Vacations

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Jafo232

Well-Known Member
I am building my indoor setup for a grow I am planning. I have a question about something I am sure you all deal with.

What do you do when you and everyone in the house is going to be gone for a week or two? I have a vacation in a few months and all of us will be out for two weeks. Is there some auto-feeding system you use or do you just hire it out to friends and family?

Thanks!
 
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waterproof808

Well-Known Member
Etiher plan vacations around your grow cycle, or plan your grow cycle around your vacation. Good plant sitters are hard to find and even harder to follow directions very well. Drip systems are pretty simply to set up and a good skill to have in general.

My advice would be set up a simple automatic drip system on a smart outlet or timer, and also find someone that can check on things once or twice a week to make sure nothing has gone awry. If you dont have a big enough reservoir to hold two weeks of water, make it as simple as possible for someone to refill it by measuring out all your nutrients beforehand and all your help has to do is dump it in the correct sequence.
 
bk78

bk78

Well-Known Member
I run a 50 gallon reservoir, and max I can leave for would be 7 days. If you were in soil you could stretch that 7 days to 14-21 I’m sure, but I like fast growth.
 
HydroDC

HydroDC

Well-Known Member
Maybe PPK courtasy of Delta9nxs. I'm away for 2+ weeks at a time for half the grow. Match res size to away time and plan away time around significant events like topping, defoliation, harvest and drying. Most of his stuff is on icmag. As long as you're dialed in - good equipment, right environment, no pests, know your nutes, etc. - no problems. A boring grow requiring minimal attention. And pahpah is right - it's on auto timers with a pump and a res and tubs and hoses so it's in the basement.
 
xox

xox

Well-Known Member
i was thinking about this the other day, i was thinking about switching to hydroponics someday. i thought it would be cool to setup a large flood and drain table. get a 100 gallon food grade drum fill the 100 gallon drum up with ro water and setup a float valve inside the reservoir for the flood and drain table whenever the reservoir would get low the float valve would tip and the ro water in the drum would flow to the reservoir to top it up. of course when this happens this would change the ppm and ph in the reservoir at this point the bluelabs setup that has the peristaltic pumps would take over and adjust the ppm and ph automatically. i figured this setup would slick af.
 
HGCC

HGCC

Well-Known Member
It's definitely a problem. I built a resevoir system with drippers recently and am testing out how it goes with just leaving it alone, should be good for a week at least.

Edit: you can put something together for around 100 bucks, size dependant of course. Get a tote/barrel in a sufficient size (30-50 gallons), fountain pump (20-30 bucks), aquarium air pump ($15), sprinkler head that connect to a bunch of drip lines (8 port ones were 10 each I think, size it to your grow), various hoses and fittings (30-50 total)...you spend a decent amount of time in the sprinkler aisle at home depot. Timer that can do short time increments.
 
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ExclusiveX420

Member
Hey friend. I had the same question. PLEASE CHECK THIS OUT!
Blumat Tropt from sustainable village. Sold in USA and Eu. I was skeptical but I'm telling you I had it over 3 weeks now and I have not watered my plants by hand once at all since ! It's amazing, follow the directions and 50 you tube videos and your golden.
No power cords, gravity drip only. By a 13 gal reservoir and put it on a tall stool or something a few feet above your pots. You can use coco or soil. Couple example photos.
I run 4 (3 gallon coco) all on one reservoir and I can get 5-6 days on 7 gallons. If you hand water the day you leave. You may save a few gallons.
Read up on it. It takes a couple weeks to dial in. Small adjustments here and there to learn. Iv had 2-3 situations in the first couple weeks where 1 pot ran away aka water kept dripping beyond holding capacity and flooded the pot. No big deal just adjust the individual watering carrot that u put in the soil and make sure the lines have no air bubbles or debree. I installed fuel filters and fixed alot of issues related to that. I'm telling you. 3+ weeks I have no watered once. They use less water than normal and no run off needed except occasionally by hand your choice. Also I'm using the light nutrient feed chart available for my brand. General hydroponics Flora series. I bought gallon jugs this year and if use this system on my others as well I will literally have nutrients beyond expiration. You need so little since no run off. They grow 2-3x faster than regular soil hand watered IMO. Almost as fast as Dwc, hydro.. if not the same. It's amazing. Good luck, I was afraid of anything hooked up to a hose or timer. That shit fails. So can a blumat but at least you only have a reservoir that can run out eventually. (They use 5 gallon buckets for reservoirs in the videos but I like 13 gal for a few pots. Less refills.
I'm so glad I got this for vacationing. This weekend is first trip away fingers crossed but it's been working well.
 

Attachments

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NYCBambu

Well-Known Member
ExclusiveX420 said:
Hey friend. I had the same question. PLEASE CHECK THIS OUT!
Blumat Tropt from sustainable village. Sold in USA and Eu. I was skeptical but I'm telling you I had it over 3 weeks now and I have not watered my plants by hand once at all since ! It's amazing, follow the directions and 50 you tube videos and your golden.
No power cords, gravity drip only. By a 13 gal reservoir and put it on a tall stool or something a few feet above your pots. You can use coco or soil. Couple example photos.
I run 4 (3 gallon coco) all on one reservoir and I can get 5-6 days on 7 gallons. If you hand water the day you leave. You may save a few gallons.
Read up on it. It takes a couple weeks to dial in. Small adjustments here and there to learn. Iv had 2-3 situations in the first couple weeks where 1 pot ran away aka water kept dripping beyond holding capacity and flooded the pot. No big deal just adjust the individual watering carrot that u put in the soil and make sure the lines have no air bubbles or debree. I installed fuel filters and fixed alot of issues related to that. I'm telling you. 3+ weeks I have no watered once. They use less water than normal and no run off needed except occasionally by hand your choice. Also I'm using the light nutrient feed chart available for my brand. General hydroponics Flora series. I bought gallon jugs this year and if use this system on my others as well I will literally have nutrients beyond expiration. You need so little since no run off. They grow 2-3x faster than regular soil hand watered IMO. Almost as fast as Dwc, hydro.. if not the same. It's amazing. Good luck, I was afraid of anything hooked up to a hose or timer. That shit fails. So can a blumat but at least you only have a reservoir that can run out eventually. (They use 5 gallon buckets for reservoirs in the videos but I like 13 gal for a few pots. Less refills.
I'm so glad I got this for vacationing. This weekend is first trip away fingers crossed but it's been working well.
Click to expand...
Looks good thanks for posting. Did you see the XL version? Looks even simpler but I dont know if they can be extended.
 
LeastExpectedGrower

LeastExpectedGrower

Well-Known Member

Blumat 12 Sensor Drip Irrigation Kit - Gravity

A gravity-fed irrigation system great for rainwater use, watering hard-to-reach places, and keeping plants more healthy.
www.sustainablevillage.com www.sustainablevillage.com

Plus a few other bits and pieces and a 20g bin for reservoir. I prefer doing the hand watering thing, but I used this system from March through July this year and took several week-plus trips during that time.
 
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delta9nxs

Active Member
i think the PPK hydroponic system is the absolute greatest growing device on the planet! set it and forget it! like Ron Popeil's rotisserie roaster!

weeks away no problem! total solution stability. no leaks if built right.
 
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Jafo232

Well-Known Member
So I ended up using a Rainpoint automatic waterer for when I was out for 1 week. Worked fine, perfect actually. I started using it a couple weeks before I actually went on vacation to get a feel for it.

 
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