what's the best way to restrict water flow?

[hush]

I need to decrease the water flow rate for the pump I'm using to automate my hempy buckets. Right now, it only takes like 15 seconds to overflow the buckets, and my electric timers all only go down to 1 minute increments. I'm using a small reservoir, and I don't want to waste that much water because I'll be refilling it too often.

What's the best way to restrict flow from a water pump? Should I use a ball valve? Or should I try to restrict the intake of the pump? Or should I poke a bunch of holes in the 1/2" tubing above the water line, so that there is less pressure going up into the tubing? Or should I use a pinch clamp?

Or is there a cheap timer that does 15 second increments?

 

[Jhhnn]

Most pumps, particularly submersibles, respond well to ball valves on the outlet. If the pump is way too big, you may want to put a tee on the outlet, add a return line to the reservoir, tune the flow with ball valves on both parts of the outlet.

Capische?

Your recent Sadhu grow was terrific, btw. Growing is kinda like auto racing, in a way- there's no substitute for the horsepower of a 1000W lamp, huh?

 

[farmari]

I have a situation like this, my pump used 1/2" tubing on a loop with a bunch of 1/4" feed lines plugged into it. I added a T fitting to the 1/2" tubing between the pump and the manifold loop. The extra 1/2" line attached to the T had a ball valve attached at the end, and remained in the res. The valve helped control the amount of flow. So a lot of the water flowing through the pump merely went through the extra 1/2" tubing and back into the res, reducing the amount of pressure/flow on the 1/4" feed lines. I hope that makes sense!

But my setup is recirculating... so too much flow isn't as big of an issue.

I don't know but would think that adding extra outlets for the water flow to relieve the pressure would be better than restricting the pump, because restricting the pump might be hard on it and reduce its lifespan. I'm not sure though !

 

[hush]

That's brilliant, you guys! I love the tee idea! That is perfect. It would also double as my anti siphon valve, since the res is higher than the garden!

And yes, Jhhnn, nothing compares to that 1000w now! Thanks for the kind words.

 

[Treetroit City]

Cheap alternative.

MistKing seconds timer. Yep, does one second increments.

 

[hush]

^ That's awesome. I think I will order one of those anyway, and still use a tee.

 

[hush]

Update

Update

Well I went out and bought a few tees and valves today. I installed a tee just above the water line, and started off by testing what happened when I only put a valve on the end the goes down to the plants, leaving the other side of the tee unrestricted:

I started, as shown in the photo above, with the valve entirely closed, and slowly opened it until all the buckets below were being watered. The problem is by the time the valve was fully open, there still wasn't enough water pressure happening, and only a couple of the pots were being watered, and that was a trickle. So it was all going out the other end of the tee, it seemed.

I then installed a valve on the other side of the tee, and after some tricky trial and error I think I have it set in a way that will send water out all of the feeder lines, at mostly equal pressure, and take almost a full minute to overflow the buckets:

It seemed to me like what worked best was when both valves were equally open, regardless of how open they were. So the way it ended up is where both valves are just slightly opened from the completely closed position. More testing is in order, so I'll report back if anything changes, but I think this will do fine.

I think I'm still going to order one of those timers from above, too.