DIY Auto-Watering & Drain to Waste System.

[Guest]

Wicked thread im going to try this myself for when I go on holiday

Do you know if 13mm drip rings will work? Or does the feed lines have to be smaller?

Hey m8 just seen your post, i cant comment on the 13mm drip rings m8 as ive never used them dude

[cocomonkey]

Hey m8 just seen your post, i cant comment on the 13mm drip rings m8 as ive never used them dude

Its alright i was gonna try and make one with the things I got but if it aint broke dont fix, the drippers are cheap as chips anyway.

I need to figure a way of getting rid of the waste, im thinking of fitting a drain with pipework fixed to a garland tray and because its in the loft I can just rely on gravity.

[dingo bingo]

Mornin' folks,

I'm setting up my second auto-watering system in the next few days, hoping to make some improvements on the first. Got a few questions...

I built my antler within the res itself and had those metal hose clamps holding the 13mm pipe and connections tight, at times being submerged in the nutrient solution. Is it ok to have that metal submerged in the nutrient solution or is it needed/best kept out?

I was considering sealing the res. lid snugly to prevent any potential leak/spray, but thought it may restrict oxygen getting into the solution? I will be aerating the solution via fluming, no air pump planned at the moment.

Finally, I can't decide whether to position my antler within the res. (so theres no connection between res. and dripper, meaning no chance of leaking) or within the growroom. It would be much neater and easier to position the antler inside the growroom but I'm worried that my 2,000LpH water butt pump may burst out a nipple and leave a hole spraying water all over the electrical covered growroom, is that a realistic risk or will it be ok? Antler inside room would mean the 4mm feed lines being 3.5m long each, compared to 6m each if the antler stays within the res.

Any thoughts welcome,

Cheers, DB

[MR-GR33N]

Excellent post there mate, thanks for sharing!

[Guest]

@@dingo bingo

Hey dude if you go to page 8 i think it is you will see that i have my antler in the tent now & how ive done it, works a treat!

Not sure about the metal clip being submerged m8, shouldnt do any harm i would think

[dingo bingo]

Hi guys,

I changed plan from what I was thinking before of having the antler within the res. Instead I have ran some 13mm flexi pipe in a big loop around my grow room with a 8 way manifold joining on for each light. There are 8 plants under each light, each manifold can be isolated from the main loop via an inline tap to feed different strengths etc and each plant is fed via a 1.1m length of 4mm pipe and dripper. Within the res (230L butt), 13mm flexi pipe runs from the 2200L/h water butt pump to a Tee piece, one side to the main loop and drippers with the other side just having a short length of 13mm pipe to act as an anti-syphon and reduce pressure to the drippers. I made sure that every single length of pipe and positioning was equal, hoping that would result in even feeding.

I've only just tried it for the first time and haven't had much luck. I started with the black 2 litre/per hour drippers everywhere and measured how much water came through each manifold's 8 drippers, from looking at the image the bottom left manifold had 1L altogether, top left had 0.6L, top right had 0.8L and the bottom right had 1.6L.

After that disappointing result I tried some of the fast flow blue drippers I had lying spare, only 14 though so I isolated the two left hand manifolds with their taps and fitted 7 on each right hand side manifold with the 8th dripper being the 2L/hour. Ran like that the top right manifold had 1.4L whereas the bottom right only had 1.1L.

I now know I need to do a fair bit of tinkering to get all the drippers feeding evenly, however I have no idea how I can do it. Sooo i'm hoping someone can help! Later today I will test each manifold at a time to see whether there is even feeding between the 8 lines. I should be able to water like that manually but the reason I built this was to leave the watering mostly automated whilst I'm at work in the evenings. I guess there's some info I may have forgot to include amongst the mass, will add more if I remember or if asked.

Please help a novice out! Any help would be much appreciated!

Here's a quick paint image of the setup. Each side measures 1.2x2.4 with a 1x2.4m walkway in between.

[Guest]

@@dingo bingo

Hey m8, it looks to me like your over complicating things, with that much 13mm pipe you will be losing pressure i reckon, youve done it kinda like how @@Dosti done his with the 13mm pipe round the outside, his didnt work good either.

Also m8 just incase its the same with you, @@Budelaire tried my rig with a pump which wasnt a MJ1000 and it didnt work good, since he changed it to a MJ1000 he has had no problems as far as im aware.

I think with the simplicity of my rig you cant go wrong, ive been auto feeding now for around 3yrs & all is well. Theres little things ive learned along the way, like when i finish a grow i just feed all my lines back into the res & still run it for 5mins per day. This stops the feed thats left in the 4mm lines going gunky & blocking your drippers. It also saves making a new rig everytime as it keeps feed flowing through the lines to keep them clear.

TS

[dingo bingo]

@@TheSaint

Yeah I see what you mean now, got a bit too carried away with the tinkering! I'm gonna get rid of the big loop and setup an antler just inside the growroom. I need to get 32 4mm feed lines each about 5 metres long. The same pump i have now was used before to feed 16 x 5 metres of 4mm and it worked very well.

As i have four 8 way manifolds now i think i may as well use them instead of nipples out of the 13mm? I was thinking of splitting the pump's 13mm with a tee piece, then use smallest possible lengths of 13mm to join up two 8 way's on each side of the tee, end stops after the second 8 way on each side. Sound ok?

Thanks for mentioning that mate, i've just realised my lines are most likely clogged up with gunk I didn't clean away after they were last used. Off to the shop i go for more......

DV

[Guest]

@@TheSaint

Yeah I see what you mean now, got a bit too carried away with the tinkering! I'm gonna get rid of the big loop and setup an antler just inside the growroom. I need to get 32 4mm feed lines each about 5 metres long. The same pump i have now was used before to feed 16 x 5 metres of 4mm and it worked very well.

As i have four 8 way manifolds now i think i may as well use them instead of nipples out of the 13mm? I was thinking of splitting the pump's 13mm with a tee piece, then use smallest possible lengths of 13mm to join up two 8 way's on each side of the tee, end stops after the second 8 way on each side. Sound ok?

Thanks for mentioning that mate, i've just realised my lines are most likely clogged up with gunk I didn't clean away after they were last used. Off to the shop i go for more......

DV

@@dingo bingo

Ye m8 that defo sounds better than what your using now, although i think you might be pushing it with 32 lines from 1 pump.

Or you could get another pump and setup 2 how you had it before. This is what i do, i have 1 pump feeding the right hand side & another to feed the left, 8 lines each pump, 2 per plant, works a treat.

If you know it worked before for 16 lines then just duplicate it amigo, have it like mine, 1 pump 1 side.

e2a - should any pumps fail you wont lose a whole crop then

Edited May 24, 2014 by TheSaint

[Dosti]

@@TheSaint @@dingo bingo

The Saint is right mate, my dripper rig didnt work too well....5 floods in one grow!

I tried my damn best to fix it but it just wouldn't work....in the end as soon as my plants were chopped down, i chopped the bloody dripper rig into bits and put it in the bin where it belonged

This is how mine looked

If you need any explaining of pics then just ask, right now im too gone to write a description

[dingo bingo]

@@dingo bingo

Ye m8 that defo sounds better than what your using now, although i think you might be pushing it with 32 lines from 1 pump.

Or you could get another pump and setup 2 how you had it before. This is what i do, i have 1 pump feeding the right hand side & another to feed the left, 8 lines each pump, 2 per plant, works a treat.

If you know it worked before for 16 lines then just duplicate it amigo, have it like mine, 1 pump 1 side.

e2a - should any pumps fail you wont lose a whole crop then

I did think before that the pressure was perhaps too high, feeding 2L out of each of the 16 lines only took 2 minutes. Doubling the number of lines would reduce the pressure a fair bit allowing me to better measure the feeding on a digi time which only comes on for minute intervals.

@@TheSaint @@dingo bingo

The Saint is right mate, my dripper rig didnt work too well....5 floods in one grow!

I tried my damn best to fix it but it just wouldn't work....in the end as soon as my plants were chopped down, i chopped the bloody dripper rig into bits and put it in the bin where it belonged

This is how mine looked

If you need any explaining of pics then just ask, right now im too gone to write a description

Blimey mate that's bad luck! How do you water now after that bad experience?

After already spending a fair whack on bits and bobs I could do with trying to save money atm, not £50+ on new 4mm feed line. Soooo, I have just been tinkering around upstairs trying to increase the pressure of the feed lines. From the butt pump I changed the 13mm Tee piece (a short length of 13mm line acted as the anti-syphon) to an elbow with a short length of 4mm line poked in just before the elbow to act as the anti-syphon. The big loop was kept in place whilst the only other change I made was removing the drippers, I then placed the 8 x 1m lengths of 4mm from each 8 way manifold in a bucket to measure how much feed went to each. Turning the pump on for 30 seconds gave each manifold 2 litres each (250ml to each 4mm feed line). I repeated this 3-5 times to make sure and got the same even distribution each time.

Quite please with that result tbh, it seems the feed lines are clear but just to make sure I'm running a high concentration of H2o2 through the lines to clean anything left . The only problem now is with the drippers.... I didn't like the 2L/h drippers as it seemed any slight gap in the connection between 4mm and dripper would ruin the even distribution. I'm considering trying the fast flow blue drippers and staggering the feed, something like turning the pump on for 1 minute every 3 or 4 hours.. How does that sound?

Thanks so much for the help! I'd be lost without this thread!

[Dosti]

@@dingo bingo

I dont need to water anymore mate, the grow is fnished and i have no plants left

But next grow i am putting my amazon back together and growing in them, soil/pots/drippers are a right ball ache imo

If i were to grow again in soil i would just buy a ready made dripper system i have seen in a hydro shop i use

[Guest]

@@dingo bingo

Glad youve got it sorted m8, you could stagger your feeds if you wanted, i dont do this, i just feed once a day till runoff, works fine for me

[dingo bingo]

@@dingo bingo

I dont need to water anymore mate, the grow is fnished and i have no plants left

But next grow i am putting my amazon back together and growing in them, soil/pots/drippers are a right ball ache imo

If i were to grow again in soil i would just buy a ready made dripper system i have seen in a hydro shop i use

Ahh fair play mate, hope it went well?

I know what you mean! A mate was telling me about NFT last night, I'm almost convinced to try it out next time.

@@dingo bingo

Glad youve got it sorted m8, you could stagger your feeds if you wanted, i dont do this, i just feed once a day till runoff, works fine for me

Very nearly sorted, just need to sort out some drippers. Which type do you use mate? I was thinking of staggering the feeds because the blue drippers are fast flowing and the feed would probably run off before the plants have chance to drink up. I'm thinking of using blue drippers because they wont restrict the flow and therefore keep the feed distribution even.

[Dosti]

@@dingo bingo

I got 0.6g per watt, bit on the low side was hoping for 0.7g+ per watt but considering all the crap I had to put up with its not a bad result. My diary is in my signature, have a look, it's a "warts and all" diary all my woes are in it.

I have posted pics today of my new set-up and it's looking surgically clean, just what I love A little bit more prep to do before I start but it looks promising. At least I won't have to worry about any more bloody floods!!

I would think about how you want to grow before shelling out cash for systems, I did that when I started and now have a garage full of stuff collecting dust.

Best of luck mate!