Yet another Blumat concern

R

RottyRzr

Well-Known Member
I've read through lots of posts and don't find anything about my concern.
I have had the Blumat stuff for a while now but just haven't used them. I recently started some seeds and when they didnt come up as expected I started a couple more. Lo and behold they all came up so I have 'extras' and decided to give the Blumat stuff a go since my DTW system is tied up.
I kept the seedlings in solo cups until they were ready to up pot and I put them in 1 gallon fabric pots with 70/30 coco/perlite. I set up the blumats according to Sustainable Villages video. One carrot per pot. I thoroughly soaked the coco like it would be after a feeding with my dtw system. I set the carrots to the hanging drop plus 1.5 triangles. My rez is 4 feet above the top of the pots.
My concern is: It's been 3 days now and I see no evidence that the carrots have turned on and fed the plants. The level in my rez looks like it hasn't dropped at all. How often should these things be cycling in coco/perlite?
 
RottyRzr said:
I've read through lots of posts and don't find anything about my concern.
I have had the Blumat stuff for a while now but just haven't used them. I recently started some seeds and when they didnt come up as expected I started a couple more. Lo and behold they all came up so I have 'extras' and decided to give the Blumat stuff a go since my DTW system is tied up.
I kept the seedlings in solo cups until they were ready to up pot and I put them in 1 gallon fabric pots with 70/30 coco/perlite. I set up the blumats according to Sustainable Villages video. One carrot per pot. I thoroughly soaked the coco like it would be after a feeding with my dtw system. I set the carrots to the hanging drop plus 1.5 triangles. My rez is 4 feet above the top of the pots.
My concern is: It's been 3 days now and I see no evidence that the carrots have turned on and fed the plants. The level in my rez looks like it hasn't dropped at all. How often should these things be cycling in coco/perlite?
Click to expand...

1. I have read that perlite can cause issues with blumats. Not saying that's your issue, but maybe when you up pot, just use straight coco?

B. I found for my use with the blumats, they did better when I set them to the hanging drop and then didn't do the additional triangle. Basically so they are not quite a constant drip.

One thing to keep in mind is that your pots should be in a tray that can hold your entire reservoir in case there is a runaway.

Also, it's a good idea to flush the pots completely with a low ppm solution every couple weeks or a month.
 
It usually takes some time before you see them working. Sometimes, they'll just let out a little bit of water so it's hard to see a change in the res. If the medium is dry, then you have an issue. If it's wet/damp then you're all good. If you just planted, there's not enough roots and biomass to use up all the water so the carrots won't drip.
 
The biggest thing to worry about is the reservoir going dry. You can fine tune the carrots to your liking my best advice is keep the watering res sterile as possible (maybe airstone and or poolshock/bleach) and do not add nutes but rather hand water your nutrients in , and allow some runoff once or twice a week via handwatering. The strength of nutrient will be comparative to the size and growth of the plants. The biggest thing to be careful of is the carrots running away. I would have a catch tray big enough to catch the runoff of the entire reservoir incase this happens
 
TCH said:
1. I have read that perlite can cause issues with blumats. Not saying that's your issue, but maybe when you up pot, just use straight coco?
I've read the same thing but also have read of folks having no issues so hopefully that's the case.

B. I found for my use with the blumats, they did better when I set them to the hanging drop and then didn't do the additional triangle. Basically so they are not quite a constant drip.
Does this make them drip more often?

One thing to keep in mind is that your pots should be in a tray that can hold your entire reservoir in case there is a runaway.
I didnt mention it in my original post but yeah I have the pots in a 17 gallon tote. My rez is only a 5 gallon bucket so plenty of room for disaster.

Also, it's a good idea to flush the pots completely with a low ppm solution every couple weeks or a month.
I'll keep that in mind. I also remember reading from @Xtsho that he kept his feed ppm low. I don't remember the exact ec though.
Click to expand...
 
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Jjgrow420 said:
It usually takes some time before you see them working. Sometimes, they'll just let out a little bit of water so it's hard to see a change in the res. If the medium is dry, then you have an issue. If it's wet/damp then you're all good. If you just planted, there's not enough roots and biomass to use up all the water so the carrots won't drip.
Click to expand...
The coco isn't dry yet. I guess Im used to drain to waste feeding a couple times a day so Im thinking these should have fed already. I didnt think about the roots not filling the pots so they probably aren't drinking all that much. Thanks
 
Yes, they drip a little more often that way. I don't mind tinkering so I'm in the tent every day so it's not a big deal to me to fidget with the settings on a day to day basis.

I run maxigrow and maxibloom and I ran 400-600ppm pretty much my whole grow. I had a big lockout problem a few weeks back and had to flush the hell out of my pots. Doing that on occasion would have saved me a lot of time and hassle.
 
Nizza said:
The biggest thing to worry about is the reservoir going dry. You can fine tune the carrots to your liking my best advice is keep the watering res sterile as possible (maybe airstone and or poolshock/bleach) and do not add nutes but rather hand water your nutrients in , and allow some runoff once or twice a week via handwatering. The strength of nutrient will be comparative to the size and growth of the plants. The biggest thing to be careful of is the carrots running away. I would have a catch tray big enough to catch the runoff of the entire reservoir incase this happens
Click to expand...
No nutes? Im using Jacks so hopefully there won't be any clogs.
I have the pots in a large tote so no worries about runoff.
Thanks for the replies
 
TCH said:
Yes, they drip a little more often that way. I don't mind tinkering so I'm in the tent every day so it's not a big deal to me to fidget with the settings on a day to day basis.

I run maxigrow and maxibloom and I ran 400-600ppm pretty much my whole grow. I had a big lockout problem a few weeks back and had to flush the hell out of my pots. Doing that on occasion would have saved me a lot of time and hassle.
Click to expand...
Im using Jacks. How often would you suggest to flush?
 
RottyRzr said:
Im using Jacks. How often would you suggest to flush?
Click to expand...

Haven't used Jack's before but I'd say once every couple weeks to once a month. After a couple weeks, mix up some feed that's the same ppm/ec as your reservoir and pour it through the pots to see how the runoff tests. If it is high, you have buildup and need a flush. When I did my flush, I mixed up a 200ish ppm solution and flushed until the runoff was under the 500ppm that my reservoir was at.
 
Nizza said:
The biggest thing to worry about is the reservoir going dry. You can fine tune the carrots to your liking my best advice is keep the watering res sterile as possible (maybe airstone and or poolshock/bleach) and do not add nutes but rather hand water your nutrients in , and allow some runoff once or twice a week via handwatering. The strength of nutrient will be comparative to the size and growth of the plants. The biggest thing to be careful of is the carrots running away. I would have a catch tray big enough to catch the runoff of the entire reservoir incase this happens
Click to expand...

In soil, yeah. In coco, no. You need those nutes going in consistently
 
RottyRzr said:
No nutes? Im using Jacks so hopefully there won't be any clogs.
I have the pots in a large tote so no worries about runoff.
Thanks for the replies
Click to expand...
I use floraflex and they're very clean nutes. I'd still have issues every so often and I had to keep a close eye on the carrots because they'd get a small clog but still drip, and some pots got pretty dry before I had noticed so I had issues with those plants. I tried things like drip clean etc and still ended up having to pinch the lines on the carrots to get rid of the salt buildup clogging up the line where the adjustment knob pinches the line.
 
TCH said:
In soil, yeah. In coco, no. You need those nutes going in consistently
Click to expand...
would it not make more sense to drench here and there with a higher PPM than your saturation watering? Yes coco needs constant feed, but if there is no runoff, I would wager you can give it a higher feed to higher runoff every 2-3 days and still succeed instead of lower ppm constant runoff. I see how coco+perlite might throw off the osmosis factor of the carrots though

the reasoning for me is via hempy grows

I think it is different if you don't have runoff for watering, and a reservoir, which to me is somewhat the same as a carrot above
 
Then again I've read that some people say some of their best grows were with Blumat.
These were extra seeds that came up so instead of trashing them I'm gonna keep them in small containers and give these Blumat carrots a go. I'll probably hand feed to plenty of runoff every week or two just to prevent salt build up. If they don't work out I'll try them with plain water and house plants or veggies later on.
 
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