Going on vacation, I Need advice...

I'm going away for a week for Christmas and I have 3 plants in fox farm ocean forest. I need advice on a auto feeding system. I was looking up Driwater, looks like that would be ok and pretty simple. Then how would that work when I get home and go back to watering and feeding? Do I just remove Driwater? Thanks

With just 3 plants and 5-7 days, I'd try self "watering globes"https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=self+watering+globes&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

I'm not familiar Driwater.

I would be careful with anything that will have enough water to potentially flood. Or hook it up for a while before leaving to make sure all if good. Those globes may be your best bet. In all reality, water them heavy, keep the tent cooler than normal, make that fan blow a little less, etc and you may not need to do anything for a week!

Go OLD school, are you familiar with a "wick system"? basically you run the wicks down the side of your pots and out, the wicks are in enough water to keep plants happy, do the math how often are your plants needing watered and how much are they taking, this will tell ya what you need. If you're feeding 1gallon every 3 days and you're gone 3 days I'd say you could get away with 1/2gal of extra water for the wicks to soak up. Make sure to water before you leave and it'll work.

Another method (what I use for a full room) is to get a reservoir, pump, oxygen pump and stone and tubing. A digital timer and a clamp to make sure you're tubes aren't over feeding. This is hit or miss though if you don't have it dialed in just right you going to be out of water far too soon (gotta calculate flow rate and make adjustments). First time I did this I ran out of water far before I got home, I had 18 gallon rez for 5 -5gal plants and they were dry after 5 days (but not wilted so it worked). Should have been plenty of water I just had too many on/off times set up and I didn't calculate flow rate which would have made it a piece of cake I just guestimated shit.

You could feed them enough to last 5-7 days just before you leave, then setup a reservoir full of plain ph'd water, put a submersible water pump in the res, run a tube from the pump into your buckets. Then just hook the water pump up to a timer, and set the timer so that the pump pumps water to your plants as often and as much as you typically would. Now since you have 3 buckets, isn't there dividers similar to outlet dividers? Just thinking off the top of my head here, sorry if it seems...well, stupid, haha.

Fill the saucers with water aerated with an airstone before you leave. Maybe throw a little hygrozyme in there too if you have some. Thats what I do.

bellcore said:

Fill the saucers with water aerated with an airstone before you leave. Maybe throw a little hygrozyme in there too if you have some. Thats what I do.

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That'd work pretty well IMO.

Well I've got several options now. Thanks for all the ideas. Im going to research some of your ideas and go from there.

Good luck man, hope all goes well for ya. Last time I went on vacation and had to leave my babies it was stressful, haha. I'm sure you'll find a way.

Claber Oasis drip systems. I swear by them, and I travel on business very frequently with nobody to watch over my plants.

-spek

Blumats. I don't use them but I know several very successful growers who do.

I just paid someone to come and check mine every two days and water if needed. However, I do have a trusted family member who grows and both of us are legal so....

Well I made it back and everything was all good.
I set up a reservoir with an air stone and had a pump on a timer and ran drip lines to each of my buckets.