-
Happy Birthday ICMag! Been 20 years since Gypsy Nirvana created the forum! We are celebrating with a 4/20 Giveaway and by launching a new Patreon tier called "420club". You can read more here.
-
Important notice: ICMag's T.O.U. has been updated. Please review it here. For your convenience, it is also available in the main forum menu, under 'Quick Links"!
COCO and BLUMATS FTW!
- Thread starter Desert Hydro
- Start date
lopocs.mpeg
New member
that can lead to iron def am i right? what can be done to prevent it?
Absolem
Active member
Excellent thread DH.
Glad to see ya come back and keep it updated.
Could be many things causing it. I've found using air stones with too much pressure will make Fe fall out of suspension. Be sure to fill your stock tank(reservoir) 7/8 full. Then add any silica product first. The bottle with the iron in it use second. It should be the grow formula. Pour in slowly. I've found dumping in it fast with air stones will make iron fall out of suspension too. Good luck. I think we should be careful and not deviate from DH's thread.
Cheers
Glad to see ya come back and keep it updated.
Could be many things causing it. I've found using air stones with too much pressure will make Fe fall out of suspension. Be sure to fill your stock tank(reservoir) 7/8 full. Then add any silica product first. The bottle with the iron in it use second. It should be the grow formula. Pour in slowly. I've found dumping in it fast with air stones will make iron fall out of suspension too. Good luck. I think we should be careful and not deviate from DH's thread.
Cheers
Excellent thread DH.
Glad to see ya come back and keep it updated.
Could be many things causing it. I've found using air stones with too much pressure will make Fe fall out of suspension. Be sure to fill your stock tank(reservoir) 7/8 full. Then add any silica product first. The bottle with the iron in it use second. It should be the grow formula. Pour in slowly. I've found dumping in it fast with air stones will make iron fall out of suspension too. Good luck. I think we should be careful and not deviate from DH's thread.
Cheers
i dont mind relevant deviations lol. anything to help out. im trying to get a doser setup going after this run. it would be nice not to have to mix nutes ever again
ive been playing around with a bunch of ferts but honestly i keep going back to jacks just for simplicity. its always rock solid. i think im just gonna do jacks and maybe some silica. been talking to openn labs in europe and they are gonna set me up with some nanoparticle silica to try out. SUPER EXPENSIVE lol but its all in the name of science. so it looks like my regimen will be jacks and silica and then foliar through week 2 of flower. thats it.
![MVIMG_20171223_224612[1].jpg](/data/attachments/356/356507-c33a899cf99b224fa91841e5e106b6fd.jpg)
![MVIMG_20171223_224623[1].jpg](/data/attachments/356/356519-4fed43b1035973f427fa5d292d494b4e.jpg)
tomorrow the carrots will be installed onto the right side of the feed line. this is a temporary veg setup and those plants will be moved over to the rest of the rows in the building to flower. I was gonna do part ppk in this room but I think I will go all coco/blumat in this room and put more ppk's in the other room. that way I can get a true side by side of performance. I am about to begin giving these some beneficial bacteria by hand watering starting tomorrow as well. it would make my life a lot easier if I could add it to the res but I don't think putting bacteria in the blumat reservoir is a good idea so I will hand water with kelp on a weekly basis and consider it my flush.
going to bring the rest of the veg table out to the third LED and I have to get another big ass humidifier for this damn room as well. some of these plants wil feed the other room. I think as they get big enough I will take 2 over every 2 weeks and set up a perpetual for the PPK room. ive got some catching up to do! gonna take a bunch of cuts of citral flo as it seems to be the best balance of quality to yield. I think it smashes in the yield department but we will soon see. I have big plans for her. she is still untested but I would have to guess low 20's. my buddy gave her an 8 overall and she throws colas out like its easy. she also seems to be pretty robust.
I was having some lockout issues due to my coco drying out several times between my hand watering but that will now be a thing of the past after tomorrow. I cant wait to see what this system is capable of. I was thinking about doing a pressurized system but then I started thinking about what if I had a runaway? a runaway with a never ending reservoir would be catastrophic! sounds like a lot of fun lol so for now I will just stick to gravity and a slowly refilling reservoir
going to bring the rest of the veg table out to the third LED and I have to get another big ass humidifier for this damn room as well. some of these plants wil feed the other room. I think as they get big enough I will take 2 over every 2 weeks and set up a perpetual for the PPK room. ive got some catching up to do! gonna take a bunch of cuts of citral flo as it seems to be the best balance of quality to yield. I think it smashes in the yield department but we will soon see. I have big plans for her. she is still untested but I would have to guess low 20's. my buddy gave her an 8 overall and she throws colas out like its easy. she also seems to be pretty robust.
I was having some lockout issues due to my coco drying out several times between my hand watering but that will now be a thing of the past after tomorrow. I cant wait to see what this system is capable of. I was thinking about doing a pressurized system but then I started thinking about what if I had a runaway? a runaway with a never ending reservoir would be catastrophic! sounds like a lot of fun lol so for now I will just stick to gravity and a slowly refilling reservoir
installed the blumats this morning. i had flushed them yesterday really well and they are looking worse so i think they were just hungry lol. live and learn. onward!
been giving them a kelp, calmag and light base nutrient foliar to help bring them back to life in the mean time.
gonna bump up from 600 ppm to 700 and stay there and see how they respond.
wont be throwing co2 at them until they are back on track
been giving them a kelp, calmag and light base nutrient foliar to help bring them back to life in the mean time.
gonna bump up from 600 ppm to 700 and stay there and see how they respond.
wont be throwing co2 at them until they are back on track
Attachments
I have been thinking about blumats for a long time but I’m not really into the gravity part of it which I know the percentage of people use. Is there anyway to connect them to a pressure pump where it always has constant pressure like the gravity where you could have your res below your blumats?
yeah for sure. i have been looking into this as well. you can set up a res with a constant flow pump and a pressure reducer. the only thing that scares me about that is that if you have a runaway dripper you are going to have a near endless supply to flood with lol.
i think with a little diy ingenuity you could rig some fail safe protections pretty easily. you may be seeing something like this from me in the near future.
the next step for me is dosatrons so i no longer have to mix nutrients.
Attachments
these have been getting hit once a week with soil balance pro, molasses and kelp that i let brew for a while. the roots seem to dig it
Yes dosatrons are pretty nice. I have been running the. For 2 years now. The negative about them is they do not give you the perfect moisture content as the blumats would since every plant has different needs. Is it common to have a runaway dripper?
not at all common if you are paying attention but shit happens. especially when you are just learning them. sometimes its something dumb like reaching through the pots and knocking the dial off setting.
another thing that will cause it is your res running dry. if it runs dry you absolutely have to tune the drippers again. no getting around it. if you dont, and simply refill the res every single one will dump lol. good stuff.
the way i like to tune mine is water heavy till runoff with the cone installed but closed off then i come back a few hours to a day later depending on pot size and when the media feels the right weight/looks the right color etc i adjust the dripper to a clinging drop. it shouldnt be dripping very often at first. not to worry though. they react to changes in moisture content of the media so they only drip when they need to. its kind of scary to put your trust in them at first but once you get used to them they are amazing!
my healthy plants that didnt get the deficiency are praying to the lights and look beautiful with almost no input from me at all.
They sound like they are pretty awesome! Do you know what size constant water pump you would need and what constant pressure do you need?
the pressure kits are pretty pricey but im sure they would be worth it in the long run.
https://www.sustainablevillage.com/index.php?route=product/category&path=59_85_109
https://www.sustainablevillage.com/index.php?route=product/category&path=59_85_109
but then again one of their kits will run a few hundred blumats lol
Thank you! Great find. Is it hard to tune the carrot in?
no not at all. just read my post above(#253) and that will get you damn near 100%
sometimes you will have to fine tune from there but that will get you self sustaining at least.
pretty soon im gonna invest in the digital blumat sensor. its just a ceramic carrot that measures the amount of moisture in the media in a digital readout. they are only like 60$ and from there once i get one tuned with the digital meter i can get an idea for the optimum moisture content and adjust the others according to pot weight, color of the media, feel etc. i think it will take these to the next level of performance.
sometimes you will have to fine tune from there but that will get you self sustaining at least.
pretty soon im gonna invest in the digital blumat sensor. its just a ceramic carrot that measures the amount of moisture in the media in a digital readout. they are only like 60$ and from there once i get one tuned with the digital meter i can get an idea for the optimum moisture content and adjust the others according to pot weight, color of the media, feel etc. i think it will take these to the next level of performance.
look through here. lots of amazing info, pictures, diagrams etc
https://www.sustainablevillage.com/downloadable-instructions
https://www.sustainablevillage.com/downloadable-instructions
Sounds like you are the man to talk to when o buy these blu mats
