Blumat auto watering

[CodyPomeray]

there is a thread by desert_hydro that is very good, blumats ftw or something like that,

you can't use organic stuff with blumats; if you need to feed tea do it manually. no need to adjust the blumat before, it will sense the moisture in the soil and stop dripping. if you want to starve them before tea, i can't give you any thoughts.

cheers
i also love blumats and use them in tent and balcony very easy.

Perfect thank you. Is there not a drip feed or like, flow rate adjustment? I was just thinking 3 days prior to a manual tea, turn it down or lower it all the way. Let them dry out just a bit then feed the tea.

 

[TychoMonolyth]

The carrots you stick in the soil are your regulators. I don't know if the drip type work like that.

 

[AgentPothead]

The little knob on the top should adjust water flow, but yeah Tycho is right the way they work is the ceramic carrot has water in it. If the soil is dry, the water in the carrot wants to go to an area of less wetness so it seeps out, which lowers pressure on an internal rod which is pressing against the top black tubes. That lets water drip out of the black tubes and make the soil wetter. Once the soil is wetter than the carrot, the same thing happens in reverse, the water still wants to get to a dryer area so it seeps into the carrot, which raises the internal pressure on the rod enough to plug up the black tube, causing the water to stop dripping, at least until the soil dries out enough, etc. They adjust the flow towards the end of this video here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADMnAol12QM

 

[pongster]

Perfect thank you. Is there not a drip feed or like, flow rate adjustment? I was just thinking 3 days prior to a manual tea, turn it down or lower it all the way. Let them dry out just a bit then feed the tea.

the brown cap on top of the blumat is what you use to adjust.

if it was my kitchen, i would just pour the tea without adjusting the blumat. the blumat will start working again when the moisture reaches its previously set level.

cheers
blumats are the best!!!

 

[AgentPothead]

https://www.icmag.com/ic/picture.php?albumid=81333&pictureid=1987029View Image

the brown cap on top of the blumat is what you use to adjust.

if it was my kitchen, i would just pour the tea without adjusting the blumat. the blumat will start working again when the moisture reaches its previously set level.

cheers
blumats are the best!!!

I'm havin trouble parsing that picture, what is the white that appears to be under the end of the black tube? Is that fertilizers that crystallized out? Or is that roots that are going crazy in that 1 spot?

 

[pongster]

I'm havin trouble parsing that picture, what is the white that appears to be under the end of the black tube? Is that fertilizers that crystallized out? Or is that roots that are going crazy in that 1 spot?

haha yes it is deceiving,
it's roots...
at one point they were climbing towards the dripping line...



roots be krazy with blumats
it's some resident evil 2 shit (just finished that game, very cool)

 

[AgentPothead]

haha yes it is deceiving,
it's roots...
at one point they were climbing towards the dripping line...

View Image

roots be krazy with blumats
it's some resident evil 2 shit (just finished that game, very cool)

Wow that's crazy I don't think I've ever seen that before?

 

[pongster]

Wow that's crazy I don't think I've ever seen that before?

hahaha me neither; the plant itself is extremely happy, so no problems there...

blumats are the best and i'm never going back JUANITA

 

[TychoMonolyth]

The carrots were completely covered with roots. Had to soak them and scrub to clean them. They could probably use an acid soak.

 

[CodyPomeray]

Does the depth of the carrot effect it? Like for a 45g pot. I assume no, but wondering. Looks like il be buying some of these soon...

 

[pongster]

Does the depth of the carrot effect it? Like for a 45g pot. I assume no, but wondering. Looks like il be buying some of these soon...

i'm quite sure there is a maximum depth for regular blumats, but it's not mentioned in the manual; there are "maxi" ones for bigger depth and radius.

each regular blumat covers 25 cm in diameter according to the manual...
my blumats are in 10L pots, 26 cm tall but actual depth should be 20 cm, no problems...

45 gallon pot? dayum!!!
number of blumats will depend on the LxWxH dimensions.

 

[TychoMonolyth]

I would think its dependant on the medium. If it had high absorption then less would do. I had 1 jr in a 3 gal pot and it was fine. I stuck another one in just because it was flowering and I has a spare. It didn't drink any faster.

 

[Chevy cHaze]

What the angry dude a couple pages back said... "blumats... for idiots... better use a pump, every plant gets the same amount of water..." made me think that's actually a strength of blumats. Every plant gets exactly what it needs, instead of all getting the same every time. For a mixed strain grow that's obvious, but even for a grow of all the same cuttings it makes sense... some might be better rooted, more leaves, etc...


For the radius a blumat can water, I guess it's best visualised as the lower half of a sphere with where the dripping hits the medium in its center. Maybe not quite sphere, as gravity will let the water sink in more vertically than wick horizontally, but similar still I guess.


In bigger pots (12l/3gal) when placing the carrot close to the walls of a fabric container, the soil between carrot and wall sometimes can get too dry for roots to live... reducing the amount of soil available to the roots... This can be dealt with by setting the blumat to a more wet setting or by painting the dripline outlet side of the carrot vertically with clear coat, so that the moisture has to go around the carrot first in order to close the valve.



CC

 

[TychoMonolyth]

Maybe he lost a crop to them. Who knows. I had trouble with them when I first got them. I had a 5 gallon reservoir but it was clear plastic so algae grew in the jug when I went away for 2 weeks and plugged the lines I managed to recover one plant. It's been all good since then.

I like that the plant gets as much water as it wants when it wants it.

 

[Fitzera]

I use one carrot for a 3gal but I use 2 for a 5gal, for more even moisture

 

[Cmoon]

What the angry dude a couple pages back said... "blumats... for idiots... better use a pump, every plant gets the same amount of water..." made me think that's actually a strength of blumats. Every plant gets exactly what it needs, instead of all getting the same every time. For a mixed strain grow that's obvious, but even for a grow of all the same cuttings it makes sense... some might be better rooted, more leaves, etc...


For the radius a blumat can water, I guess it's best visualised as the lower half of a sphere with where the dripping hits the medium in its center. Maybe not quite sphere, as gravity will let the water sink in more vertically than wick horizontally, but similar still I guess.


In bigger pots (12l/3gal) when placing the carrot close to the walls of a fabric container, the soil between carrot and wall sometimes can get too dry for roots to live... reducing the amount of soil available to the roots... This can be dealt with by setting the blumat to a more wet setting or by painting the dripline outlet side of the carrot vertically with clear coat, so that the moisture has to go around the carrot first in order to close the valve.



CC

top post its about tweaking and knowing your meduim

 

[hamstring]

Just wanted to give props to to this thread and sunnydog.

I travel for a living and blumats are great.

I didnt see this in the thread but I bought the "Blumat Medium Deluxe Gravity Kit" $104.00.

You get the superflex main trunk line and a shut off valve. The superflex rocks you dont need to soak it and its real easy to move around the garden.

I set it up in the closed loop system and love it so far. My plants are still small, I played with the system a couple of weeks before even putting the rooted clones in my 1/2 gal smart pots. I bought one of those trays you put your wash machine in.

I did look in the plumbing section for those square grates, called out somewhere in thread, to set the smart pots on in case of a run away. They are SWEET but $15-20/per depending on size. I ended putting the pots on upside down clay pottery saucers. They were $2.50 each.

Thanks IC mag and this awesome thread.

 

[GOT_BUD?]

What does that even mean? If an idiot is using it it's idiot proof, but if a non idiot is using it they can break it? Or were you just trying to make a sly stab at the people who use blumats by calling them idiots?

I know I'm late to this party. But I would like to point out that nothing is idiot proof to sufficiently trained idiots.

I had all sorts of issues with my blumats when I first got them and set them up. I had all sorts of runaways. So I stopped using them. But I had over $300 invested in them, so I was bound and determined to make them work.

It took me a while, but I figured out that I didn't have enough pressure in my gravity feed system. Moving my 5 gallon res from tabletop height to shelf height stopped my runaways, and they have been 100% since.

Someone else mentioned in another thread that increasing the size of your res will also help increase the pressure.

 

[Fitzera]

Yes, that was me...large garbage can sitting on top of a 12" foot step with 2 airstones. A larger volume res or a higher elevation of the res will both give you increased hydrostatic pressure/increased feed line pressure.

And if anyone has concerns that the increased pressure might compromise the slip on fittings (hose pop off fitting)...i havent had any issues like that yet.

 

[marmarb]

@gotbud feel the same way gonna use mines outdoors in a guerrilla grow setting