Question about drip irrigation?

So I have been growing for 18 years, 11 of those years have been indoor and outdoor since the day I started. I have a lot of experience with growing and have had many ups and downs, failures and successes ...

This is my second time ever running a drip irrigation system indoor. All the previous years I just did the old fashioned, back breaking, hand watering. My last run with drip irrigation made me wonder why in the hell I have not been doing this all along, saved me so so much time and trouble. I am still running promix (I am oldschool) and loving it. It is what I have perfected and stuck with all along. I was going to graduate to coco this run, but I'm gonna save it for the next. Really excited to see what I can do with it.

So here is my question, that i really want to experiment with and see others personal experiences with as well. So it is to my understanding that one of the greatest advantages of using coco is being able to feed/water more frequently up to multiple times per day. I am going to flip to 12/12 in just a few days and was wondering if I should feed like my last run (once per day) or if it would be to my advantage to set my timer on my system to shorter time intervals, to feed maybe 3 times per day instead. I will be flowering in 3 gallon containers and my plants root system have totally filled in the containers. I could easily feed 3 times per day without need to worry about overwatering. They suck it up almost instantly.

So basically my question is, even though I am in promix, do you think there is an advantage of maybe feeding 2 to 4 times per day via drip irrigation rather than one solid watering/feeding? Has anyone tried both and seen a difference in increasing growth? Yield?


Just got my lines hooked up tonight, been hand watering while waiting to install my new lines.

I wouldnt be multi feeding promix unless they are drying out that fast, i just dont think the mix has enough airation and drainage to sustain constant feeds. Once you switch to coco you can mess around with feed times and intervals as thats where coco shines with multi feeds. Btw nice choice of drip manifolds, i ditched the octa bubblers because they were nothing but problems. Got all Top dig ones for this round, how do you like them? any issues with clogging sites?

Great coco primer....

You are going to love the automation!

looking into octabubblers myself - currently have a home made manifold system but need to even out the watering
plan to get an octabubbler and then evenly distribute the water across the coco with a floraflex floracap to prevent dry zones
keep us updated
I am in flower atm and am watering about every 90 minutes for 22 seconds

LincolnBuds said:

looking into octabubblers myself - currently have a home made manifold system but need to even out the watering
plan to get an octabubbler and then evenly distribute the water across the coco with a floraflex floracap to prevent dry zones
keep us updated
I am in flower atm and am watering about every 90 minutes for 22 seconds

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Would love to see photos of your grow and setup. Can you post some??

I can't wait to try coco, I'm beating myself up over not using it now honestly. But for sure next round.

These dig manifolds are awesome! They distribute all water evenly no matter the length of the lines.

My hybrid install of air manifolds to open lines. Each port fully adjustable. Not exact flow to each like a metered dripper.

I use a strong pump, averaging around 15 seconds per feed...3-5x daily....varies with growth stage and uptake.

Id check the pH on that promix. They act like its off.

Promix should be allowed to dry between watering to prevent root rot. This means that you should treat plants individually or risk over watering some and or under watering others.

LincolnBuds said:

looking into octabubblers myself - currently have a home made manifold system but need to even out the watering
plan to get an octabubbler and then evenly distribute the water across the coco with a floraflex floracap to prevent dry zones
keep us updated
I am in flower atm and am watering about every 90 minutes for 22 seconds

Click to expand...

I would avoid the bubblers, had nothing but problems with them,

Ive been doing drip-to-waste in coco for over 5 years and absolutely love it, i too used to hand water and hated the back breaking work of it, recently i stopped using actual drippers though and switched to using floraflex caps like what @TintEastwood has in his photo. i run 2 1/4" feed lines to each floraflex caps and only have to run the feed pump for 1 minute intervals to get adequate runoff, the floraflex caps give a much better distribution of water vs dripping in 1 spot, no more drippers to get clogged or have irregular pressure causing uneven watering, i stick to 1 feed per day with my current setup as my pots are plastic so the medium doesnt dry out inbetween so no need for more, back when i was using fabric pots though i would feed 2-3 times a day as those pots allowed the medium to dry out much quicker.

psychadelibud said:

So I have been growing for 18 years, 11 of those years have been indoor and outdoor since the day I started. I have a lot of experience with growing and have had many ups and downs, failures and successes ...

This is my second time ever running a drip irrigation system indoor. All the previous years I just did the old fashioned, back breaking, hand watering. My last run with drip irrigation made me wonder why in the hell I have not been doing this all along, saved me so so much time and trouble. I am still running promix (I am oldschool) and loving it. It is what I have perfected and stuck with all along. I was going to graduate to coco this run, but I'm gonna save it for the next. Really excited to see what I can do with it.

So here is my question, that i really want to experiment with and see others personal experiences with as well. So it is to my understanding that one of the greatest advantages of using coco is being able to feed/water more frequently up to multiple times per day. I am going to flip to 12/12 in just a few days and was wondering if I should feed like my last run (once per day) or if it would be to my advantage to set my timer on my system to shorter time intervals, to feed maybe 3 times per day instead. I will be flowering in 3 gallon containers and my plants root system have totally filled in the containers. I could easily feed 3 times per day without need to worry about overwatering. They suck it up almost instantly.

So basically my question is, even though I am in promix, do you think there is an advantage of maybe feeding 2 to 4 times per day via drip irrigation rather than one solid watering/feeding? Has anyone tried both and seen a difference in increasing growth? Yield?


Just got my lines hooked up tonight, been hand watering while waiting to install my new lines.


View attachment 4435084

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i wouldnt multifeed promix .. way different from coco
i have the feeling that these ladies have too much lumens and are tired by the light .. hps a very bright in veg i put them far from the tops ...

multifeeding in coco is only possible if you built a big root mass with a relatively big plant in a small pot
soil/dirt/promix need dry wet cycles to allow oxygenation .

TintEastwood said:

My hybrid install of air manifolds to open lines. Each port fully adjustable. Not exact flow to each like a metered dripper.

I use a strong pump, averaging around 15 seconds per feed...3-5x daily....varies with growth stage and uptake.

View attachment 4435966

Click to expand...

How many gallons per hour is your pump? That manifold setup looks hardcore any details on that manifold?
Like your setup - very similar to mine except my lollypop efforts are half arsed
am worried that the octabubbler's could block the lines and appreciate anyone's first hand experiences
trying to Keep it Simple but without having to rebuy items when I can learn from you guys the first time

kingromano said:

i wouldnt multifeed promix .. way different from coco
i have the feeling that these ladies have too much lumens and are tired by the light .. hps a very bright in veg i put them far from the tops ...

Click to expand...

In that particular photo they needed water severely bad. This was the moment I had hooked the drip system up and before I ran it to test it. Everything came out successful and they look a ton better now. I have 4 that look ruff, suffering from a bit of overwatering. I unhooked the drip lines from those particular ones and letting them dry out for a few days.

They seem to not mind the HPS, I have vegged beneath either a fluorescent or CMH for years, and in the final week or two of veg put them beneath the HPS and they seem to do well like that. My last grow turned out great and it looked worse than this one before I flipped to flower and I had a ton of issues with it. Still got plenty of frosty buds tho...

I will say that I have noticed a significant difference in health once they go from veg beneath a HPS to being flipped to 12/12 beneath a HPS.

LincolnBuds said:

How many gallons per hour is your pump? That manifold setup looks hardcore any details on that manifold?

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$12. Manifold example on amazon.

I have 400 and 800 gph pumps. Some runs the 400 is all I need. I need the pressure, not GPH.
An inline valve from pump helps me throttle line pressure to manifolds if needed.

I don't use drippers because I like to do short bursts of high volume for my coco.

psychadelibud said:

I will say that I have noticed a significant difference in health once they go from veg beneath a HPS to being flipped to 12/12 beneath a HPS.

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I am running LED's but still think there is a strong reason to still use HPS in flower - nice looking healthy plants mate

TintEastwood said:

$12. Manifold example on amazon.

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Amazon.com : Saim Fish Tank Single Row Air Flow Control 8-way Aquarium Lever Valve : Pet Supplies

www.amazon.com

I have 400 and 800 gph pumps. Some runs the 400 is all I need. I need the pressure, not GPH.
An inline valve from pump helps me throttle line pressure to manifolds if needed.

I don't use drippers because I like to do short bursts of high volume for my coco.

Click to expand...

I am a fan of shorter run times and more frequently found an old page about "growing trees" and the guy swore about run off at higher frequency helping to prevent high PH and salt buildup in Coco - want a setup where I can keep maintenance to a minimum

Multi daily feedings/waterings in promix is fine. No need to let it dry. I run promix hp and coco many times in the same area on same drippers and never have issues.

MedMonkey said:

Multi daily feedings/waterings in promix is fine. No need to let it dry. I run promix hp and coco many times in the same area on same drippers and never have issues.

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This is what I ended up doing, a week till harvest on most and everything is looking superb and buds falling down all over the room

I have figured out as long as you have a healthy established root system you can basically feed it as much as you want and be fine with no worries of overwatering.

psychadelibud said:

I have figured out as long as you have a healthy established root system you can basically feed it as much as you want and be fine with no worries of overwatering.

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You using smaller pots this round?