I would say blumats if you only have a couple plants but def go with dripper system if you have a lot. Blumats are gravity fed and it gets complicated if you have some pots higher than others, low pressure can get clogged easier, etc. I run 55 gal barrels with enough air bubbles so they look like hot tubs with pumps on timers. an easy way to do it is get a garden hose attach it to the pump, lay the hose in the middle of your plant rows. Drill holes and connect barbed 1/4" connectors into the hose and run 1/4" black hose lines to each plant. I also prefer using 2gph drip emitters on the lines running to the plants so the water pressure equalizes to all plants.
I agree completely.
I'm assuming your DTW and not recirculating correct? I have drums as well and was told by a few people not to bother with air stones in the reservoirs as there would be enough oxygen uptake simply from coming out of the lines and into the medium. Any input?
Personally I like the idea of having air stones. If anything to keep the nutrient solution consistent. Especially since there is no feeding during the lights off. 12 hours of solution sitting there stagnant is not something I agree with.
Our co2 setup would require us to have about 60' of tubing to be able to get the pumps out of the co2 and into a fresh air environment so that's why we didn't run the air pumps.
How's the pH swing from having that much air induced into the reservoirs?
Personally I find that if you create a loop manifold you wont need to worry about even pressure. We also run open ended tubing in conjunction with an inline filter to negate any possibility of dealing with a clogged emitter.
Sorry for hijacking the thread there Mojo... Not my intention.
I wouldn't fuck around with the blumats after going DTW with pumps. WAAAAAY more control brother. And like you said, you will have control over runoff %, as well as feed intervals. blumats do a great job of keeping a medium moist, but with multi-feeds in coco your also getting the introduction of air into the root mass following the feeding. I used blumats in a soilless mix when I had a family member become Ill and had to fuck off for a week. Other than in an instance like that I wouldn't use them. Coco is about growth rate, oxygen into the rootmass, and multi feeds. Using them in Coco is like only using 2 gears in a Porsche. Yeah your still going to move forward but not nearly to the potential.
