Help with automated watering system (cocco, DTW)

[majorana]

Premise: I'm growing autoflowering plants in coco/perlite with smartpots - same grow tent holds 5 plants flowering, 5 plants vegging and all enjoying 24H light, 24°C, and 50% RH.

The bane of it all is that hand watering is not practical. Been doing that for a while, but the flowering plants really need a minimum of two showers a day (ideally 3, or even more smaller showers.)

The problem I ran into with commercial water timer computers used for gardening is that they require a minimum of 0.2bar to operate. That would mean a reservoir 2 meters above the plants, which is impossible for me.

Any suggestions/thoughts/ideas?

What I'm thinking now: attach a 300L/H 12V immersion water pump to a timer/12V relay and program that to run for a minute, shooting water through a reducer on to a drip system. Then see how much water actually comes out through the drippers, and by trial and error figure out the right length of time.

This would obviously be repeated with to reservoirs, two pumps, two drip systems - for veg and flower. Just as obviously, all is DTW.

I'm already sold on learning and eventually building a PPK system, but until I get around to doing that that I need some quick hack to water these plants while I'm away with the missus.

 

[Cheesegez]

Premise: I'm growing autoflowering plants in coco/perlite with smartpots - same grow tent holds 5 plants flowering, 5 plants vegging and all enjoying 24H light, 24°C, and 50% RH.

The bane of it all is that hand watering is not practical. Been doing that for a while, but the flowering plants really need a minimum of two showers a day (ideally 3, or even more smaller showers.)

The problem I ran into with commercial water timer computers used for gardening is that they require a minimum of 0.2bar to operate. That would mean a reservoir 2 meters above the plants, which is impossible for me.

Any suggestions/thoughts/ideas?

What I'm thinking now: attach a 300L/H 12V immersion water pump to a timer/12V relay and program that to run for a minute, shooting water through a reducer on to a drip system. Then see how much water actually comes out through the drippers, and by trial and error figure out the right length of time.

This would obviously be repeated with to reservoirs, two pumps, two drip systems - for veg and flower. Just as obviously, all is DTW.

I'm already sold on learning and eventually building a PPK system, but until I get around to doing that that I need some quick hack to water these plants while I'm away with the missus.

to be honest all you need fella is a topspin/dripper system attached to a pump with a hydroponic pump timer of which you can alter times accordingly ... I have a smscom ones il attach a pic hope this answered your question ?...

 

[majorana]

What's a topspin? And yes, timer>pump>dripper was sort of what I had in mind, but I'm not sure how to match the pump to the irrigation size.

Another thought that came to mind: maybe give Blumats a second chance? On a previous grow I had the singular Blumat cones put in a reservoir. Problem was that it ended up being such a tangle of tubes that I couldn't deal with it.

Maybe the kit the puts 12 cones in-line works better? I'm thinking of placing the reservoir 3' high, drilling a tiny hole at the bottom, and squeeze through the hole a tube to go into the tent. Using Luca's formula and the way Blumats work I could afford to have only one reservoir this way and not worry about pumps breaking down while I'm away.

 

[HookahsGarden]

I grow in Coco drain to waste.
It's really rather easy and very inexpensive to put together your own automated irrigation system. I'm using the 13 gallon trash can as a reservoir. I feed between three and five times a day once plants get established. For 5 plants you really only need a very small pump. I used to separate pumps in my reservoir one connected to my irrigation system of course the other is laid sideways on the bottom and is on for 15 minutes every hour stirring my nutrients.

 

[jocat]

I agree the DTW method is both simple & effective, Iv'e been running straight coco coir in 2 gallon plastic gro bags, just toss and repot with a freshie, I run 4 by 8 trays with 32 of these in each tray they are fed by a pump powering nutrient from a chained set of 3 55G plastic barrels, the nutrient runs through a 1/2" pvc pipe/tubing and manifold set up with 1/8" spegetti tubing running from a set of 3 maverick 12 feed manifolds per tray. these can be found on amazon. they will run up to 12 feed sites and can have 4 plugged and still work, they come with pressure compensating drippers but I always take them out so they have little restriction and can water with a smaller pump, with this system you just need to do a little calculation and water to 10% or so run off, you can get plenty of saturation at each pot with a single feed tube, like I mentioned before, just remove the restricting dripper parts of the maverick manifold & viola you have a low pressure easy to clean system. Running good quality soluable nutrients that match your water is important. I switched nutrient lines until i found one that didn't shift in ph or get chunky or do some other weird shit with the well water I was using then, now I have a rain water collection storage system that gives sweet water with good results and no ph adjust needed. Don't forget that your drains should be free flowing and sized larger than you incoming feed system, say 1/2" IN 3/4" OR 1" out. you won't regret this detail. I have also found that less is more when it comes to feed schedules, although you can water coir and coir mixes multiple times per light cycle if you do you will likely have fungus gnats and will use more nutrient, from my observations in a room with co2/84F/50-60 humidity one good soaking in the early day is all it takes to get good yeilds, one additional benefit is slightly less room humidity with out multiple waterings throughout the day. this is the easiest method for a self sustaining room you can depend on. get a multi event timer and program your pump for as many days and times per day you want....make sure your res will last the whole of your holiday, have fun!

 

[majorana]

Don't forget that your drains should be free flowing and sized larger than you incoming feed system, say 1/2" IN 3/4" OR 1" out. you won't regret this detail.

Hand watering these days I have all the smart pots (on their individual little trays) on the floor, and I aim to water until I have the most minimal runoff. That little excess water I simply "drain" with a sponge every couple of days from the corner of the tent.

Part of why I'm inclined to give Blumat a second chance despite the apparent consensus for pump+drip is that it would save me from building a new apparatus to deal with runoff water (I'm guessing a second raised floor on a pendant that drains out of the tent?)

I grow in Coco drain to waste.
It's really rather easy and very inexpensive

How do you go about controlling the amount of water being fed? The timer part is easy, but getting the right amount of water seems to be trickier to me.

 

[issack]

You need to have the right gph pump for your grow. You can also put a valve on your outfeed line and turn it down.
DNE timer. Easy simple. About 60 bucks on ebay. Seconds or minutes in on time and off times can be minutes or hours. So whatever pump up have you can make the water run for whatever time you want.
I have a 330gph pump and I run Coco DTW. 48 plants. Every 2 hours my pump kicks on for 1 minute 15 seconds with open line to each plant. DNE timer is the win.

 

[HookahsGarden]

Hand watering these days I have all the smart pots (on their individual little trays) on the floor, and I aim to water until I have the most minimal runoff. That little excess water I simply "drain" with a sponge every couple of days from the corner of the tent.

Part of why I'm inclined to give Blumat a second chance despite the apparent consensus for pump+drip is that it would save me from building a new apparatus to deal with runoff water (I'm guessing a second raised floor on a pendant that drains out of the tent?)



How do you go about controlling the amount of water being fed? The timer part is easy, but getting the right amount of water seems to be trickier to me.

You would be wise to lift the pots up off the floor and put them on some sort of tray so that they can drain if you install an auto feed system.

But regulating the amount of nutrient mix that is dispersed is really easy by simply adding a pressure regulating valve and a shutoff valve that you can partially close until you have reached your desired flow amount.

 

[issack]

Corrugated roofing. Put your table at a slope about three quarters of an inch. get some gutters and slope that too into 5gal buckets. Simple easy DTW table. Here is mine.

 

[majorana]

Corrugated roofing. Put your table at a slope about three quarters of an inch. get some gutters and slope that too into 5gal buckets. Simple easy DTW table.

Fantastic idea. Building such a table would give a much wider margin of error. I ended up going the Blumat way, and spent the past three days trying to find the right balance (not to starve the plants, not to overflow the tent). Keeping my fingers crossed I finally got it right, because they'll have to survive four days w/out me...

 

[majorana]

To whomever it may concern: Blumats are very, very fickle. It took me a couple of days to dial in the dripper-sensors, every day going back to them every few hours to find some minor floodings, then dialing down until it looked right. Or at least I thought I got it right, left it for a few days, and came back to find the 80 liter (~20gal) cistern on the floor of my grow tent. Back to dialing in, this time gradually going up. It's enough to "over-open" ever so slightly one of the sensor-drippers to keep the dripping on "open", and again have the entire cistern floor the place. Twice in two weeks. If this happens a third time I'm dumping this system.

 

[exploziv]

You have the regular blumats or tropf blumats?

 

[majorana]

Blumat-tropf. The few days they worked they were excellent. But the margin of error of getting it just right is fairly narrow, and the consequences of an imbalance are a PITA. Third and final try starting tomorrow.

(In a previous grow I used the "blumat jr." and some cheap knockoffs of the brand name. The cheap knockoffs all failed, but the tangle of several tubes (and their short length) made it impractical for 5 plants.)

 

[Dank D]

I use tropf blumat's, If I can offer a suggestion.
I had the same problems when I first started using them.
Give them a good watering then adjust the blumat until it stops dripping, then turn tighter about 2 little arrow clicks on the cap of blumat. THATS IT, stop fiddling with them.
Give them at least a full day if not 2 days before you adjust anything. When you do any adjusting, do it in small increments and give it time before you adjust anymore.
Make sure your res is full to keeps the down pressure and your golden.
The more you adjust, the more likely you may have problems.
I love mine. Once set up all I have to do is manage my res. I also use drip-clean so the added benifet of not needing run off saves more time and more money. Its been a win-win-win for me.

 

[majorana]

Give them a good watering then adjust the blumat until it stops dripping, then turn tighter about 2 little arrow clicks on the cap of blumat.

By "tighter" you mean that after it stops dripping turn it 2 arrow clicks towards "-" (i.e., even tighter than what is required to stop the drip)?

Make sure your res is full to keeps the down pressure and your golden.
The more you adjust, the more likely you may have problems

What do you mean by "[my] golden"? And yes, in all probability the fault is mine, not wanting to under-feed my girls I over-did it. They're in flowering, in 50/50 coco/perlite, they can't have enough water. I just wanted to keep on giving them more and more...

I also use drip-clean so the added benifet of not needing run off saves more time and more money.

What's drip-clean..? Run off for me is more a pain to handle (manually pumping it out of the grow tent) than anything else. A minor amount that can be dealt with every few days would be fine (even better than risking going too dry).

 

[Dank D]

yep thats exactly what i mean by tighter. You have to have just watered the pot by hand first. If you tighten up to only stop dripping now, it will stay too wet. that's what the 2 arrow clicks are for. Again though, give them time after any adjustments and only make minor ones.

" your golden" is just another way of saying "your good". Once i have mine dialed in, all I have to do is manage the res. If your res get too low you will loose down pressure in the lines and it will affect how they operate. So just make sure you res always mostly full.

Drip-clean is an additive made by House & Garden. you add it to every watering from start to finish. However its not good to start using mid grow. It helps keep the water lines clean, but the biggest reason is that it prevents the salts from building up in the medium. So there is no need to water with run-off any more. Now the only time i water with run off is if I need to flush.

If you havent read the thread https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=111046 i sugguest you take a read thru. It has so much info regarding blumats.

 

[topset1976]

just remember that if you do drip line and the water level of your rez is higher then your pots the pressure of the water will make the drip lines keep feeding even after your timer shuts off. an easy way to stop this is just make a small hole in your hose line just before it exits your rez. I add a barb to my line pointing downwards in my rez since water will come out and i don't want a mess. This breaks the pressure and will stop the water from continuing when the timer goes off. btw i made drip halos from 1/4" inside diameter tubing and punched 8 holes in it to ensure uniform feeding with drip. just use a tee and you have a drip ring. i use 10 gallon pots so a single line wasn't going to work. good luck

 

[Hookah79]

I agree the DTW method is both simple & effective, Iv'e been running straight coco coir in 2 gallon plastic gro bags, just toss and repot with a freshie, I run 4 by 8 trays with 32 of these in each tray they are fed by a pump powering nutrient from a chained set of 3 55G plastic barrels, the nutrient runs through a 1/2" pvc pipe/tubing and manifold set up with 1/8" spegetti tubing running from a set of 3 maverick 12 feed manifolds per tray. these can be found on amazon. they will run up to 12 feed sites and can have 4 plugged and still work, they come with pressure compensating drippers but I always take them out so they have little restriction and can water with a smaller pump, with this system you just need to do a little calculation and water to 10% or so run off, you can get plenty of saturation at each pot with a single feed tube, like I mentioned before, just remove the restricting dripper parts of the maverick manifold & viola you have a low pressure easy to clean system. Running good quality soluable nutrients that match your water is important. I switched nutrient lines until i found one that didn't shift in ph or get chunky or do some other weird shit with the well water I was using then, now I have a rain water collection storage system that gives sweet water with good results and no ph adjust needed. Don't forget that your drains should be free flowing and sized larger than you incoming feed system, say 1/2" IN 3/4" OR 1" out. you won't regret this detail. I have also found that less is more when it comes to feed schedules, although you can water coir and coir mixes multiple times per light cycle if you do you will likely have fungus gnats and will use more nutrient, from my observations in a room with co2/84F/50-60 humidity one good soaking in the early day is all it takes to get good yeilds, one additional benefit is slightly less room humidity with out multiple waterings throughout the day. this is the easiest method for a self sustaining room you can depend on. get a multi event timer and program your pump for as many days and times per day you want....make sure your res will last the whole of your holiday, have fun!

Jocat,can you post some pics and info on your daisy chained drum barrels or start a new thread ?I've been looking into ways to rig 3 big tanks together for a dtw system, and i think aquarium auto top off is the way to go.I bought some float switches and 12v relays and i plan on rigging up a system where the mixing tank feeds a holding tank that feeds the dtw tank.The dtw,and holding tanks would have 2 float switches connected to relays and pumps that work at certain depths.