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4 x 600w dripper fed DTW 15/16 plant grow

Aye, they'll come good, no broad mites, that's a definite, but the new growth struggles at first when cuttings are taken from flowering plants, along with the lighting being changed to a 25w energy bulb just as the new growth got going on the plant you refer to for a few days. When done right though, they produce the most multi-branched plants imaginable and get very bushy.

Hey M, you know I quite like the system I've got, its easy to replace any parts and I like to make my own system rather than buy a kit.

I'm thinking of only part filling the 11 ltr pots this time, with 8 or 9 ltrs of coco with pebbles at the bottom so as to feed more frequently. I think the feeding more frequently has the great advantage of bringing fresh oxygen to the root zone. Its strain specific, but these girls are not that dense in the root zone, despite there large yielding potential, so I think it will really suit them.
 

madalasatori

Well-known member
Veteran
I was gonna ask you actually how many times are you feeding a day? I'm running 10l airpots in a similar home made dtw system and am feeding up to 5x a day in flower... An actually wondering if I might be better feeding them once a day. If you're getting a gpw I'd say you're doing it right!
 
Well I've always grown in 15ltr pots and fed once a day, but this time in 11ltr pots they needed feeding twice a day, and I think they loved it.

I do remember a while back overdoing feeds in coco and caused problems by keeping the bottoms of the pots too wet and it affected yields badly.

I'll go with 2 feeds a day again and see how they do, if they need another I'll give it to them, I doubt they'd want any more than 3 times a day though, and 5 times a day sounds way too much mate. Have you tried cutting to two feeds and see howw they respond? Even in airpots I over did the feeds and caused wet spots at the bottoms, wicks helped, but only cutting feeds really helped.

Its the first time I've managed to break the magic gpw, the best previous was .9gpw. I think the 2 feeds per day helped along with the individual waste tanks so that I can dial each plants run off.

Trev
 

OG_TGR

Member
I'll go with 2 feeds a day again and see how they do, if they need another I'll give it to them, I doubt they'd want any more than 3 times a day though, and 5 times a day sounds way too much mate.

Absolutely agreed. The larger the volume, the less frequent the watering.
I see many times people suggesting smaller pots, specifically so they can feed more frequently/replace nutrients in the medium.

I'm running 8l smart pots and I've never found myself needing to water more than 3x/day. That was with my .25" dripper hoses @ 1 minute, which measured ~ 130-150ml/site.

Of course, I don't see many people stating exactly how much volume their system is producing at each site so; frequency can differ greatly from individual to individual.

I'm wanting to make a timer that allows me to water in intervals <1 minute. You can buy the industrial ones but they are stupid expensive.

One way to do this is to get two digital timers and hook them up in series, offset by some interval <1 minute. You could fine tune this to make a timer that would feed any interval between 1-59 seconds.

This way you can have small, multiple watering/feedings in a day.
 

madalasatori

Well-known member
Veteran
I'm in week 1 of flower now so am feeding 2x a day but they would be fine with just the one... I've only really started doing it after reading the supposed benefits of regular feeding. I tend to increase it as I go through flower (the plants I grow average 6-8oz so are quet large).

I am just getting the gut feeling that once a day will be ok up until mid flower then twice a day thereafter...
 

indianajones

Active member
I'm wanting to make a timer that allows me to water in intervals <1 minute. You can buy the industrial ones but they are stupid expensive.

One way to do this is to get two digital timers and hook them up in series, offset by some interval <1 minute. You could fine tune this to make a timer that would feed any interval between 1-59 seconds.

This way you can have small, multiple watering/feedings in a day.

you can buy digital timers that run on minute intervals. i had one for my last run with drippers. ran 7 minutes with 2gph pressure compensated drippers, which is 1 quart of water per drip site.
 

OG_TGR

Member
you can buy digital timers that run on minute intervals. i had one for my last run with drippers. ran 7 minutes with 2gph pressure compensated drippers, which is 1 quart of water per drip site.

Yeah I think it's pretty much standard for the digital timers to run 1 minute, but I'd like to be able to run less than one minute, and more frequently.

Working toward something like this:

NSW_DPI_AG_HYDRO_DETAIL_zps11d6f377.jpg


NSW_DPI_AG_HYDRO_zps3edac04f.jpg
 

Hundred Gram Oz

Our Work is Never Over
Veteran
Tagged for later, it took me half an hour to get to page 3 lol. Great work though, and the perfect example of how coco can perform when using multi-feeding.

HGO
 

Dr.RedWhite

Active member
You can run a deer feeder timer off a battery but you have to use a boat sump pump. Timer is $35. lawn tractor battery $30. and solar panel is $25. , pump is $20 for a 1200 gph. I prefer to run a solenoid, ($10) between the battery and the pump to protect the timer. And your HPS will keep your battery charged via the solar panel. Or you could keep a battery maintainer plugged in somewhere. This setup with a solar panel is stand alone and can keep a plant watered outside as long as your reservoir has water in it . I see no reasn why it would not work perfectly running any drip system. The deer feeder timers have 6 events per day if you want em and top out at 30 seconds per.
 
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