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Gravity Fed Drip/Watering Ideas For Soil

headiez247

shut the fuck up Donny
Veteran
So watering is starting to become a nightmare for my room (see link in sig) and I'm trying to figure out how I can make this all easier.

As of right now this is what I have:


f_bucketm_da78de5.jpg


Two gallon bucket on a pully with a 5/8 inch tube coming out the bottom. Put a gallon in at a time and just move the tube from plant to plant.

BUT, the girls are getting big and its really a pain in the ass.


My question

I am hoping I could change the 2 gallon bucket for a 5 gallon bucket, have that main line go down the center of the plants, then have smaller lines going directly into each pot. Got 14 girls to feed. I don't want to do drip, just used that name because it seems to apply. I'd just have an open end at the end and water would flow slow (thinking 1/4 inch tubing?) but steady.

I've looked all over and haven't really found/figured out what size I should use from the bucket as the "main line" and then what I should use for the smaller ones to go from main line to the individual pots. Is it even possible to do this if I have the 5 gal full and up at the ceiling level? Will gravity make it ok?

Thanks for any help
 
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G

Guest

I don't like how you have water above your lights... :yoinks:
But I'm a clumsy oaf and kick over shit ALL the time! LOL

Watering is a PITA!!! No doubt!

I do very similar to you, but I don't use gravity.
I use a very small (the smallest @ Home Depot) fountain pump, and some 1/4" hose.
I taped a plant stake to the end of the hose to use as a "wand".
I use only a 1 gal jug for my "rez"
I have makings at the quart levels

I water my plants 1 qt at a time, then go to the next, ...making my way around and around. :wallbash:
Eventually, everything is saturated enough to give me back about 10% - 15% in the drain pans. Which I collect and dump.

I've tried drippers in the past. I was never able to get the saturation I could from hand watering. :badday:
So I went with this "hybrid" method...

I've considered soaker hoses... :confused:

Open ended hoses might irrigate too fast.
Then your nute sol would just run off the top of the soil rather than into it. :confused:
 

headiez247

shut the fuck up Donny
Veteran
Hey man, thanks for the info.

I like your idea and am open to it but theres GOTTA be a way to spread the rest out. If you had your res, with the fountain pump, and say 1/2 inch line that then went into this mystery manifold that I cant find anywhere where it basically branches out to a ton of different lines. If your buying the pump why not try to make it so you dont have to go around with the wand?
 
G

Guest

headiez247 said:
Hey man, thanks for the info.

I like your idea and am open to it but theres GOTTA be a way to spread the rest out. If you had your res, with the fountain pump, and say 1/2 inch line that then went into this mystery manifold that I cant find anywhere where it basically branches out to a ton of different lines. If your buying the pump why not try to make it so you dont have to go around with the wand?


I've seen a "manifold" while researching drippers. (I think it's at HD?)
But I just used a bunch of "Ts" and "Elbows" to do my branching...

The problem I had was that the other side of the pot wouldnt get the same amount of water...whether with drippers or not...
I tried two drippers per pot, but there were still dry spots in between.

The hoses, with all the branching, were very unruly.
Simply rotating or moving a plant was more complicated.

I really hope we can come up with a better way.
But for now, my wand works for me.

Edit:
I know that the garden centers around here use drippers to maintain their container stock. They don't seem too worried with evenly moist soil. So, maybe I'm making it harder than it has to be?
 
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headiez247

shut the fuck up Donny
Veteran
sunnydog said:
We use these at our outdoor grow.http://www.rambridge.com/products/irrigat/tropf/tropfbu2.html
They are AMAZING!
Keep moisture levels perfect!
I am blown away more people don't use these.


I had never seen that before, pretty cool. The main thing I don't like about it is the "automation" part. I want to feed all at once not over a long period of time, mainly because I need to be standing there and filling the res since my girls need a total of 14 gallons per feeding, but also I just don't want to trust this random thing to know when to feed them.

For outdoor grows though, oh man, talk about a lifesaver, you must be so happy with them. And you find that it works great I imagine? And the roots get full coverage?
 

sunnydog

Drip King
Veteran
headiez247 said:
I had never seen that before, pretty cool. The main thing I don't like about it is the "automation" part. I want to feed all at once not over a long period of time, mainly because I need to be standing there and filling the res since my girls need a total of 14 gallons per feeding, but also I just don't want to trust this random thing to know when to feed them.

For outdoor grows though, oh man, talk about a lifesaver, you must be so happy with them. And you find that it works great I imagine? And the roots get full coverage?





 

pineappaloupe

Active member
ive been using a rubber maid bin with a hose that comes out of the bottom. i got all the parts from the local hydro store, borrowed a drill bit to cut the hose coupler, and added 2 valves. just keep it above the plants (i put it on a chair) and let gravity do it. im planning on adding hoses to each plant, some connected in series, then i can just attached the hose to the res, and open it up, watering 4 plants at once.
 

headiez247

shut the fuck up Donny
Veteran
I'm going to attempt to solve this problem tomorrow for better or worse. My current plan is a 5 gal bucket for the res, with a small fountain pump in it. The pump will attach to a 3/4 inch tube that goes straight down the middle of the grow room. off of this main 3/4 line will be 1/2 inch tubes that go to each individual pot. There will either be some sort of attachment at the end that spreads it out across more area, or it will just have a single opening at the middle of each plant.
 

headiez247

shut the fuck up Donny
Veteran
Ok so I spent some time at OSH and figured out how I'm going to do it. Parts are below. Total cost $60.


f_waterm_3c74e40.jpg
 
HI Headiez.

How did your irrigation system go?

I'm asking because I've been playing around this afternoon with a similar diy system, using a pond pump (450l/h, .5 bar) and 1/2" bore hosepipe and push-in "T" connectors.

The pump seems beefy enough, but I am having difficulties in getting an even flow distribution through the outlet pipes - even though I'm only splitting it 3-ways...

Did you come across this problem? If so, how did you solve it?

Thanks,

Monkey

Edit: After having read some more posts - it seems that the common feature is that the drip pipes are always smaler bore than the feed pipe. Is this where I'm going wrong, by using 1/2" all the way?
 
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