Blumat auto watering

[Weed Killer]

Dave, with that pump I would get the 125psi 4 port (P60-M1-4C) model so you can put a gauge on it, and that is better gauge than I have, I need to get one.

Sunny, I would like to play with a dosatron but they are out of my budget at this time, but there are a lot of possibilities.

So far my setup is working great.

 

[sunnydog]

So far my setup is working great.

Awesome; spread the word! This will hep many folks having reservoir issues, IE. runaways/ dryouts.

 

[cyat]

how bout a hose end sprayer or better yet ,two coming off a y on the hose, back to another y adapter,
this would give you two different nute possibilities

what you guys think?

 

[Dave Coulier]

Dave, with that pump I would get the 125psi 4 port (P60-M1-4C) model so you can put a gauge on it, and that is better gauge than I have, I need to get one.

Sunny, I would like to play with a dosatron but they are out of my budget at this time, but there are a lot of possibilities.

So far my setup is working great.

Thanks for the tip on the 2way vs 4way. From the way the pictures look, I thought a 2 way also had a port for the gauge, but this is all new stuff to me.

I was reading some literature by Watts about their pressure regulators, and they recommend one where operating pressures fall within the middle of the regulators rated range, so a 0-25 regulator would be best as I dont believe they carry a 0-30 range regulator. I think Ill be getting the P60-M5-4A model. 4way, 0-25 psi range.

Its all coming together slowly.

 

[Weed Killer]

The reason I recommended the 125 regulator was because of the 90 psi of the pump, I could not find on watts site the max inlet pressure for the 0-25 reg.

If the 25 reg has an inlet rating above 90 it will be fine and give a more precise adjustment of the outlet pressure

 

[Cali MedPatient]

These things look great! I read a lot of the posts, but not all 114 pages, so I'm sorry if my questions have already been covered.

What's the minimum I would need to raise the res? It's a 50 gallon plastic drum. At the beginning I saw 6 inches. At the end I think sunnydog was talking 4 feet. Could I get by with a foot or two? Or should I just go with a pump setup if I can't do 4 feet?

I use 5 gallon pots, should I use the regular or the Maxi, and is the Maxi the same at the Outdoor? Saw the 50 packs of Outdoors at Sustainable village, which seems like the best deal.

Also, am I going to have trouble with Botanicare or GH nutes clogging up the system if I run fresh water every week or two? Or should I maybe add dripclean? Thanks!

 

[rives]

What's the minimum I would need to raise the res?

I use 5 gallon pots, should I use the regular or the Maxi, and is the Maxi the same at the Outdoor?

Also, am I going to have trouble with Botanicare or GH nutes clogging up the system if I run fresh water every week or two? Or should I maybe add dripclean? Thanks!

I would consider 3' about the minimum elevation that you need from the water surface to the Blumat discharge point. The higher the better - they like pressure, and perform much more reliably. You can use a small elevated reservoir fed with a pump out of your main res. It works very well, there are several variations on the design in here.

Regular blumats are fine for 5 gallon pots, I haven't seen the "outdoor" designation.

I've run GH nutes in the past with only minor issues, Drip Clean should be considered mandatory. I'm currently using Veg+Bloom, and it has worked great.

If you get serious about these, read the whole thread. There is a tremendous amount of information here, and I guarantee you that all of your potential questions have been answered repeatedly. You will also get the benefit of seeing how several people's installations have evolved over time and how they cured various problems.

 

[ak-51]

What's the minimum I would need to raise the res? It's a 50 gallon plastic drum. At the beginning I saw 6 inches. At the end I think sunnydog was talking 4 feet. Could I get by with a foot or two? Or should I just go with a pump setup if I can't do 4 feet?

A lot of people run a 2 res setup with the main res on the ground and a smaller elevated res hanging up. We use a pump to have the lower res refill the elevated res constantly. I use a cycle timer and just have it top my elevated res off every 30 minutes. Some people have a pump going 24/7. There's an overflow tube going back to the lower res so it just keep it at a constant level which is critical. If your elevated res is your main res, as it gets lower the pressure will slowly reduce and the pressure difference can fuck up your blumat calibrations. It's best to maintain a consistent level of pressure.

I use a 5-gallon bucket for my elevated res, and the top of the water level in that is ~40 inches above the blumats themselves. It seems sufficient, but if I had more ceiling space I would probably have them higher too. What I've done is put eye bolts in the ceiling and hung the 5 gallon elevated res up with paracord. I have a big paracord loop that goes through the eye bolts and hooks up a few feet away, so I can unhook it and drop the bucket when I need to clean it out. I would recommend having your elevated res as high as you can get it (within reason). Elevating a 50 gallon drum is going to present a lot of problems.

I use 5 gallon pots, should I use the regular or the Maxi, and is the Maxi the same at the Outdoor?

I've used the regular ones with pots up to 3 gallons. I have never used the Maxis, they would probably work better though.

Also, am I going to have trouble with Botanicare or GH nutes clogging up the system if I run fresh water every week or two? Or should I maybe add dripclean? Thanks!

I have been using straight Botanicare line (Pure Blend Pro, Karma, CM+, Sweet, Hydroplex) and I don't have any problems I can't handle. I do a lot of preventative maintenance though. Every nutrient change/refill I clean the filters in my pumps. I have two pumps in the res, one to stir and the other to refill the elevated res. They both have those big foam filters that catch a lot of goop and sediments. Every nutrient change/refill I flush the lines out while smacking on them with a yardstick. This seems to knock some sediments that have collected in the feed lines off and they flush out. I don't flush out the drip lines anymore unless they are a problem. Flushing them out would mean opening the blumat wide open, and that would mean I have to re-calibrate them which I just don't want to do all the time. At the end of every run I flush the feed lines with the drip lines still attached (but the blumats completely removed) with bleach water. While they're flushing I massage the drip lines to remove any built up salts or sediments. Doing this once per run seems to be enough. This regimen has kept things functioning pretty well for several runs.

My hydro shop doesn't carry drip clean so I haven't had the chance to try that. I would like a product like that that I could flush through the lines maybe every 2 or 3 weeks.

 

[Weed Killer]

Built another one, a bit larger to feed 48 blumats. Used a steel tank from home depot, a park pump from the RV store and fittings from home depot.

The pump is a 115volt 60psi, set the accumulator to 60psi and set the 0-60 watts regulator to 15psi out.

It’s ugly and has some brass fittings, all I could find local, going to order plastic fittings and clean it up a little.

 

[Cali MedPatient]

Thanks guys. I think I figured out the difference. Sustainable village calls the regular the outdoor, and the maxi is the outdoor with extension. from what I've read, the maxis are better for pots deeper than 12" so I'm gonna order a box of 50 regulars and read the whole thread. Thanks for helping me get started!!

Thanks AK-51. That sounds a lot easier than raising my whole 50 gallons. I have a shelf above my res that a 5 gallon would sit nicely on. I love building stuff like this, and I have most of the parts in Weed, killer's setup there laying around. I'm gonna get reading.

 

[sunnydog]

Thanks guys. I think I figured out the difference. Sustainable village calls the regular the outdoor, and the maxi is the outdoor with extension. from what I've read, the maxis are better for pots deeper than 12" so I'm gonna order a box of 50 regulars and read the whole thread. Thanks for helping me get started!!

Thanks AK-51. That sounds a lot easier than raising my whole 50 gallons. I have a shelf above my res that a 5 gallon would sit nicely on. I love building stuff like this, and I have most of the parts in Weed, killer's setup there laying around. I'm gonna get reading.

Hi.
Welcome to our thread!
Disregard "outdoor-indoor" as we use the "outdoor" ones inside, and the "indoor" ones are nearly worthless for our needs. I have never used a maxi, does not seem necessary or desirable for our application. My thinking says it may sample from too deep in the pot, leaving the top to potentially be too dry.I think the name "Maxi" may be leading folks to believe they are superior in some way, they are simply different. I have had some good fortune with the slave drippers(3 per pot) on some big Golden Tigers' I have, 5g pot, and has a stem big around as a baseball bat! The drippers on these two plants drip CONSTANTLY!

Also, the pressure tank method brought forth by Weed Killer is probably the way to go for people running nutes through their B/Ms.

 

[joedogsong]

I use a combination of regulars and maxi's with my 65gal greenhouse grow. 3 regulars and 2 maxi's per tub. Life savers...

 

[Dave Coulier]

I would consider 3' about the minimum elevation that you need from the water surface to the Blumat discharge point. The higher the better - they like pressure, and perform much more reliably. You can use a small elevated reservoir fed with a pump out of your main res. It works very well, there are several variations on the design in here.

Regular blumats are fine for 5 gallon pots, I haven't seen the "outdoor" designation.

I've run GH nutes in the past with only minor issues, Drip Clean should be considered mandatory. I'm currently using Veg+Bloom, and it has worked great.

If you get serious about these, read the whole thread. There is a tremendous amount of information here, and I guarantee you that all of your potential questions have been answered repeatedly. You will also get the benefit of seeing how several people's installations have evolved over time and how they cured various problems.

I use GH Flora 3 part series without Drip Clean, and Ive not had any issues other than Bio-Film build up when not using household bleach as an additive.

There is nothing special about Drip Clean tbh. Its just Potassium Oxide, and Phosphoric Acid. P. Acid is used to clean out inorganic precipitates from irrigation lines, and to clear clogs in drippers. They're just slapping a fancy label on a simple product, and charging you an exorbitant price. Geee how often do we see that in this industry..

Save some money and buy yourself a bottle of P. Acid 75% and formulate your own Drip Clean. Throw in some K oxide if you want to as well.

About their claim of helping give your media a new clean slate, that requires flushing, but flushing kills root hairs, and besides If you monitor your soil solution EC via suction lysimeter, you'll never have to flush your media, but be careful of waste ions(Na, Cl) accumulating if your water source isn't so great.

Im sorry if it sounds like Im busting your balls for giving good advice, but I thought the information would be helpful.

 

[rives]

No sweat, Dave. Since I started running Drip Clean, I no longer get the buildup at the hose end or the media surface and have seen no need to flush the media. At $19 a bottle it is a little spendy, but since I started using it about 18 months ago I've used right at 1/2 of the bottle. At .375ml/gallon, it lasts damn near forever. It seems pretty affordable to me and not worth screwing around with several more bottles of crap to accumulate in my cupboard.

 

[Dave Coulier]

No sweat, Dave. Since I started running Drip Clean, I no longer get the buildup at the hose end or the media surface and have seen no need to flush the media. At $19 a bottle it is a little spendy, but since I started using it about 18 months ago I've used right at 1/2 of the bottle. At .375ml/gallon, it lasts damn near forever. It seems pretty affordable to me and not worth screwing around with several more bottles of crap to accumulate in my cupboard.

heh. I do understand the convenience factor. My fridge and cabinets are chock full of this or that. For whatever reason, I am drawn to making things more complicated in my garden. I guess I want that extra control over everything to tweak it to my exact specifications, but boy its a bitch some times lol.

 

[rives]

I should have mentioned the nutrient issue - I said above that I had only experienced minor issues with the GH nutes. That is true from the hardware aspect, just the slime buildup that you had mentioned. However, it didn't have enough Ca or Mg for my water, and I was continually battling deficiencies. Veg+Bloom has been running absolutely clean, my only additive is Drip Clean, and my yield appears to have gone up significantly. I'll be harvesting this week and see for sure, but just visually there is a very appreciable difference.

 

[Cali MedPatient]

Thanks Sunnydog and everyone. I got it figured out and ordered the regulars.

I'm in the process of reading this whole thread from the beginning, and haven't found an answer to this question yet: Is it possible to connect the three milimeter hose to PVC? I use 1/8 inch nylon hose as my irrigation right now. That is just jammed into a hole in pvc. I already have this set up everywhere, and if I could figure out a way to do that it wouldn't take long switch over from what I have set up now. I'm sure it wouldn't work with a pressurized system, but maybe a raised res. setup would work. I'm going back to reading....

 

[Ichabod Crane]

Use the Kent Systems 3/32 inch union and tap a hole and you can here is my set up. I have not used this for very long but it has not leaked in two days.

 

[Dave Coulier]

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[greenmatter]

Use the Kent Systems 3/32 inch union and tap a hole and you can here is my set up. I have not used this for very long but it has not leaked in two days.

View Image

what size tap did you use ?