Automated irrigation small scale questions

Anyone have a small scale automated irrigation system? Im brainstorming right now in the scheming phase and would love any provided feedback.

My plan is:

Amazon automated irrigation pump.
Visit the sPlant Store
3.8 out of 5 stars 728Reviews

[Upgraded Pump] Big Power Automatic Drip Irrigation Kit, Indoor Plants Self Watering System with 0.5-30 Day Interval Programmable Timer,for 15 Potted Plants, Watering on Working Days


Advanced nutrients- heard it keeps a ph for a week with their ph perfect sensi coco line

5 gallon resovoir bucket (do i need to circulate it with a pump) my plan is to set it up on week intervals.. would love imput on seconds per watering (depending on plant size) how many times per day( never grew in coco always been in soil)

Coco/ perlite medium

HarleyBlue13 said:

Anyone have a small scale automated irrigation system? Im brainstorming right now in the scheming phase and would love any provided feedback.

My plan is:

Amazon automated irrigation pump.
Visit the sPlant Store
3.8 out of 5 stars 728Reviews

[Upgraded Pump] Big Power Automatic Drip Irrigation Kit, Indoor Plants Self Watering System with 0.5-30 Day Interval Programmable Timer,for 15 Potted Plants, Watering on Working Days


Advanced nutrients- heard it keeps a ph for a week with their ph perfect sensi coco line

5 gallon resovoir bucket (do i need to circulate it with a pump) my plan is to set it up on week intervals.. would love imput on seconds per watering (depending on plant size) how many times per day( never grew in coco always been in soil)

Coco/ perlite medium

Click to expand...

Drain to waste?

Wayne55 said:

Drain to waste?

Click to expand...

Thats the plan, but not sure how drain to reuse works

Some tips..

1. Don't trust those amazon systems.

2. If this is your first go with coco, starting with a smaller plant count like 4 might be better to learn on and then scale up.

3. You will want a bigger reservoir if you're planning on drain to waste. I grow 4 plants in 2 gal pots and use a 23 gal garbage barrel I fill to 16 gal as my rez. It lasts about 5 days feeding 3 times a day.

This site has a tutorial and article page that will teach you all you need to know. I just linked you right to the auto feed section. I know enough to grow pretty well but not enough to walk you through it. This site walks you through it.

Diy auto water by coco for cannabis

Floraflex makes a nice kit.

Renfro said:

Floraflex makes a nice kit.

Click to expand...

Wow that is nice, do you think i can use my own cloth pots for pots and just use the dripper around em?

HarleyBlue13 said:

Wow that is nice, do you think i can use my own cloth pots for pots and just use the dripper around em?

Click to expand...

Use a flora cap perhaps and their clips to hold the line.

what about blumats? I've been looking into them lately, I like the low tech aspect

Rurumo said:

what about blumats? I've been looking into them lately, I like the low tech aspect

Click to expand...

They are fine with plain water but start adding nutrients and clogged carrots become an issue.

Renfro said:

Use a flora cap perhaps and their clips to hold the line.

Click to expand...

Sorry for all the questions, i wwnt with 6, 6 in pot pro kit from floraflex for my 3x3. Now gotta figure out drainage. Know of any 3x3 flood tables?

HarleyBlue13 said:

Sorry for all the questions, i wwnt with 6, 6 in pot pro kit from floraflex for my 3x3. Now gotta figure out drainage. Know of any 3x3 flood tables?

Click to expand...

Botanicare has 3x3 trays.

that's my setup with a vivosun pump on a timer that can be programmed to minutes. I am recirculating water. Worked very well for weed with drippers in one gallon fabric pots. You just need to keep track of the ph and water usage so you can replenish nutrients


20$ for the pump, 20$ for the timer and 10$ for the manifold. The reservoir i found it at lowes for cheap. one thing to make it better would be to use opaque tubing but algea didn't cause issues

I had a 20gal trash can. With a pump and a manifold. With a few 1/4” lines going to each pot. Just on a simple timer.

btw with advanced ph perfect. I found it will hold ph for 4-5 days then it would drop below 5.0 in like 12hrs. I would dump it after that.

that was a DTW res too.

I now went back to fresh mixing feed.

Renfro said:

They are fine with plain water but start adding nutrients and clogged carrots become an issue.

Click to expand...

I've never had an issue with them clogging but it's going to depend on the nutrients you use. The feed lines are only 3mm so if you use a sludgy nutrient like Botanicare or even GH as their micro causes buildup you may have issues. I remember the purple buildup in my reservoirs years ago when I was using GH trio.

I was using water soluble dry nutrients when using them and never had any issues with clogging. But I can definitely see them clogging if you use nutrients that leave a buildup over time. I bought some PeKacid for that reason but I never had a need to use it. I definitely wouldn't run organic nutrients with them.

steve870 said:

View attachment 4827019
that's my setup with a vivosun pump on a timer that can be programmed to minutes. I am recirculating water. Worked very well for weed with drippers in one gallon fabric pots. You just need to keep track of the ph and water usage so you can replenish nutrients
View attachment 4827020
View attachment 4827021
20$ for the pump, 20$ for the timer and 10$ for the manifold. The reservoir i found it at lowes for cheap. one thing to make it better would be to use opaque tubing but algea didn't cause issues

Click to expand...

?
Can you link your timer

honestly bud for what your wanting to do I would just go with the autopot system. I switched to them from rdwc / ebbflow and I don't think I'm ever going back. As its a bottom feed system if your doing typical grows (4-6 weeks veg then bloom) your all good. I know some guys like to veg for months and if that's the case salt gets in the way being a bottom fed. That being said I've seen no ill effects from salt lockout on typical grows. I just finished my 2nd grow and I hit 807 grams/sqft. I've never done that with other systems, stalks were ridiculous.

To each their own but just seems a simple setup like this would save you a lot of aggravation and still complete the original goal, a low maintenance high reward system.

HarleyBlue13 said:

?
Can you link your timer

Click to expand...

i have two of them, they have integrated battery so they keep working when there are power outages. since i was leaving home for sometimes a few weeks it was a must for me.

xtsho said:

I was using water soluble dry nutrients when using them and never had any issues with clogging. But I can definitely see them clogging if you use nutrients that leave a buildup over time. I bought some PeKacid for that reason but I never had a need to use it. I definitely wouldn't run organic nutrients with them.

Click to expand...

as long as you don't mix sulphates and nitrates together. You should be fine because this kind of mix reduces solubility of the fertilizer. That's why most commercial greenhouses mix two separates nutrients solutions and mix them right before sending it out to the fertigation lines so that it doesn't have time to precipitate in the system and clog everything.

HarleyBlue13 said:

Anyone have a small scale automated irrigation system? Im brainstorming right now in the scheming phase and would love any provided feedback.

My plan is:

Amazon automated irrigation pump.
Visit the sPlant Store
3.8 out of 5 stars 728Reviews

[Upgraded Pump] Big Power Automatic Drip Irrigation Kit, Indoor Plants Self Watering System with 0.5-30 Day Interval Programmable Timer,for 15 Potted Plants, Watering on Working Days


Advanced nutrients- heard it keeps a ph for a week with their ph perfect sensi coco line

5 gallon resovoir bucket (do i need to circulate it with a pump) my plan is to set it up on week intervals.. would love imput on seconds per watering (depending on plant size) how many times per day( never grew in coco always been in soil)

Coco/ perlite medium

Click to expand...

Here is what I have....
A 100 ltr tank
Non return valve and pump
A topspin 12 way dripper manifold... comes with stakes and pipes
A lizard timer... it does seconds

As for drain... I have a madusa base system... aka rhizo trays. The pots sit on the bases and they pipe to a brain tank that pumps the waste away.... dont reuse nutes in coco

If you can get access to a 3D printer, these drip manifolds I designed work well. They are meant to be used with a lower volume pump like the one in the picture. The pumps are cheap, seem to last a long time (I haven't had one fail yet), and work great when you pair one pump with one manifold. You will need a way to control the pump down to the second. The pump and manifold combination can move about 30 ML per second, so if you can control it to the second you can feed the exact quantity that you need to achieve the run-off percent you want. I think there are several off the shelf timer units that can control down to the second. I am using this method paired with an esp32 microcontroller that is also controlling the temperature, humidity, and interval between watering events. I also have my plants suspended above the drip trays, and I have the drip trays sitting on digital scales that are also connected to the esp32. I have the microcontroller programed to automatically increase the ML per watering event by 10% any time that it detects that the percent of run-off collected does not meet my desired setpoint.