Blumat auto watering

[headees]

headees that link is misleading. the item pictured is the correct blumat, however the product description is for the blumat jr's which you DO NOT want.

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Yea I was wondering about that as well. Ive sent them an two emails and called a few times with no response, so Im not sure whats up.

After reading more, Im thinking now that Blumats might be too difficult to set up with my flowering room, which is a stadium with four shelves, 72 plants, half of which are staggered one month behind.
I am thinking it will be too much trouble, not to mention expensive, to set things up correctly. Might just opt for a drip system instead.

 

[sunnydog]

I've used them on the last two runs. The up side is that they give you a much more uniform moisture content. The downside is that they are much more sensitive to plugging if you use any additives. Even a very low dose of CalMag will eventually cause problems. I have found that if I run just H&G Drip Clean and straight water, they work very well.

Hey SunnyD wicked thread stacks of info...

Have you had any dealings with Blumats Drip feed distributers?

http://www.blumat.at/automatic-watering-system.php#bltropf?id=6

I want to be able to feed 12 plants in 7 Gallon/26 Litre smart pots

The feed distributers look good as you could have one sensor in the middle close'ish to the Stem and multiple drippers say 4 around the edge...

any thoughts, views or opinions?



EDIT: the link takes you to the site not the page...

to get to the feed distributer page, when you click the link the page opens and the first tab of 4 is the tropf blumat

if you click this it opens a page with another set of highlighted RED tabs the 6th one along says Set-up 2 this is the page i was trying to show with the feed distributers...

Other issue is AFAIK, is they won't water past the clogged one, so, if the first one clogs, you're fucked.

On the other hand, I would like to make them work, as they are really cool....

 

[sunnydog]

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Yea I was wondering about that as well. Ive sent them an two emails and called a few times with no response, so Im not sure whats up.

After reading more, Im thinking now that Blumats might be too difficult to set up with my flowering room, which is a stadium with four shelves, 72 plants, half of which are staggered one month behind.
I am thinking it will be too much trouble, not to mention expensive, to set things up correctly. Might just opt for a drip system instead.

Did you click the link in my signature???

 

[laylow]

I've used them on the last two runs. The up side is that they give you a much more uniform moisture content. The downside is that they are much more sensitive to plugging if you use any additives. Even a very low dose of CalMag will eventually cause problems. I have found that if I run just H&G Drip Clean and straight water, they work very well.

i have been told by a few peeps about the blocking problem... do you think if you was to run straight Canna Coco A&B nutes with the addition of Cannazym and H&G Drip clean... any other additives i can do by hand when i feel its necessary I.E. calmag, pk boosters ect

 

[headees]

Did you click the link in my signature???

Not until just now, very nice!

Could you explain to me how you set up the blumats? Did you just start on the top shelf and spiral the feed line all the way to the bottom?
Is it connected to the rez in two places?

Thanks!

 

[ak-51]

do you think if you was to run straight Canna Coco A&B nutes with the addition of Cannazym and H&G Drip clean... any other additives i can do by hand when i feel its necessary I.E. calmag, pk boosters ect

I have also considered doing this. I run the Botanicare line right now. If I could just remove the Liquid Karma from the reservoir I think it would do worlds. I'm already only adding a half dose in each nute batch, but it still makes everything dark dark brown and settles really fast.

Right now I'm trying to pin down which component in my system keeps tripping my GFCI, but after that I'll probably start playing with levels of nutes and hand-watering some of them in.

EDIT: The panda plastic squares covering the pots has made the top layer of coco noticeably more moist.

 

[NachoConQueso]

I use the distributors. H & G clogged them up, but that is what H & G does. I use the Dyna-Gro line with excellent results so far. Also, buy 1/4" drip line stakes to prop up the distributors, that way you don't have roots growing over your distributors too.

 

[snoopytime]

I read the majority of this awesome thread in the past 24 hours. I got 2 patio packs on the wayyy! I have been a DWC guy only so far, I wanna try another technology, maybe in a tent on the side.

I have a few questions I couldnt find answers to in what I read in here, looking for expert opinions based on experience where the answer isnt cut & dry, thx.

1 - What is an optimum setup for cana coco in smart pots in a 4x4 tray? I am getting a 4x4 tray which I will fit a drain into with an emergency catch res under the table. The guy where I ordered the Blumats from in Santa Barbara said 9x 3gallon pots are perfect for a 4x4, the guy where I got the canna coco said I shoudl do 16x or more 1 or 2 gallons, so no clue here.

2 - Many people on here stated canna coco is the shit, I dont mind paying for 'better', everything I own is 'better' lol. But . . is it BETTER!?!?!?

3 - So I got the bag of canna coco home, with 3x 3gallon smart pots to start experimenting. I filled one 3gallon smartpot with fresh coco around 3/4 of the way, rinsed it out in the pot with RO water for around 5 minutes till it was draining back out the bottom, then I plugged a nice little rooting Kolossus in there which is around 4" tall with 6" roots. Then I watered it from a gallon I mixed of Botanicare CNS17 COCO GROW @ 15ml in that gallon with a splash of RE. Does this sound 'around what your supposed to do' with Coco not including that I did it by hand and not with Blumats since they didnt come yet?

OK I will STFU now, if anyone has any advice, I would appreciate it . . thanks!

 

[laylow]

snoop it comes down to 2 things imo... plant numbers and time...

you could grow one big plant and bend and train that bitch for weeks and weeks or you could go full SOG and run 64 in one gallon pots with minimal to no veg... again numbers and time....

if your happy to run 16 imo 16 is going to be better/faster than 9 if not then just sit on them girls for a little longer and roll with the 9

good luck with whatever you choose....

 

[snoopytime]

Thanks LayLow! Very good insight . . so lastly, if I pick 'sweet 16', would you say 1 gallon or 2 gallon smartpots? I think 3 gallon is too big for the relative size of the 4x4, and the size the plants would get. Thanks!

 

[laylow]

when i do a 16 plant grow in that space i use 1 gallon some will say its to small but i achieve what im after so it suits me.. to be safe i would roll with the 2 gallons

if you click the link in my sig Horizontal all the plants in there are in 1 gallon and the trays on the right have 12 plants in

 

[ak-51]

So having done almost an entire run with them, and tweaking them along the way I have gotten a pretty good feel for the blumats I have. It seems like they're pretty sensitive though. It seems like there's only about 1 click (triangle things or whatever) between no runoff and too much runoff (in coco). Is this correct? Playing with them in between those two extremes, I have yet to see any ill effects of under-watering or over-watering. Girls have looked perfect the whole time.

 

[laylow]

Great news AK... am investing in some of these for my next seed run...

 

[Herborizer]

i have been told by a few peeps about the blocking problem... do you think if you was to run straight Canna Coco A&B nutes with the addition of Cannazym and H&G Drip clean... any other additives i can do by hand when i feel its necessary I.E. calmag, pk boosters ect

Don't run Cannazyme or any other Zyme product through Blumats. Eventually you will have slime build-up.

Just hand water the Zyme in every couple weeks.

 

[snoopytime]

Thanks LayLow! Looks kool in your grow thread too!

 

[laylow]

thanks for the tip herb...

no probs snoop get some piks up and drop me a link...

 

[whadeezlrg]

now when I'm hooking up the blumats to the feed line does the feed line need to be full of water I.E.-i cut the line to put the t in and water should squirt out? or can i set it up as a dry line then hook it to the rez and just have the lowest blumat completely open until flow is achieved?

 

[whadeezlrg]

I'm pretty much ready to set these things up the rez is ready to go and this has been holding me up

 

[JAY LENWEED]

now when I'm hooking up the blumats to the feed line does the feed line need to be full of water I.E.-i cut the line to put the t in and water should squirt out? or can i set it up as a dry line then hook it to the rez and just have the lowest blumat completely open until flow is achieved?

No the feed lines should be empty just soak the stone and place the cap on underwater. Dry baby dry

 

[heady blunts]

i finally drew the diagram for a vented line set up. this is how mine is set up (actually i don't have a shut off valve -- it's not necessary, just convenient). credit goes to GDbud for the idea. works great and especially well suited for micro grows.

also here's the loop diagram again just so it's all in one convenient location.