Auto feeding organics

[Animal Chin]

Hey guys I've been growing off and on for over 20 years so I'm pretty good at what I do but I'm clueless on other techniques. Here's my problem...my flower room is so full I need to remove plants every feeding just so I can get in the room. This is only my second run with a packed room and the first came out stellar and I'm expecting good things this run as well...except it's to much work because I have a physically demanding day job and coming home to move plants every feeding is getting old fast. What I need help with is deciding if I should drop one light and 1/4 of the plants so I don't need to move plants but obviously that cuts into my harvest weight by 1/4 or set up a way to auto feed? I'm old school so I feed by hand with a wand. I have no idea how to set up an auto feed system and I wouldn't know which system to use or build and I don't know what systems work well with organics and teas. I use age old and teas. Thanks for any advice. Peace.

 

[ftwendy]

This kind of system is not simple to set up, and thats mostly b/c the living teas and gritty nutes make pumping an issue. I'm working on an auto setup myself right now, so we're in the same boat. Bennies do not like high pressure/psi from passing through an impeller pump, and the grimy nutes will make for a mess if you do not stay on top of a cleaning regimen. Those are the major roadblocks I'm seeing.

Have you considered only applying plain water automagically with a simple pump and manifold setup (mondi pump, mister landscaper drip lines from lowes), and applying the teas and organics manually once or twice a week? This may seem ridiculous, but what if you had a distribution manifold of large funnels/beer bong looking devices that you could set up outside the room? That way you could fill the funnel and the tube would deliver your mix to the remote plant/area. So, if you had a mister landscaper drip line setup applying your plain water irrigation, and a system of funnels and tubes delivering fertigation/feeds/teas to each site, then you could avoid removing plants and save some time every day.

 

[stickyfing3rs]

If you're mixing in a sealed res. You could use air pressure into the res from a small air pump then just plumb it out from the bottom to your emitters on solenoid valves on timers. Then no impellers to fuck up your bennies.

 

[ftwendy]

Gravity feed, timed solenoid valve(s).....

 

[stickyfing3rs]

Gravity feed, timed solenoid valve(s).....

Basically what I was thinking. Just didn't know if gravity would cut it. A little air pressure would go a long way in keeping it flowing smooth I think

 

[caregiverken]

Gravity feed, timed solenoid valve(s).....

like you said the 1st time, big beer bongs :)

 

[Animal Chin]

I've decided to downsize so it's not a problem. Thx everyone.