Blumats. Who's using them?

TCH

TCH

Well-Known Member
Got 4 rooted clones into coco today. My boy picked up some maxibloom for me on his way through town. My question is now this. Should I set up the blumats and fill the reservoir with just ph'd water to get the system dialed in and water the plants with the maxibloom by hand until I learn what they like? Or should I just go ahead and fill the reservoir like half way with quarter strength nutes and go from there?

Pics of the HSC Blueberry Cupcake clones in their fresh coco. Is there anything better looking than fresh coco?

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Jjgrow420

Jjgrow420

Well-Known Member
TCH said:
Got 4 rooted clones into coco today. My boy picked up some maxibloom for me on his way through town. My question is now this. Should I set up the blumats and fill the reservoir with just ph'd water to get the system dialed in and water the plants with the maxibloom by hand until I learn what they like? Or should I just go ahead and fill the reservoir like half way with quarter strength nutes and go from there?

Pics of the HSC Blueberry Cupcake clones in their fresh coco. Is there anything better looking than fresh coco?

View attachment 5252678View attachment 5252679View attachment 5252680
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Well, you should never water coco with plain water... I'd just start with a low ec feed. Hard to overwater in coco....
 
TCH

TCH

Well-Known Member
Jjgrow420 said:
Well, you should never water coco with plain water... I'd just start with a low ec feed. Hard to overwater in coco....
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Yeah, I thought about that right after I posted. I went ahead and mixed up a batch of maxibloom with 2.5g per gallon.

Next question is: my well water is .6ec and like 7.4pH. When I add the maxibloom to the water, it brings it up to 1.1ec. I remember seeing that the ec should be around .8 early on. Is that .8 total or .8 in addition to the .6 that my water already is? I just got it down to .8 total and pH about 6.1 and fed them to get the coco wet and I can set up the blumats.
 
Jjgrow420

Jjgrow420

Well-Known Member
TCH said:
Yeah, I thought about that right after I posted. I went ahead and mixed up a batch of maxibloom with 2.5g per gallon.

Next question is: my well water is .6ec and like 7.4pH. When I add the maxibloom to the water, it brings it up to 1.1ec. I remember seeing that the ec should be around .8 early on. Is that .8 total or .8 in addition to the .6 that my water already is? I just got it down to .8 total and pH about 6.1 and fed them to get the coco wet and I can set up the blumats.
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You could ask @xtsho what he did with coco. I ran them in promix at a pretty low ec.
 
TCH

TCH

Well-Known Member
Topped off the existing 4 planters and got the 5th clone that finally rooted into its own planter. Cleaned up the lines a little bit. I picked up a cheap set of quick connect fittings and elbows from Amazon to try out plus a valve so I can turn off the reservoir and remove it to clean it.

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When I removed the carrots so I could top off the coco, you can see where the roots have made their way towards the carrot and started wrapping themselves around it.

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LeastExpectedGrower

LeastExpectedGrower

Well-Known Member
TCH said:
Topped off the existing 4 planters and got the 5th clone that finally rooted into its own planter. Cleaned up the lines a little bit. I picked up a cheap set of quick connect fittings and elbows from Amazon to try out plus a valve so I can turn off the reservoir and remove it to clean it.

View attachment 5255216

When I removed the carrots so I could top off the coco, you can see where the roots have made their way towards the carrot and started wrapping themselves around it.

View attachment 5255214
Click to expand...
Think about making your line a loop back to the reservoir rather than terminating. Supposedly it evens out the pressure for the carrots, and you end up with a redundancy in case one of your lines clogs. I put two valves at the reservoir to turn the flow on/off and then have a third on a bleed line at the far end of my loop.
 
lusidghost

lusidghost

Well-Known Member
Since it's cool to trade on here now -- I have a bunch of 5" carrots, a ton of fitting / valves and a pressure reducer for a pump. If anyone wants to trade for something, hit me up. I need to count them, but I have somewhere around 30 carrots. All you would need is the tubing. I might start a thread in the classified section if no one responds to this post.
 
N

Nope_49595933949

Well-Known Member
lusidghost said:
Since it's cool to trade on here now -- I have a bunch of 5" carrots, a ton of fitting / valves and a pressure reducer for a pump. If anyone wants to trade for something, hit me up. I need to count them, but I have somewhere around 30 carrots. All you would need is the tubing. I might start a thread in the classified section if no one responds to this post.
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PM incoming.
 
R

RottyRzr

Well-Known Member
@TCH
I bought some blumats carrots and tubing and the bucket grommets a while back but haven't used them yet. Do you have any pics of your reservoir? Im curious if you elevated it any.
 
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TCH

TCH

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RottyRzr said:
@TCH
I bought some blumats carrots and tubing and the bucket grommets a while back but haven't used them yet. Do you have any pics of your reservoir? Im curious if you elevated it any.
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It does need to be elevated due to the gravity feed. My reservoir is currently just one of those 15 gallon blue barrels with 2 bulkheads to make a loop. For the elevation, I just have it sitting on top of another one of those barrels. There may be a pic of it in the Cinderella Purple or the blueberry cupcake journals. I can snap one this evening when I get home. It's nothing special though.
 
R

RottyRzr

Well-Known Member
TCH said:
It does need to be elevated due to the gravity feed. My reservoir is currently just one of those 15 gallon blue barrels with 2 bulkheads to make a loop. For the elevation, I just have it sitting on top of another one of those barrels. There may be a pic of it in the Cinderella Purple or the blueberry cupcake journals. I can snap one this evening when I get home. It's nothing special though.
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Thanks for the reply. No need to get a pic. I get an idea of the rez height. I should give the blumats a try.
 
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TCH

TCH

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Billy the Mountain said:
1 psi (~16" height) is the absolute minimum for Tropf Blumats, but the more the merrier (15psi max).
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And when you set them up, fill your reservoir halfway up to dial them in. If you fill up and dial them in, they will get weaker by the bottom. If you dial them in with an almost empty reservoir, they will be more likely to run away when you fill it all the way up. Probably not a huge deal in 4-5 gallon containers, but I run 8ish gallons so far in mine and I notice a good difference of I dial them in low or high.
 
Billy the Mountain

Billy the Mountain

Well-Known Member
TCH said:
And when you set them up, fill your reservoir halfway up to dial them in. If you fill up and dial them in, they will get weaker by the bottom. If you dial them in with an almost empty reservoir, they will be more likely to run away when you fill it all the way up. Probably not a huge deal in 4-5 gallon containers, but I run 8ish gallons so far in mine and I notice a good difference of I dial them in low or high.
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Yup; all the more reason to raise the reservoir as high as practical to minimize the pressure difference between a full reservoir and a depleted one.
A shorter, wide reservoir is preferred over a taller, thinner reservoir for the same reason.
 
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