GrassIsGreener
Member
After hours of stimulating labor, I've finally assembled my new 8 1,000 watt flowering room, and I've got a little time before I'd like to fully implement the automatic drip irrigation aspect of the whole thing. I'm running 128 5 gal. smart pots filled with Botanicare CocoGro (this is superfluous information at the present time, but I may as well lay it all out there, every bit of info can help), and I'm looking to get the whole thing on an automatic feeding regiment, but I only have the vaguest idea of how to do this effectively. In theory, it makes sense, it's just that I start to get a little confused with all of the different size fittings.
Maybe someone could save me a whole lot of time by linking me to a DIY step-by-step on assembling an automated drip assembly.
If not, I'll give you a run down of my general strategy as it stands today:
I have 2 275 gal. reservoirs, one for food, one for RO water. I have both a 1,000 and 1630 GPH SunLeave submersible pump for each Res, though I'm thinking about using the smaller one just because the 1630 might be excessive, not sure though, haven't tried it out just yet.
Both the Res' sit outside of the room with the pumps submerged.
I have a Rainbird 6 Zone sprinkler timer and 2 Pre-assembled 2 Solenoid Valve manifolds that screw together, giving me 1 solenoid for each tray.
My vision is to run the hose from the pump in the Res to the Solenoid Valve Manifold, where the water will be distributed down one of the 2 rows of 2 4x8 trays. The Rainbird Timer will turn on only one Solenoid at a time, so that only one tray is being watered at once to ensure strong PSI (let me know if you think I'll have too little or too much PSI for what i'm planning to do here, I really have no clue) for the spray emitters.
Coming from the Solenoid Valves will be 1 inch PVC piping that will connect to a 1 inch 4 Way at the beginning of the tray, with one row of 1 inch PVC continuing straight down the center of the tray and a row running down the length of the tray on each side.
I'm going to drill holes directly into the 1 inch PVC and place Spaghetti Tubing inside with rubber grommets to seal the holes. The spaghetti tubing will lead to Orbit, ~max 29GPH spray emitters which are rated to run at 25 PSI. There will be 2 emitters per pot.
I'm hoping to find a Pump Start Relay to hook up between the pump and Rain Bird timer so that I won't have to put the pump on its own timer - seems to rough around the edges that way. I want it all to be controlled by the timer itself.
I'm just wondering if, given the parameters I've laid out here, I might have overlooked anything. Too much pump? Too little pump? Different emitters? Different size piping?
Any help in actually designing the whole assembly from Res to finish would be invaluable; I'm new to the whole drip irrigation thing and it seems lie I might be missing something here...
(I'll post pics of the room once I get a new charger for the camera)
Maybe someone could save me a whole lot of time by linking me to a DIY step-by-step on assembling an automated drip assembly.
If not, I'll give you a run down of my general strategy as it stands today:
I have 2 275 gal. reservoirs, one for food, one for RO water. I have both a 1,000 and 1630 GPH SunLeave submersible pump for each Res, though I'm thinking about using the smaller one just because the 1630 might be excessive, not sure though, haven't tried it out just yet.
Both the Res' sit outside of the room with the pumps submerged.
I have a Rainbird 6 Zone sprinkler timer and 2 Pre-assembled 2 Solenoid Valve manifolds that screw together, giving me 1 solenoid for each tray.
My vision is to run the hose from the pump in the Res to the Solenoid Valve Manifold, where the water will be distributed down one of the 2 rows of 2 4x8 trays. The Rainbird Timer will turn on only one Solenoid at a time, so that only one tray is being watered at once to ensure strong PSI (let me know if you think I'll have too little or too much PSI for what i'm planning to do here, I really have no clue) for the spray emitters.
Coming from the Solenoid Valves will be 1 inch PVC piping that will connect to a 1 inch 4 Way at the beginning of the tray, with one row of 1 inch PVC continuing straight down the center of the tray and a row running down the length of the tray on each side.
I'm going to drill holes directly into the 1 inch PVC and place Spaghetti Tubing inside with rubber grommets to seal the holes. The spaghetti tubing will lead to Orbit, ~max 29GPH spray emitters which are rated to run at 25 PSI. There will be 2 emitters per pot.
I'm hoping to find a Pump Start Relay to hook up between the pump and Rain Bird timer so that I won't have to put the pump on its own timer - seems to rough around the edges that way. I want it all to be controlled by the timer itself.
I'm just wondering if, given the parameters I've laid out here, I might have overlooked anything. Too much pump? Too little pump? Different emitters? Different size piping?
Any help in actually designing the whole assembly from Res to finish would be invaluable; I'm new to the whole drip irrigation thing and it seems lie I might be missing something here...
(I'll post pics of the room once I get a new charger for the camera)