Automatic Drip Watering Systems - Pre-Packaged Or DIY

[TheFertilizer]

I want to put together a drip-watering system for a couple of reasons. Mainly because I want to remove the pain in the butt of watering by hand. I have a bad back and a stomach condition and it is just really not as easy as people might think to be bending over, walking back and forth with buckets of water, so on and so forth. But past that, I think it would also be really great to not have to worry about going on vacation or something like that and have them setup on an automated watering system.

The thing is I don't really know how to accomplish it, and I definitely don't have the money for any expensive system, expensive to me being anything over $50. I mean I feel like this isn't something that requires very special equipment, because I figure I can put together something somewhat decent with not much more than a submersible pump, a reservoir, tubes and something to control the power to the pump.

My idea was something like a WiFi controllable AC socket, plug the submersible pump into that, leave it in a large 50 gallon resevoir, and then time how long I need to let it run each day. Then it would be as simple as pulling up the app on my phone, turning the pump, etc. I bet some even have timer options, but really I don't care so much about the automation as much as taking the labor out of it and also being able to have the water run when I'm not there.

I think the biggest problem is finding the right kind of pump and getting it to deliver equal pressure and volume to all of the nozzles hooked up to it. Maybe I need some kind of regulator or something? That's getting in over my head though.

 

[Scientific]

A big part of the question as I see it is do you have the tools and the time to do the job and is drilling holes in plastic tubs and is making multiple trips to the hardware store to buy tubing and fittings your idea of a good time?

Me, I have always enjoyed making my own stuff, and it's often cheaper and has the added advantage that you can design a system that exactly suits your needs and whims, but people with less time, less interest, and/or less mechanical aptitude will probably be happier just buying a kit.

If you surf around the journals you can find all kinds of good ideas, and in my experience the builders are always happy to answer questions.

You can get submersible aquarium pumps at the pet store and on Amazon that will do the job just fine for cheap (if slowly for the smaller, liter-per-minute ones). (The garden watering section of the hardware store is the other place to visit.) Put the pump on a good digital timer that runs for one or two minutes at the interval you chose and you're pretty much done. There is a guy here right now who even has a recirculating system with a float valve top-off system plumbed to city water and a pH monitoring system so he only has to change out the nutes in the reservoir once a week. That's a sweet setup.

If you're going to set up an automated watering system, please allow me to suggest using coco coir in some kind of air pot. Drain-to-waste coco is simply awesome but has to be watered daily. Automation makes that easy.

I'm just starting a new grow that recirculates the runoff from coco to a reservoir. It's a prototype for a system that will let me actually go away for a week in the middle of a grow so I'll no longer be a slave to my plants.

If you decide to try something please post what you're doing so I can steal your ideas (and I'll do the same).

Good luck and have fun.

 

[Scientific]

Here's one of the DIY systems I mentioned: ElDoctore's Self Watering Coco - Candy Kush AF - Pineapple Chunk PP - VIVA Sativa PP

 

[TheFertilizer]

I'll probably just stick with the soil and just have it for drip-watering, but not setup for daily.

What flow rate of pump should I be looking at? I mean, I think I will need to get 1/2 gallon per hour drippers, and so I'm not really sure but I think I'd be best off with 3 drippers per plant, with 5 pots. I don't know if buying a really strong 500+ gph pump would be overkill and just lead to pressure problems, but on the other hand having that extra pressure through the line should keep the flow/pressure in the emitters better distributed.

 

[Scientific]

The drip watering people seem to have things all engineered based on 60 psi or thereabouts city water supply, but I just have a 6-Outlet Adjustable Drip Manifold from Home Depot that's connected to a 1 liter per minute aquarium pump, then I hooked six aquarium air pump rubber hoses to that. The whole setup cost about $30 and is adequate if not fancy. There are little valves on each of the 6 outlets on the manifold that it says are rated for from 1 to 20 gallon per hour, but since I use the manifold either for wetting hydroton balls or coco with 1/3 perlite, both of which can handle unlimited water, I just leave the valves wide open.

This is all as you noted not very complicated or demanding stuff, so there are lots of ways to do it and all will work fine. I have opted for cheap and simple.

 

[TheFertilizer]

The drip watering people seem to have things all engineered based on 60 psi or thereabouts city water supply, but I just have a 6-Outlet Adjustable Drip Manifold from Home Depot that's connected to a 1 liter per minute aquarium pump, then I hooked six aquarium air pump rubber hoses to that. The whole setup cost about $30 and is adequate if not fancy. There are little valves on each of the 6 outlets on the manifold that it says are rated for from 1 to 20 gallon per hour, but since I use the manifold either for wetting hydroton balls or coco with 1/3 perlite, both of which can handle unlimited water, I just leave the valves wide open.

This is all as you noted not very complicated or demanding stuff, so there are lots of ways to do it and all will work fine. I have opted for cheap and simple.

Yeah I think I am headed down the route you did, checked out all the goods at the hardware store. Didn't see this manifold things you speak of, but knew I would need somethinges like that.

Also wondering how I can set this up for two tents with 5 pots each, and of different sizes. My veg tent has 3 gallon pots and my flower tent 5, so I figure they will need different amounts of water andamage so two separate systems for each tent, if I want it automated. Alternatively I could just run the pump manually and switch it between drip tubes depending on which set of pots need water.

Though I wonder if I am asking for trouble because in my experience the plants in each pot have different water requirements

 

[TheFertilizer]

The drip watering people seem to have things all engineered based on 60 psi or thereabouts city water supply, but I just have a 6-Outlet Adjustable Drip Manifold from Home Depot that's connected to a 1 liter per minute aquarium pump, then I hooked six aquarium air pump rubber hoses to that. The whole setup cost about $30 and is adequate if not fancy. There are little valves on each of the 6 outlets on the manifold that it says are rated for from 1 to 20 gallon per hour, but since I use the manifold either for wetting hydroton balls or coco with 1/3 perlite, both of which can handle unlimited water, I just leave the valves wide open.

This is all as you noted not very complicated or demanding stuff, so there are lots of ways to do it and all will work fine. I have opted for cheap and simple.

Only 60 liters per hour? That's something like 15 gallons per hour. So it seems like I could just get one of these 80 GPH $10 pumps I've seen and it would probably be just as capable as one of these 500+ ones. That seems to be 4x the flow rate the mainfolds are generally rated for and way less than the pressure drippers.

A guy at the hardware store told me those things tend to clog up really easily when used with hard water so I wonder if I'd just be better off poking/drilling holes in the tubing.

 

[Scientific]

Only 60 liters per hour? That's something like 15 gallons per hour. So it seems like I could just get one of these 80 GPH $10 pumps I've seen and it would probably be just as capable as one of these 500+ ones. That seems to be 4x the flow rate the mainfolds are generally rated for and way less than the pressure drippers.

A guy at the hardware store told me those things tend to clog up really easily when used with hard water so I wonder if I'd just be better off poking/drilling holes in the tubing.

I think you can just start with how much flow you need and engineer (if that's not too grand a word) from there. Even a big pot doesn't need all that much water, and how fast you deliver it isn't all that important.

My test setup runs a one liter per minute pump for two minutes, which is enough time to water a big pot of coco with lots of runoff. That seems to work for me.

As for hard water clogging, I'll bet that's with permanent setups in lawns and gardens that sit for a long time and dry out etc, and with acidified nutes like we use, I would expect that any tendency for the chalky carbonates to start forming stalactites would be stopped because the carbonates are kept in acidic solution. And of course we typically tear down our setups every few months... All of which is to say I don't think that's a problem for us, but still, it's always great to get info from someone with experience.