DIY Easy Drip to Waste set up

[lazylathe]

This is how i set up my drip irrigation for my new Coco grow.
Very low maintenance and super easy to make!

I bought a reservoir that holds 75 Litres
Drilled a hole in the lid for the outlet and a small cut for the air line and pump cable.

It is run on a timer that does 15 minute intervals.
For veg i am finding that one 15 minute watering is good enough for very slight run off.

The whole system uses 1/4 inch black tubing and barbed connectors, very easy to assemble! Only need a sharp knife!

The kit i bought came with a pressure reducer that i did not use. I only used the filter to keep the lines clean.

Inside the bucket there is an air stone that runs 24/7 and a 150GPH pond pump.

The emitters that came with the kit were 1/2GPH and did not really run off the pumps pressure. To rectify this i drilled out the emitters with a very small drill bit, now they all run equally.

A shot of the corrugated plastic and the angled gutter that is the drain

And the waste collection bucket

Very quick to set up and very low maintenance!!

 

[Groff]

Max rep my friend! Thank you for taking the time. That is one elegant design indeed. I was gearing up for DWC this fall, but I m having second thoughts since my 1.2m x 1.2m tent only has one entry point. Its kind of fitted into a dead space so impossible to do individual bucket changes mid flowering. i am torn between building a RDWC or keep my current gear and add a drip system. Please let me pick your brain further!

What kit did you use? I cant seem to find any ready-made, "plug and play" kits anywhere.

So you bubble the main rez... the water level starts going down throughout the week, so the amount of air bubbled increases, doesn't the pH start going up like crazy?

And you only water once a day for 15minutes in veg? I thought the whole idea with a drip system was to multi-feed every day. That is why I was initially thinking a recirculating feed would be better, but much more complex to build. What's your approach?

What size pots do you prefer, and how even does that 1 emitter per pot handle it?

:thumbs:

 

[Soylent Green]

Max rep my friend! Thank you for taking the time. That is one elegant design indeed. I was gearing up for DWC this fall, but I m having second thoughts since my 1.2m x 1.2m tent only has one entry point. Its kind of fitted into a dead space so impossible to do individual bucket changes mid flowering.

:thumbs:

Why would you want to do individual bucket changes, a partial water change and little solution flush is better than a complete change I think!
I have a pump installed in my container so i can pump out as much solution as I wish!

Profit you keep your good bacteria and you dont have the risk of root damage if you do it this way!
For my its so much more easier and cleaner than to work with soil! Also monitoring PH and EC is much faster!

:gthumb:

 

[lazylathe]

Hey Groff!
Thanks for the SLAP!!
Here's one for you!!



Answer time:

I stepped away from individual bucket changes, something i learnt from my fish breeding days!
Much easier to keep one large res at the correct parameters that trying to do so with 10 smaller reservoirs!
Also i would highly recommend anyone doing hydro to buy one of these:
http://www.getbluelab.com/shop/Bluelab+Truncheon%AE+Nutrient+Meter.html

An awesome and easy to use tool!!

As for kits i just searched "Drip Irrigation Kit" there are so many out there.
I bought this one:
http://www.dripdepot.com/123

A complete package except for the pump!

I am using H&G Cocos A+B and the water in the res stays right around 5.8-6.1, these numbers are easy to work with and the swing is quite small.
Only takes a few minutes to check and adjust the PH every week.
The longest time is when i change out the res, then it takes about 20 minutes in total to get all the measurements correct.

Watering once a day in Coco is working out great for me!
Using LED's the temps and humidity in the room are very constant.
Evaporation is minimal in the pots and when i use my moisture meter it is always just in the middle, not too wet and not dry.
I am finding it seems to help in root growth, as the pots start to dry they get watered again.
So it is not constantly wet or dry, just a happy medium!

Once the veg is done the watering will be increased to a few times a day.
I will adjust the time on depending on the plants needs.

Recirculating is not harder to build!
Just put the drain back into the res and you are done!
Overflow will flow back into the bucket and be recirculated, the only concern for me is that the recirc water may cause PH issue during the week and require more maintenance.
I may try it for my next grow with Auto Dragons!!

Pot size i went with what was in stock at the hydro store!
They seem to be a fair size, about 15 litres i think, so around 3 gallons?

I also thought one emitter may be too little and i was going to switch to drip rings, decided to see how it goes first.
When they are watered you can see a nice circle of moist Coco around the plant, almost to the edges of the pot.
I think this is good enough!
Really surprised by how well Coco wicks the water around the pot!!

So far so good!!!
Either system will give you great results!
Just takes a bit of tailoring but once it is running it is very easy to maintain!
This was a goal of mine since SWMBO complained i spent too much time with my babies last grow...
She is much happier with this set up!

 

[Groff]

Why would you want to do individual bucket changes, a partial water change and little solution flush is better than a complete change I think!

Thats the whole point, I wanted to do DWC, both photos and autos from time to time. With photo's its quite easy, clone mother and identical clones, but with autos you can have very different phenos and need to isolate a bucket and work it form there. Its not that I want to do individual bucket changes, its that I'd like to be able to isolate and work a bucket outside the recirc loop. Anyway, I will be gearing up for coco drip system I think, not that expensive to finish as I already own the majority of the more expensive stuff.

Yeah, I have in a bluelab guardian, ridiculous how good it is. I was f*ckin lucky to find an online shop selling it for the list price of an inferior model by mistake so I snatched it for 200€ :hot:... worth over 300 around here! Have air pump, Hailea 9860 (60L/m, thats 3600L/h, so thats 950GPH - a bit too much?) have a water pump (can't remember how strong but will check).. all I need is drip lines, drippers, filter etc.

I now see thing much clearer, and a few quick calls and I now have a couple shops I can visit. Wooo-hoo!

 

[Groff]

All right! So I spent the day making a list of what I needed and ended up only spending 25€ !! and 15 of those was for the filter/reducer. The rest was for several inverting connectors to fit the pump and tubing to the filter, emitters and T connectors.

My pump is 36w 2000m3/h (sooo thats 528 US GPH) so I bought the filter with the pressure reducer. I hope the back pressure doesn't fry the pump. I have a crap load of 4mm tubing, so it will be straight out of the filter to 4mm. Then direct to the emitters. I'm thinking that is ok since it will only be for 4 pots, and the emitters are not self regulating, they're manually regulated. I plan on doing it tomorrow morning so I can fire it up before lights on.

Laze, why did you mount the filter that way? I plan on having everything submerged and only the black pipe popping out the rez. Anything I should be aware of?

 

[lazylathe]

All right! So I spent the day making a list of what I needed and ended up only spending 25€ !! and 15 of those was for the filter/reducer. The rest was for several inverting connectors to fit the pump and tubing to the filter, emitters and T connectors.

My pump is 36w 2000m3/h (sooo thats 528 US GPH) so I bought the filter with the pressure reducer. I hope the back pressure doesn't fry the pump. I have a crap load of 4mm tubing, so it will be straight out of the filter to 4mm. Then direct to the emitters. I'm thinking that is ok since it will only be for 4 pots, and the emitters are not self regulating, they're manually regulated. I plan on doing it tomorrow morning so I can fire it up before lights on.

Laze, why did you mount the filter that way? I plan on having everything submerged and only the black pipe popping out the rez. Anything I should be aware of?

Great stuff Groff!!!
Now that i know you are in Europe i will post up links that are closer to you!
Told you it was easy!!:stylez rasta smoke:

I took the pressure reducer out of my system, pump was too small to handle the reducer...
The filter is outside the bucket because it makes it super easy to clean and i cannot forget about cleaning it!:Stones slap:LOL!!
You can submerge everything if you want, there should be no issues with it contaminating the water.

I am going to send you a link in PM for you to look at a different set up.
Something more along the lines that you are talking about!

 

[Groff]

I did it! Check my auto white widow diary in my sig. Love you! I had a blast of a time and works like a charm!



Checking the links right now!

:smokebuds: