I got a bottle of AN up and down at a 50% off sale, best pH adjusters I've ever used. Only AN products I ever bought, if it hadn't been on sale I would've got something else. Glad I got it, it works and lasts .
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Blumat auto watering
- Thread starter sunnydog
- Start date
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- blumat drippers irrigation watering
I got a bottle of AN up and down at a 50% off sale, best pH adjusters I've ever used. Only AN products I ever bought, if it hadn't been on sale I would've got something else. Glad I got it, it works and lasts .
Bwanabud
Active member
Is anyone else fighting brown algae in their rez ?
I can't understand why I'm having problems:
1)Black 60 gal. rez, wrapped with a black sleeping bag, with a sealed black lid.
2)No lights on in room
3)Eliminated CalMag from feed schedule
4)A 400 gph circulation pump in rez, cycle timer turns on for 10 minutes run, 15 minutes off
5)Use .3 ml per gallon of bleach
6)Rez is refilled every 4-6 days
7)Water temp 60-65 degrees
My drippers keep getting plugged with a light brownish tea like fluid, then it clogs the dripper screw threads...then they quit dripping.
Should an air bubbler be added ?, add bleach every 2 days ?
Any ideas from the pro's please ?
I can't understand why I'm having problems:
1)Black 60 gal. rez, wrapped with a black sleeping bag, with a sealed black lid.
2)No lights on in room
3)Eliminated CalMag from feed schedule
4)A 400 gph circulation pump in rez, cycle timer turns on for 10 minutes run, 15 minutes off
5)Use .3 ml per gallon of bleach
6)Rez is refilled every 4-6 days
7)Water temp 60-65 degrees
My drippers keep getting plugged with a light brownish tea like fluid, then it clogs the dripper screw threads...then they quit dripping.
Should an air bubbler be added ?, add bleach every 2 days ?
Any ideas from the pro's please ?
nastynate420
Member
bleach has a really short half life. Try pool shock for longer Rez change outs, or if you want to continue using bleach add .2 ml per gallon of water in res if using RO and do that every two days. Hopefully you don't have cyanobacteria but with that low of water temp I wouldn't think that would be the problem. I'd try hitting it with like 25-30 ml for the whole sixty gallon Rez at first to see if that will kill the stuff. I go through like 30+ gallons a day per 55 gallon Rez so I refill everyday and don't even mess with the bleach anymore and don't have problems. I use calmag and don't have problems so I don't think that's it.
I've never had a problem similar to what you are experiencing. I do get some scum from SM90, but it seems to mainly float on top of the rez surface and doesn't give me any problems at the spikes. I stopped using the remote drippers after a couple of runs - I didn't see much benefit to them, and they seem like one more point where things could easily go wrong. I have purchased one of the inline filters that is available, but haven't gotten around to installing it yet. You might try backing off on the pump cycle in case over-aeration is causing the growth - I only run my circ pumps a couple of times a day for 5 minutes at a whack.
The one thing that I might suggest is to clean and flush the whole system. I have one system that, every now and then, the pH gets much more volatile than normal or the other systems that are in use. If I clean the hell out of the rez and flush the lines, it goes back to having a slow drift.
Bwanabud
Active member
Thanks for chiming in Nastynate & Rives,
I did a fair amount of reading/research before using the bleach regiment, appears to be somewhat beneficial to the root system...but isn't controlling my problem at the application rate presently. I'm going to increase frequency as Nate suggests, and see if I can get a handle on brown "stuff". I knew bleach's ability to kill was short lived, wasn't sure for how long. I see some use hydrogen peroxide, but I'd need gallons of the shit at a time.
I've cleaned the rez & pump assembly a few times, it's crystal clear for a few weeks...then it starts again. I'd like to clean the entire system, including tubing but would have to wait till this run is over.
Rives: When you say that "you eliminated the remote drippers", do you mean the entire dripper assembly or just the dripper screw inside the body ? Or do you just lay the 3mm hose on the coco and let it run/drip ?
I did a fair amount of reading/research before using the bleach regiment, appears to be somewhat beneficial to the root system...but isn't controlling my problem at the application rate presently. I'm going to increase frequency as Nate suggests, and see if I can get a handle on brown "stuff". I knew bleach's ability to kill was short lived, wasn't sure for how long. I see some use hydrogen peroxide, but I'd need gallons of the shit at a time.
I've cleaned the rez & pump assembly a few times, it's crystal clear for a few weeks...then it starts again. I'd like to clean the entire system, including tubing but would have to wait till this run is over.
Rives: When you say that "you eliminated the remote drippers", do you mean the entire dripper assembly or just the dripper screw inside the body ? Or do you just lay the 3mm hose on the coco and let it run/drip ?
I just use the 3mm hose with no attachments. Don't lay it directly on the coco, prop it up above the surface with one of the black spikes for the remote drippers or use an inverted plastic fork, etc. The roots will quickly come out of the media surface, crawl right up the hose and block the flow if the hose opening is too close to the media. Every week or two, I pull the hose through the spike's valve, manipulate the hose to break up any buildup on the inner surface, open the valve to flush the crap out, and reset the hose length and valve setting. If you mark the valve setting with a dot of whiteout after you have the setting established, it simplifies resetting the valve and it will be very close to where you want it for future runs.
I currently use 5-liter pots, but started with 3-gallon pots and then dropped to 2-gallon, and it worked fine. I dabbled with 2 spikes per pot for a while, more as a redundant backup than for the overall flow, but had difficulty balancing them and didn't see any change to speak of.
nastynate420
Member
I had much better luck with two per pot than one. Whenever I use just one carrot I get runaways much more frequently. I was using one carrot on three gallon pots compared to my two carrots on 7 or 10 gallon pots. With my 3 gallons I would dry out or have overruns constantly. When I have two there are no problems but maybe once a cycle on 10% of pots with an overrun or dry out but even that is pushing it. I would 100% recommend putting 2 in each pot. It has gotten rid of 99% of my problems where I can just let them do their thing for a week without lifting pots to make sure there's enough water or adjusting blumats to stop overruns.
Also the brown slime reappearing sounds like cyanobacteria. You should be able to rid it with erythromycin that can be purchased at your local pet store. Check out snype's thread on it on icmag.
Also the brown slime reappearing sounds like cyanobacteria. You should be able to rid it with erythromycin that can be purchased at your local pet store. Check out snype's thread on it on icmag.
Hydro isn't my thing, but those of you having nutrient rich solutions in your reservoirs might want to investigate UV filters for aquariums. For example-
http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod_display.cfm?pcatid=7999
Add a small pump, just let it run all the time. Don't buy anything too cheap.
Larger units are often used for domestic water purification & swimming pools. Properly installed they'll reduce microscopic life to near zero.
http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod_display.cfm?pcatid=7999
Add a small pump, just let it run all the time. Don't buy anything too cheap.
Larger units are often used for domestic water purification & swimming pools. Properly installed they'll reduce microscopic life to near zero.
skyview
Member
Another thing that could help instead of using a second carrot is pulling the 3mm back a little so it's dripping closer to the ceramic sensor. My guess is the runaways were happening because the moisture was channeling and not getting back to the sensor.
Bwanabud
Active member
What type system did you switch over to using ?
nastynate420
Member
This last run I literally only had to go through once at day 30 and even that wasn't necessary and that was with the 8mm line and 3mm t's on pressurized system. Every pot was really heavy like I had set it on the last run other than maybe one pot and even that one was pretty saturated! I think why lazyman wasn't successful was because he wasn't running a pressurized system which meant his head pressure was constantly fluctuating causing runaways. I'm going to be 1/2" PVC piping my two 12k flower rooms out that I run on a flip off one reservoir for my next flip here on the 11th. I plan on adding dosatron's to really make it automated. That way I can really focus on defoliating, training, and putting nets up (plus I'm lazy and want to get rid of as much mundane work as I can). After day 21 it should pretty much not need me at all this next round. Should be interesting to see if using the 1/2" PVC will make a difference in the blumat's effectiveness.
Bwanabud
Active member
I'm running pressurized systems and they still clog up and a few run-aways a week, I'm going to try the next run with no drippers, just straight 3mm tubes as Rives suggested. I switched nutes twice, and now have a pink crust on my drippers from the Maxibloom.
The threads on the drippers keep clogging up with shit, I lose an hour a day at each location bleeding/cleaning the drippers back open...it's costing me time & stress at this point instead of eliminating it
The threads on the drippers keep clogging up with shit, I lose an hour a day at each location bleeding/cleaning the drippers back open...it's costing me time & stress at this point instead of eliminating it
nastynate420
Member
Do you use one or two blumats in each pot?
I can def understand that. Blumats aren't intended for largish operations, I think, but rather for little guys running a few dozen drippers at most. From reading of all the trials & travails of people using them for hydro nutrients I'm also convinced they're at their best using plain water in organic soil at constant pressure, either with a regulator or a float valve controlled reservoir like mine. If I didn't have really good clean Denver water I'd use a micron filter, as well. Once dialed in I fuss with them only seldom. Using them upped my game & made it less work at the same time.
nastynate420
Member
I run 12k watt rooms on blumats two per pot pressurized with general hydroponic nutes with no problems and know somebody else running 9k watts that doesn't have to worry about watering anymore because of blumats. I really recommend using to per pot even with small pots, I had runoffs all the time with just one moved up to two and haven't had a problem since.
