Blumats. Who's using them?

Roger A. Shrubber said:
yup, i use a 17 gallon tote i fill up to 15 gallons, usually need to add 5 gallons every other day. i mix and ph my feed in a 5 gallon bucket first, add the the res, wait an hour, then check the res and adjust as needed. usually not much adjustment needed though, it's not rdwc, so the mix doesn't get thrown off that much
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That's exactly what I do when I run blumats. Tent is in the garage and I have a utility sink in the laundry room right through the door. I throw a small pond pump in the bottom of a 5 gallon bucket, fill it up, add nutes, adjust pH, add to the 18 gallon tote I'm using as a reservoir. I never bother checking the pH of the reservoir anymore as I just use simple nutrients and no additives to throw anything off. I only worry about what goes in. When I did check it never changed so I stopped.
 
Bignutes said:
How many days you veg for? Anything less than 45-50 days you should be good
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I honestly don't know. I have just completely changed my lights, extraction and pots. Under my old lights in 12L pots it was 8 - 12 weeks. Under these new ones it will be a lot less.

I had some seedlings in 2.5L pots. I setup the new lights and planted them in the new pots last Thursday (2/12), today you wouldn't believe they are the same plants. The difference between crappy Amazon COB lights and 4 TS1000s is amazing.
 
I love Blumats, they scale from party cups all the way up to gigantic trees. I barely think twice about leaving for a week, only have to worry if something is right in the middle of stretch. I've been on several 3+ week long trips, my record is 24 days totally unattended, no babysitters. What is the longest you have left your grow unattended?
 
Jjgrow420 said:
Wow long veg
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Yep, far too long. I was using 60w of 60cm LED T5s for the whole veg cycle. Now I am just going to use them for seedlings and cloning for the first couple of weeks, in a 3x2, and use the TS1000s in my big tent for the rest of veg. I am hoping to veg for six weeks at the maximum.

I used to grow with a mate in a massive loft under HPS lights in Coco, I stopped doing it when I had kids about 15 years ago. When the first Covid lockdown hit my "guy" stopped selling. So I bought some seeds and some cheap lights on Amazon and made it work. Then I bought a couple of small tents and some COBS and things improved. By COBS I mean this sort of thing...

LEXCON 1000W COB LED Grow Light Full Spectrum Plant Growing Lamps with Veg & Bloom for Indoor Plants Basement Planting | Double Chip LED | Gardening Hydroponics Cooling System : Amazon.co.uk: Garden & Outdoors

Great prices on your favourite Gardening brands, and free delivery on eligible orders.
www.amazon.co.uk

TBF they work, but you get what you pay for.

Then I joined RIU and realised that I was super out of touch with how all of this worked. After a lot of reading, video watching and experimentation I have improved my weed no end.

After nearly 18 months I have decided I love growing. I was only going to do it until lockdown ended, which is why I only invested in cheapo gear. So with all the money I have saved not buying weed ($300+ a month, my growing costs aren't close to that) I have reinvested some of it in some decent gear. I have recently bought four DIY TS1000s, a 6" SystemAir RVK fan and ducting, a Rhino filter, a 4x4x6 apex tent and a Sonoff ZIgbee Hub with temp/humidity sensors and a few Sonoff Smart Switches to use as timers and a fan controller. I have also invested heavily in genetics. I want to grow some really nice weed.

The last piece of the puzzle is some kind of automatic watering, just to keep it sweet if I go away for a few days, if it were longer I do have an assistant. I want it to be Blumats, but the whole potential of causing a flood is putting me off, like I said I grow in a loft, flooding that would be a nightmare.

In June of this year I decided to try some Autos, outdoors in Poly Tunnels. I tucked them in with the wifes vegetables. It worked really well, they were also plants I could experiment on, so I perfected LST on them and it was 280g of some of the best weed I have ever smoked. I got six RQS Northern Lights Auto seeds as freebies, so next Spring I am going to get three Blumats and build three SIPs and test it all out in the garden, I couldn't really give a fuck if I flood the patio. If I can make it work in a Poly Tunnel I should be able to make it work in a tent.

Sorry about the long post, I am nicely baked and am prone to going on a bit.
 
I walked in to blow sweet dream kisses to my plants last night, and discovered that I let the res run dry. So I had to race to hand water all of the plants before the lights flipped off. It would be cool to have a sensor that sent an alert of low water, because that's about my only worry these days.
 
lusidghost said:
I walked in to blow sweet dream kisses to my plants last night, and discovered that I let the res run dry. So I had to race to hand water all of the plants before the lights flipped off. It would be cool to have a sensor that sent an alert of low water, because that's about my only worry these days.
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You need a plunger switch, a Zigbee relay and a Zigbee hub.
 
lusidghost said:
It would be cool to have a sensor that sent an alert of low water, because that's about my only worry these days.
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1/4 inch stand pipe or a bulkhead near the bottom with a TDS probe installed, they make in-line fittings for them. The probe is nothing more than a pair of closely spaced wires for the water to short out. Hook it up to an input on your controller and wait for the circuit to break.
 
I've seen wifi soil probes that worked like that. A few years ago I was looking at Smart Bee automated systems. They had probes that controlled outlets / devices. If the soil moisture got low it would turn on a water pump and also send you alerts. It was like a high tech Blumat. They were just crazy expensive.

That said I don't really understand what either one of you are talking about. What is a plunger switch? How do you connect a TDS probe to a controller?
 
I was in an electrician's class when I was in my 20s, and by far the most interesting thing we were taught was relays. There was a wall with a bunch of electro mechanical relays forking a bunch of paths to different devices. We would have to figure out complex schemes to make them function in various ways. Then we learned how to do it with a computer program. I've been obsessed with automation ever since.
 
lusidghost said:
I was in an electrician's class when I was in my 20s, and by far the most interesting thing we were taught was relays. There was a wall with a bunch of electro mechanical relays forking a bunch of paths to different devices. We would have to figure out complex schemes to make them function in various ways. Then we learned how to do it with a computer program. I've been obsessed with automation ever since.
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There is a huge world of amateur embedded hacking that has opened up in the last 10+ years. RaspberryPi, Arduino, Zigbee, and more. Python is relatively easy compared to the old "C" programming language. Tons of gear available and tons of learning resources online, the sky is the limit.
 
lusidghost said:
So you stick that in a piece of PVC near the bottom and connect the other end to a hub to send you alerts via wifi? If so that's sweet and thanks guys.
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SONOFF ZBBridge Smart Zigbee Bridge Hub, WI-FI & Zigbee Dual-protocol Supporting, APP Control and Multi-device Management: Amazon.com: Tools & Home Improvement

SONOFF ZBBridge Smart Zigbee Bridge Hub, WI-FI & Zigbee Dual-protocol Supporting, APP Control and Multi-device Management: Amazon.com: Tools & Home Improvement
www.amazon.com

With Zigbee you can connect any Zigbee compatible sensor to a Wifi device via the Hub and a phone app/Google assistant/Amazon Alex. I am using a temp/rh sensor via Zigbee and Google Assistant to control my extraction fan and tube heater using a Sonoff switch.
 
Jjgrow420 said:
@JustBlazin got some peat w/o perlite. Gona try this out I guess lol. See what happens
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Nice, good luck just follow the right step and you'll be good. You know how to soak them right? I try and use boiled water in my carrots as it boils out the oxygen I guess.
Dig a hole bigger than carrot, fill with peat stick carrot in and wiggle around pull out, refill hole stick carrot back in so its in there nice and tight, pack down peat all around carrot and heavily water carrot in, also make sure your whole pot is super saturated almost to the point of run off then hook up blumat and bring to a hanging drop that never drops and then dial back two triangles....Done, keep eye on it for next week making small adjustments to get to your desired moisture level.
 
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