conditions, etc.

Your feed is very close to what I use in veg, I'm usually around 650 (@ .5, 1.3 EC) for vegging and about 800 (1.6 EC) during flowering. Some exceptionally hungry girls have wanted more.

 

[Ez Rider]

You can do better than having the top 1/2" dried out. If you do it just right, the top of the media will be just moist enough for strong healthy root growth. With my media, clinging drip +2 arrows isn't quite right. I prefer +1 arrow, but your media will differ from everyone elses so there will be some slight variation.

Maybe tweak the setting a little, and search for that perfect moisture content throughout the meida. A tensiomter helps as well.

A good way to know if you've got them working well is to tug on your lower leaves of your plant. If they come off easily, your likely not giving the plant enough moisture. If theyre turgid and resist coming off your usually golden, but Ive had dry zones far away from the dripper that never became moist but actually dried out. Now I like to finger all the holes of the bottom of my pots to be sure their moist throughout.

As for your Res EC. I had my res set to 50% feed solution during the stretch period and within a week I was seeing soil solutions with EC of 10+ mS, but because the media is always moist and never dries out they've suffered almost no signs of Leaf Scorching that you'd expect. I can even see white fuzzy roots near the root holes. Blumats do amazing things for your garden even when you fuck up. Not even a brown tip on a single lady. Of course thats still way too high of EC as the plants growth kinda stalled. I dropped the EC of res down to .2, then .1 and now EC levels have begun to drop pretty quickly, and they're growing fast and strong even at 6.5 mS.

Get yourself a Hannah Suction Lysimeter. You can monitor media EC on a daily basis with this simple tool as long as you have an EC meter as well.

Thanks for the info 1 thing...you sure about those ec #'s. 500ppm=1.0ec on my meter. 0.1 would be like 50ppm's...almost RO water.

Simple timer 15 min on 4 times a day works for me.
Just whatever it takes to keep that top res topped up.

Thanks for the info

I just use timers. If you set the timers so that the pumps run longer than needed to refill the upper reservoir at maximum usage, the large overflow pipe lets the excess return to the main rez. I have fairly large capacity pumps with quite a bit of lift, and they run twice a day for 3 minutes each time.

It sounds like I run my media a little more moist than that - I try to stay just short of having run-off. I pre-moisten the media in a large pan prior to transplanting, and get it to what I would like to ultimately have for moisture content. The blumat is then set to a clinging drip after being installed for a few hours (pinch the feed line off) so that it holds that level.

The higher the reservoir, the better it is going to work for you.

The SV guy hit it pretty close - I've seen a bit more usage than that, but only with full size plants in full flower, warm conditions, etc.

Your feed is very close to what I use in veg, I'm usually around 650 (@ .5, 1.3 EC) for vegging and about 800 (1.6 EC) during flowering. Some exceptionally hungry girls have wanted more.

Thanks for the info

So, you're saying you fully saturate the mix, let it sit for a few hours, then adjust to the "clinging drip" as your FINAL adjustment. Am I correct? We're using the same media, so the ideal adjustment should be almost identical.





Thanks to everyone for the ideas. I'm really liking the idea of putting my 40gal on the floor of my veg tent, and pumping to an elevated 5gal bucket 3-4 time a day. The 40gal res is eating up too much grow space in my veg tent right now, and I've got all the parts except for a small pump. Maybe I'll set it up this weekend.

 

[rives]

So, you're saying you fully saturate the mix, let it sit for a few hours, then adjust to the "clinging drip" as your FINAL adjustment. Am I correct? We're using the same media, so the ideal adjustment should be almost identical.

Correct. I go straight from beer cups to the final pot (5-liter air pots), and when I am doing the transplanting I saturate the potting mix in a large tub to the moisture content that I want (just shy of still being able to squeeze water out of it freely). I then pot the plants and immediately install the blumats. Oh, the blumat gets pulled out numerous times, the hole gets refilled with straight coco and the spike is pushed back in so that there won't be chunks of perlite up against the spike. The potted plants sit for a few hours with the 3mm line pinched off with a clothes pin, and then they are adjusted to a clinging drop.

 

[Ez Rider]

Correct. I go straight from beer cups to the final pot (5-liter air pots), and when I am doing the transplanting I saturate the potting mix in a large tub to the moisture content that I want (just shy of still being able to squeeze water out of it freely). I then pot the plants and immediately install the blumats. Oh, the blumat gets pulled out numerous times, the hole gets refilled with straight coco and the spike is pushed back in so that there won't be chunks of perlite up against the spike. The potted plants sit for a few hours with the 3mm line pinched off with a clothes pin, and then they are adjusted to a clinging drop.

You really think refilling the hole with coco, multi-times is necessary? I watered all my pots to strong runoff, then jammed the blumats in, waited a few hours, then adjusted to clinging, then back 2 arrows. Everything seems to be working fine, just on the drier side of "moist", if you understand me. Why a clothes pin? Why not just use the adjustment knob? When you say "air pot", do you mean cloth pots, Or the fancy, plastic kind?

Tomorrow, i'm going to open them all up 1 arrow, give that a few days, and go from there. Getting to the back row is going to be a real PITA, but probably worth the effort. FWIW, they've used at least 5gal in the last 24hrs, with no runoff, only a few days into flower. plants are all around 2' tall, in 8l air pots(the fancy, plastic kind).

 

[rives]

I had problems when I was still running peat-based media with the big chunks of perlite against the spike - they obviously don't hit the moisture content of the media, and lose you surface area that is supposed to be sensing the media moisture. It's just something that I came up with to help minimize problems. YMMV.

I use a clothes pin because I don't normally tamper with the adjustment setting. You will find that the setting pretty well holds true from plant-to-plant. In fact, once I find the setting that I want, I mark it with white-out to simplify setting up the next time or when I'm purging lines, etc. I never use the adjustment knob to turn the flow off completely. Under these circumstances, where the spike is adjusting to the media, it can exert enough pressure on the pinch valve that people have had them break.

Air Pots are the plastic, fancy kind.

 

[Dave Coulier]

EZ Rider, my Bluelab Combo Meter hasnt ever lied to me yet. Your right that Im feeding them RO water only right now. When they use up the excess nutes in the media then I will return to using ferts again in my res. Ill start out at 25% strength and work from there.

 

[Ez Rider]

I had problems when I was still running peat-based media with the big chunks of perlite against the spike - they obviously don't hit the moisture content of the media, and lose you surface area that is supposed to be sensing the media moisture. It's just something that I came up with to help minimize problems. YMMV.

I use a clothes pin because I don't normally tamper with the adjustment setting. You will find that the setting pretty well holds true from plant-to-plant. In fact, once I find the setting that I want, I mark it with white-out to simplify setting up the next time or when I'm purging lines, etc. I never use the adjustment knob to turn the flow off completely. Under these circumstances, where the spike is adjusting to the media, it can exert enough pressure on the pinch valve that people have had them break.

Air Pots are the plastic, fancy kind.

Thanks for the info, I'll keep it in mind. Don't you just love the air pots? How large of a plant do/can you grow in the 5l pots? What kind of yield?

EZ Rider, my Bluelab Combo Meter hasnt ever lied to me yet. Your right that Im feeding them RO water only right now. When they use up the excess nutes in the media then I will return to using ferts again in my res. Ill start out at 25% strength and work from there.

My bad. I thought you were saying that your regular feed was @ 0.1ec, and I just didn't see that working out.

 

[rives]

Thanks for the info, I'll keep it in mind. Don't you just love the air pots? How large of a plant do/can you grow in the 5l pots? What kind of yield?

Yep, I do love the Air Pots. Depending on the plant, the yield usually runs 3 - 4.5 ozs, but I did have one monster that yielded a shade over 8 ozs.

 

[Lungy]

Hey Rives what is your base water RO or tap? If tap what is the ec of it?
I'm pretty sure I'm under feeding my girls still. Using RO then bringing it up to .4ec with calmag then to 1.4-1.5 with canna coco a+b, rhizo and cannazyme.
Using dripclean at 1ml per gal also.

 

[rives]

I use tap, but it is very close to RO. The total dissolved solids ppm is around 80, with 2 ppm of Mg and 6 ppm of Ca.

 

[Lungy]

I use tap, but it is very close to RO. The total dissolved solids ppm is around 80, with 2 ppm of Mg and 6 ppm of Ca.

Thanks mate I upped my ec to 1.6 a few days ago and dropped off the calmag levels and they have responded.
It's good to know what works for others to make sure I was on the right track.

 

[Ez Rider]

Yep, I do love the Air Pots. Depending on the plant, the yield usually runs 3 - 4.5 ozs, but I did have one monster that yielded a shade over 8 ozs.

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Pretty impressive for a 5l pot. I was hoping for ~2oz/8l pot...you're making me think my pots are too big. This is only my 2nd sog with sourbubble, so I'm still working out pot size and plant count. I wouldn't have thought you could grow such big plants in such little pots. My 8l air pots look pretty small...your 5l's look tiny. Thanks for the excellent pics.

 

[Lungy]

You can make the 8l airpots smaller by raising the base up higher I jus tried it.