Blumat auto watering

[Lazyman]

Nachos with cheese, how much higher is the top of your water level than the height of the Blumat valves? Mine is about a 5' drop in total and have tons of pressure, when I drill a hole in the manifold hose, it shoots water up about 4 feet. No air bubble problems whatsoever.

 

[Lazyman]

So you are adding GH nectar, floranectar, and bleach to your res? I was using LK and was looking for replacements for it in my blumat res. I think the nectar and floranectar would be it.

Yeah thats right, lately I've stopped using my jugs of AN Sensi and have been using GH maxibloom/Maxigrow powders cuz they are cheap and easy to apply. Also handy that they ph the water down for you. In veg and early flower I still run silica (Dyna-Grow Pro-Tekt is the most concentrated/cheapest) to help build stem/cell wall strength. Also some Technaflora Magi-Cal (cheapest/strongest) since I'm in coco with RO water.

 

[NachoConQueso]

Nachos with cheese, how much higher is the top of your water level than the height of the Blumat valves? Mine is about a 5' drop in total and have tons of pressure, when I drill a hole in the manifold hose, it shoots water up about 4 feet. No air bubble problems whatsoever.

You know I think you might be right. I'm going to raise my shelf up and see what happens.

 

[BlueberryNutz]

my blumats are sitting sad and unused in the box right now. im moving pretty soon and cant really start anything up right now and its freakin killing me lol. so while im waiting i will just watch everyone elses grows and smoke the fruits of my previous labors(dj shorts true blueberry)

thanks to everyone who has contributed to this thread. ive read the whole 80+ pages now and feel like i will be coming into this with a whole heap of knowledge and no reservations. this will be a first for many things for me. first coco grow, first blumat grow and first run with house and garden cocos full line. im starting to get really excited.

oh and i got mine from planet earth hydroponics. good price but i paid like 23$ for shipping and all they did was slap a shipping label on the outside of the box with no protection or privacy lol

 

[compost]

Anyone use forks for dripper and blumat line support?

 

[compost]

Just an FYI for those who might buy these from planet earth hydroponics. I just got mine today 10 days after ordering them and paying 35 bucks to ship a 2 lb box. I don't mind the time but they DID NOT ship it discreetly. I could see the box plain as day as the UPS guy was walking over to me. At this point I am pretty pissed off. 35 dollars shipping for an item that costs 65 and NO DISCREET boxing like advertised on there site. Again watch out people ordering from http://www.planetearthhydro.com/ .

 

[heady blunts]

Anyone use forks for dripper and blumat line support?

i forgot who suggested it, but i started using bobby pins and they work great.

 

[Overthinker]

A friend of mine is has used the pressure reducer outdoors this year and it has worked well.
Indoors, As I have stated before, my concern is in case of a mishap, it never runs out of water.


SD

I have been rereading through this thread for the 3rd, 4th... who knows how times. lol
Anyways, I saw this post and I had a thought on this subject.

water spigot > check valve > Bladder tank > tropf pressure reducer > blumats.

Bladder tanks can be found in any size from small 2 gallon ones (like on a RO system), all the way up to huge 100+ gallon ones used for storing pressurized water for well water systems.

You could use a setup like this for a few situations.
1. For tap water users: to address amount of water available to a runaway dripper indoors.
With the appropriately sized tank the water spigot could be opened every few days to charge the pressure tank. Then if a blumat ever malfunctioned the amount of water would be limited to the size the tank stores.
2. this could also be used for a stadium grow, or grows on tables where getting the rez well elevated above the plants is troublesome.
Nutes could be mixed in a barrel and then pumped into the tank to charge the system. The only problem I see here is that the rez(tank) could not aerated. I don't think its is necessary as I believe that the water picks up plenty of ox when is is dripped in tiny drops down to the medium.
I don't believe it would be such a great plan to run nutes in a tank of this sort as aeration and ph adjustment would be problematic. If your ph was out of wack the tank would have to purged into the mixing barrel, ph corrected and then pumped back into the tank.

Anyways, it was just a thought I figured I would share. Could be a good solution for those in scenario #1.

Peace,

P.S. Awesome thread

 

[huntingbb]

So more input on the distributors. My line doesn't drip after I change my res. I'm finding that if it doesn't stay pressurized then the distributors don't drip evenly or at all. I clean my res every week so I'm finding that I have to get underneath the plant to unscrew the last distributor so I can get the water pressure even again. It must be air bubbles or something. I don't know...I could manage it on about 20 plants, but any more and it would become a huge pain. I'm still looking for the perfect answer for even water distribution on larger pots. It'd be a lot cooler if these distributors were made out of rubber so I could squeeze out the air bubbles. I bet someone could come up with a better design.

Do you not have them on a loop with the T (junction) -> Drain (valve)?

 

[Slangheat]

Do you not have them on a loop with the T (junction) -> Drain (valve)?

I've got one res running a manifold that's a loop like that, and one res running a manifold that's the shape of a cane or big U - neither of my manifolds have a lack of pressure.

I'd bet it's that his res isn't high enough like Lazy said.

Only time I've experienced lack of drip was when one of my 3/32 tee's clogged - flicked it really hard and it cleared itself.

 

[dansbuds]

dansbuds,
Sure, no problem.. Unfortunately, I didn't take any photos before I put all this together. I was kinda pressed for time to get everything up and running again.

Instead, I scanned my little draft I used when I was trying to "put it all together" so to speak. Thankfully it all worked as planned..LOL
Hopefully it's pretty clear in case others wanna feed off of it as well.

ahhh i get it now the return tube is like an overflow tube back to the main rez .
thanx man ... that is awesome . i want to do something similar for my set up cuz summer being here i'm away more than i'm home .

 

[dansbuds]

have been using GH maxibloom/Maxigrow powders cuz they are cheap and easy to apply. Also handy that they ph the water down for you. In veg and early flower I still run silica (Dyna-Grow Pro-Tekt is the most concentrated/cheapest) to help build stem/cell wall strength. Also some Technaflora Magi-Cal (cheapest/strongest) since I'm in coco with RO water.
__________________

lazy .... you & I are on the pretty much same nute regiment . i'm using maxi ... silica blast & GO calmag . i'm using the GO right now but not happy with it ... its organic & gets slimy & not reacting well with the blumats . the botanicare stuff has had some bad batches & of course i got 2 bottles (different stores ) & both were bad so .... Are you having good luck with the technoflora ??? i may have to find some here .

 

[NachoConQueso]

Blumat auto watering

It's probably a combination of low pressure and precipitates. My nutes suck and and form solids way too easily.

 

[down2grow]

How strong of a sump pump would you guys recommend to keep a 60-70 gallon reservoir circulated? Using maxi, bloombastic, silica, drip clean currently. Hand stirring a few times a day isn't enough because the bloombastic just loves to settle on the bottom. Thanks

D2G

 

[Lazyman]

I would axe bloombastic, use koolbloom powder and floranectar, much thinner consistency and no probs here.

 

[huntingbb]

I've got one res running a manifold that's a loop like that, and one res running a manifold that's the shape of a cane or big U - neither of my manifolds have a lack of pressure.

I'd bet it's that his res isn't high enough like Lazy said.

Only time I've experienced lack of drip was when one of my 3/32 tee's clogged - flicked it really hard and it cleared itself.

I don't doubt that his rez may not be high enough, but the t bleed valve was stressed as important for purging, etc. Seems this might be one of those situations.. *shrugs*

 

[down2grow]

Lazyman,

I actually still have some koolbloom powder left over when I used to run 6/9 so I'll give it another shot. I'm almost out of bloombastic, but any suggestions on how strong the pump should be for a 70 gallon reservoir? I just want to make sure the maxi gets dissolved!

D2G

 

[sunnydog]

Uggggh!

Uggggh!

Gotta go pull a couple hundred ft. of supply line out of the wilderness.
Hope it's still there!
I ran out, and don't have time to order!

 

[compost]

Anyone got a link for a supplier for both of the hoses that ships discreetly?

 

[sunnydog]

Gotta go pull a couple hundred ft. of supply line out of the wilderness.
Hope it's still there!
I ran out, and don't have time to order!

Got it! Some rodent chew-spots, but all good!