Blumat auto watering

[Canniwhatsis]

Air stone?

 

[Dank Demon]

Air stone?

Flooming works better mate as using airstones and room temperature air being fed into the water can cause Pythium. If you use a D.O meter and do a side by side comparison of flooming and using an airstone you will find the D.O in the water increases with flooming but remains the same with an airstone, so all the airstones are doing is creating movement on the surface.

Peace

 

[Aspenou812]

I just ordered some from Planet Earth Hydroponics, $39.95 for the 100' roll and $5 for shipping. I ordered it Sunday evening, was notified by UPS that it had shipped by 11:30 on Monday.

These look great Rives thanks for suggesting them, but this being my first round i think ill hand water, I don't know just seems like i need to hand water due to the learning curve ya know just stay close this round and get a feel for things!

 

[StennyH]

Put a fishtank filter in your res and let it cycle a few extra days, if you insist on changing the water and cleaning everything, don't clean the filter.... I added some "prime" to my res last time I was having a bad bacteria bloom from a couple tap water top offs. Helped knock it back down to a manageable level.

BTW, how do you have your res setup? You have SOME kind of circulation in there right?

Thanks everyone for your advice! I'm running an upper and lower reservoir for continuous pressure, so I do have some circulation from the pump that runs 24/7. If I use an aquarium filter, what kind do I need? I see things online ranging from $10 to $200.

Thanks!

 

[Canniwhatsis]

Don't know exactly, just adding water from my 125g fish tank generally works for me.

This thread might help, https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=254482&highlight=Fish+Tank+Filter+Hydro


Jumping forward in it tho, looks like it might not be the best idea for an established setup as there's almost always an initial bloom of bad bacteria before the beneficials take hold, of course they're running full on Hydro, and not a drip system like this.


I know I saw a thread somewhere on here about what exactly the "Pink Slime" is and how to get rid of it, using a dose of fish tank meds that was basically a heavy charge of beneficials, didn't tag the thread tho and can't find it now.

 

[Del Davis]

Root Porn

Root Porn

Thought I'd share the Blumat induced root porn I have going.

I think i'm going to need a taller Blumat!

 

[watts]

lol wow.

 

[catman]

Nice picture Del_Davis. It looks to me like you've defoliated your plant. Doing so triggers responses in the plant such that they produce more root mass. This is why it is a common practice to cut parts of leaf off to help a clone root.

Here is some more Blumat/Excessive Defoilating root porn

 

[Del Davis]

Thanks! I usually cut the bottom sucker branches during veg and then start to defoliate the large fan leaves around the 4 week of bloom. Its a 1600w vert scrog in 3gal smart pots with Coco. I'm feeding Jacks+Cal Nit and a weekly or so ACT. On my third run and still working on dialing everything in (Mini-split on the way!), but I have been having great results with the Blu-mats so far.

 

[skyview]

Whoosh, what a thread! Took me three days to get through it.

Looks like nearly all blumat users here are using either coco or soil/soilless for the medium. One post suggested that blumats should work in large rockwool cubes but maybe not so much in the "croutons".

My question: Is anyone here actually using or have experience with blumats in a rockwool medium, whether large cubes or loose rw?

komboloi, very curious if you had answers to this question about using Blumats with rockwool... or if you tried it yourself?

 

[Bubbagineer]

Hi all, I'm on pg 159 lol, getting there. Need to ask a question though, I will be putting 1 1/4" through hull fitting on my upper reservoir. I have yet to see sourcing this discussed, sorry if I missed it or haven't gotten to it yet. Can you get this kind of plumbing at Home Depot or Lowes or a plumbing supply house even.... or is it specialty aquarium stuff. This would be for the overflow.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Coconutz]

Hi all, I'm on pg 159 lol, getting there. Need to ask a question though, I will be putting 1 1/4" through hull fitting on my upper reservoir. I have yet to see sourcing this discussed, sorry if I missed it or haven't gotten to it yet. Can you get this kind of plumbing at Home Depot or Lowes or a plumbing supply house even.... or is it specialty aquarium stuff. This would be for the overflow.

Thanks in advance.

I think the OD of the hydrofarm fittings might be 1 1/4 or something, but all you need to do is grab them from your local hydrostore.
Heres what I used for my overflow
http://www.amazon.com/Botanicare-Fl...391660371&sr=1-4&keywords=Botanicare+ebb+flow

 

[Bubbagineer]

Thank you sir, that's what I needed. I was making a trip to wtg today and wanted to have a complete list.

 

[rives]

Bubba, I found the fittings for my overflow on eBay - the cost of local stuff was several times what they were available for on line.

 

[Bubbagineer]

Thanks Rives. The largest the hydro store had was 1", so I used two.... actually bought 4.... why buy 2 when you can buy 4 at twice the price lol

I like having redundancy anyways. I am not automating the fill for my lower res though. Just don't feel like running a drain, and unlike some folks, my old lady won't let me use one of the showers

I'll post up pics later. I didn't make it all the way through, I got some northern lights and Meltdown (CBD) verging and chomping at the bit to get under the real lights. I'll post up pics later.... or I should say pic, this forum won't let me post multiple pics...

 

[rives]

Bummer about the shower access! I've been in the process of setting up a closet for about 2 goddamn years now, and finally just got around to running a drain to it. Since you don't have a drain, be sure that your catch pan capacity is larger than whatever volume you put in the reservoir - it's a certainty that at some point, Murphy will test your system and foresight. I've got a 3x3 flood & drain pan for a catch pan in my 4x4 tent, and at some point a couple of days ago, one blumat decided to go nuts. Everything was fine when I checked things at lights on (10:00 am) and about 7 hours later I was cleaning up about 7 gallons of runoff. If I didn't have saucers under the plants, I wouldn't have even known which one did it - they were all looking normal by the time I found it.

 

[stoned40yrs]

If you are near a pressurized water source, the guys that have been running a pressure reducer rather than a reservoir have been having excellent results.

If you do need a reservoir, keep in mind that the fluctuating level can raise hell with the blumats because of the changes in head pressure. Also, you do not want them running dry for a whole bunch of reasons. I use a self-topping reservoir so that the reservoir level feeding the blumats never changes much. The upper reservoir hold about 4 gallons, the lower reservoir holds a maximum of 20. This feeds up to (4) 3 gallon smart pots, and will easily handle an absence of 2 weeks with a comfortable reserve left.

So you are saying I read 150 pages of this book so far and blumats might not work for me
Here's what I want to do.
3 plants
2 gal Hempy pots
coco coir
feed to waste 10-20%
15 gal insulated cooler as a reservoir

I'm not going to run two reservoirs and pumps and other crap
I ordered a thru hull fitting, 4 bluemats and 3 & 8mm tube. I'm going to place the reservoir 2" above the level of the top of the coco like blumat states. I'm also going to place a hand/turn adjustable valve on the tube immediately after the thru hull so I will have more control over the pressure while I dial the blumats in. As long as I don't let the reservoir get below 2 gal I don't expect to see too much change in pressure for 3-10 gallons.
What do you think?

 

[rives]

So you are saying I read 150 pages of this book so far and blumats might not work for me
Here's what I want to do.
3 plants
2 gal Hempy pots
coco coir
feed to waste 10-20%
15 gal insulated cooler as a reservoir

I'm not going to run two reservoirs and pumps and other crap
I ordered a thru hull fitting, 4 bluemats and 3 & 8mm tube. I'm going to place the reservoir 2" above the level of the top of the coco like blumat states. I'm also going to place a hand/turn adjustable valve on the tube immediately after the thru hull so I will have more control over the pressure while I dial the blumats in. As long as I don't let the reservoir get below 2 gal I don't expect to see too much change in pressure for 3-10 gallons.
What do you think?

I think that you haven't been reading very closely if you plan on placing the reservoir 2" above the surface of the media.

You must be looking at instructions for the blumat juniors, which feed by siphon rather that the tropf blumats, which use a pinch valve to control a water supply with up to about 15 psi and actually function better when fed with pressure approaching the maximum. I doubt that the standard (tropf) blumats will work at all with the setup that you describe. The blumat juniors don't really work well for high flow needs because the water has to be pulled through the ceramic cone, whereas the tropf blumats use a 3mm hose that can, as stated in my post above, flow a fair bit of water. Good luck.

*edit* I just dug out my instruction sheet, and Blumat recommends that the reservoir be a minimum of .5 meter above the surface of the plant, so approximately 20". Most of us have found that the higher the reservoir is placed, the better, and the guys running pressure reducers seem to be having the best luck at preventing runaways.

 

[stoned40yrs]

No, I got my info from Blumatsystems.com, I don't think they are talking about the jr.
Where is all this pressure coming from you speak of, the reducer limits it all the way down to 15psi on these dual reservoir setups people are running, right?

Tropf Blumat Thru-Hull (Rain Water Barrel) Attachment
Tropf Blumat watering systems can be set up using a gravity feed tank. Any pail or container can be used as the reservoir. ALL THE FITTINGS TO DO THIS ARE INCLUDED IN THE TROPF BLUMAT PATIO DECK & BALCONY SET.

If you are installing a Tropf Blumat water system from individual pieces you can use the RAIN BARREL CONNECTOR (Thru-Hull) to provide a drip proof seal in the pail. The bottom of your pail/reservoir must be at least 5 cm (2") above the top of your pots/soil level. Long runs of water supply line over 12 meters (40 ft.) require the gravity tank to be 100 cm (3 ft.) above.

IT IS IMPORTANT that the reservoir/pail does not ever run out of water. It is advisable to mount a float kit in the pail and connect this to your house line.

--------------------------------------
Those are not Blumat jrs in that Patio deck and Balcony kit they sell. So why why won't it work with a barrel reservoir like they say it will?

 

[rives]

You don't use a pressure reducer on a reservoir system - they are used to drop the line pressure from a residential water hose connection down to a level that the blumats can handle. The pressure in a reservoir system comes from the height of the column of water above the sensor, and you get .433 psi per foot of elevation. It would take nearly 35' of elevation to give you 15 psi with a reservoir.

I believe that what blumat is recommending in your quote is so that you don't run your system dry while there is still water in the reservoir. If you look at #2 under "Water tap or elevated tank as source", you will see what I was quoting.