DIY Auto-Watering & Drain to Waste System.

[reds]

All set up ready to go. Plants have been in their final pots for 6 days now. Was going to let them root out the new pots for 10 days, then flip them. Is that long enough in coco, or should I let them veg alittle longer? 4 of them went from 3.4L pots to 7.5L pots and the rest went from 1.5L pots to 5&6L pots. They should all be in the same pots but a batch of BerryBombs just died on me or where mutant from the start. So I had to crack aload more seeds 2-3 wks later. Been trying to catch them up with the 1st lot of 3x Iced grapefruit & 1x GSC ever since. A right ball ache. Managed to get them on the same strength feeds now, but their heights are all over the place. Nothing some upturned pots wont sort. Ive got the blue drippers but only enough for 1per pot, so ive made up some dripper rings using T pieces. How many holes should I put in them? And are people piercing them on both sides.? Top and bottom?

Cheers, reds.

Ps. My water pH would rise from 7.3ish out the tap to 8.0pH afetr 24hr fluming. With an airstone in there as well, it rose to 8.5pH Got the phosphoric acid for pHing now, so hope to see the levels stabilise abit now. It defo helps to add your nutes 24hrs before, leave it flume/bubble, then pH adjust it. The rise was alot less then before, when I use to add everything at the same time. So im picking up aload of tios from this thread. Great work guys, will let you know hiw the first automated feedings go! Fingers crossed. I think people are having problems because theyre trying to tinker with it too much. It works better the simpler it is. Simple as that.

[Guest]

All set up ready to go. Plants have been in their final pots for 6 days now. Was going to let them root out the new pots for 10 days, then flip them. Is that long enough in coco, or should I let them veg alittle longer? 4 of them went from 3.4L pots to 7.5L pots and the rest went from 1.5L pots to 5&6L pots. They should all be in the same pots but a batch of BerryBombs just died on me or where mutant from the start. So I had to crack aload more seeds 2-3 wks later. Been trying to catch them up with the 1st lot of 3x Iced grapefruit & 1x GSC ever since. A right ball ache. Managed to get them on the same strength feeds now, but their heights are all over the place. Nothing some upturned pots wont sort. Ive got the blue drippers but only enough for 1per pot, so ive made up some dripper rings using T pieces. How many holes should I put in them? And are people piercing them on both sides.? Top and bottom?

Cheers, reds.

Ps. My water pH would rise from 7.3ish out the tap to 8.0pH afetr 24hr fluming. With an airstone in there as well, it rose to 8.5pH Got the phosphoric acid for pHing now, so hope to see the levels stabilise abit now. It defo helps to add your nutes 24hrs before, leave it flume/bubble, then pH adjust it. The rise was alot less then before, when I use to add everything at the same time. So im picking up aload of tios from this thread. Great work guys, will let you know hiw the first automated feedings go! Fingers crossed. I think people are having problems because theyre trying to tinker with it too much. It works better the simpler it is. Simple as that.

Hey @@reds, i would just put holes on the bottom of the ring m8, maybe every inch or so should work i would think, maybe someone doing the same could clarify??

Im sure when i first started with the auto feeding i had an issue with pots that were raised higher than the others so keep an eye on that, i might be wrong tho but somethings telling me they didnt get as much feed as the ones that wernt raised

I agree 100% regarding folk tinkering with it too much, theres just no telling some folk, but your right, simple is better!

All the best

TS

Edited July 25, 2014 by TheSaint

[reds]

@@TheSaint Thanks for the heads up on the raised pots issue. Will definitely keep an eye on it. When I time the feeding output in order to set the timer, ill put acouple of jugs at the differing heights of my pots to see if they are being watered differently. The older, bigger plants have been topped, and the smaller ones havent. Im praying that after the stretch, theyll be roughly the same height. Might have to supercrop some of the taller ones. Cheers mate, and thanks for posting this guide.

[Inspiration101]

Great thread, was just thinking about an automated watering system for my soil setup, this has got the old grey matter ticking over.

[reds]

You could do a chemical soil grow and not worry about the rez going manky. But with organics or the PM OT range, you would have to use any feeds within, I think, 6 hrs. Just mix up a feed, turn on the timer, feed them. Job done for aday or 2. Might be worth running a tiny amiunt of water thru after, just to clear the pipes. So if getting to some plants to water is a ball ache, then this would be ideal.

[Inspiration101]

Seems like a viable method for me to continue my soil grow and zoom off for a week's holiday for instance. I don't get away much anyway but would be good to get in place a system that allows me the freedom to grow and spend time away from home.

I am using biobizz feed but I daresay it would make sense to just feed them water for the time I am away and ensure they get a manual heavy feed just before I leave.

[English Oak]

@@reds

Hello mate, On my current grow I'll be using the feed ring for irrigation on my pots. What I'm going to do is use a 2mm drill bit and drill straight through the side of the ring and out the other so that you have 2 irrigation holes on the ring (One each side). What you could do to make sure that they are all uniform is get a block of wood the length of the feed ring and mark the dill holes evenly on that for a template and just tie each end to seccure before drilling. @@Chester Copperpot is doing something similar

@@Inspiration101

Hi mate, I use this system for soil and find that Ionic for soil works without any probs at all.

[Inspiration101]

@@English Oak That is good to know for sure, however Ionic is not completely organic as I understand it and this would break my keeping it organic rule.

[English Oak]

@@Inspiration101

Sorry mate, Ionic isn't organic I should have mentioned that, I think it would be a bit difficult trying to run this type of system with Organic feeds as they may end up congealing and blocking the feed lines.

[Chester Copperpot]

@@Chester Copperpot is doing something similar

That is true, @@English Oak It isn't working out as expected though. I got six 6mm feed lines running off one 13mm tube, a homemade antler basically. Don't need the extra one back to the res as the res is lower than the pots. All lines cut evenly and ringed around the plants off a tee connection. I don't know if it's because they're all drinking at different rates or what, but there's two pots that are dry every time I look in and the rest are wet still. One is so wet there's a lot of run off. It might be down to blockages but getting in and trying to sort it would be difficult now 5 weeks into flowering either way they're all getting a feed of sorts so they won't dry out and I'm hand feeding the dryer ones everyday too. No big deal up to now but it's a shame it doesn't work evenly as it's a bit of a pain in the arse with work etc. Just to add if anyone is thinking of using 13mm pipe as the manifold for the 6mm feed lines to branch off from, then there are 2 types of pipe; hard or soft. The nipples need to be pushed into the hard pipe as the seal won't be enough to hold on the soft type. No problem if you need to have your 13mm pipe swoop round or bend round corners then do this with soft and use a straight connector for the bit of hard you will need for the nipples. . Ooer Mrs!!

[BLOCKER]

what size pump you using chester?, are you using rings? if so do they all have the same holes in them?, and are your lines close together coming off the 13mm tubing?

[English Oak]

Hi @@Chester Copperpot, sorry to hear it's not going well with your system. I used the Hoselock nipples from B&Q. Once you have punctured the 13mm feed (Soft tube) antler the nipples are threaded so you can actually screw them in to the holes you've just made to make a good seal. (I use a Gavel to puncture first) I Had 3 plants that drunk at a different rate to the other 9 as I used different mothers for the clones. One type drunk 2 liters every other day and the other type drank 3 litres every other day. The way I got round this was that I new that for 2 litres it took 3 mins pump time so for 4 liters it took 4.5 mins pump time. I just bought 3 x Hoselock stop valves and connected those to the 3 feed lines that served the plants that required less feed and turned them off after 3 mins pump time.

This time round all the clones are from the same mother so should all feed the same as they did in the first grow.

[Chester Copperpot]

what size pump you using chester?, are you using rings? if so do they all have the same holes in them?, and are your lines close together coming off the 13mm tubing?

Hi mate. All the feed lines were cut to the same length and holes drilled in roughly the same places so you'd think it would work out pretty even. The pots are evenly spread out too and the rings are cut the same length as each other. Using a maxi jet 1000 which to be fair I'm going to need anyway if I switch back to my old way of doing things.

@@English Oak. Did my best with it and it is still working as good as it needs to be for now so no complaints

Edited July 26, 2014 by Chester Copperpot

[BLOCKER]

you probraly want a powerful pump but the key to even pressure is having all the holes on the 13mm as close together as you can not spread out because the changes the pressure, powerfuller pump I think

[Chester Copperpot]

you probraly want a powerful pump but the key to even pressure is having all the holes on the 13mm as close together as you can not spread out because the changes the pressure, powerfuller pump I think

Oh I get what you mean now. Yeah I learned that the hard way. First try I had the holes far apart, to come off exactly where the pots are and that didn't work at all! I mean not even as good as it is now! But second time, and currently, they're all tight together in the same place.