Blumats and Coco Coir

[BubbaG]

Errr, I actually ran (2) 1-1/4" returns instead of the one shown in the sketch

 

[seaslug]

I consider rives my mentor. He uses Veg + Bloom, though, which I disliked. I'm on Jack's now but will probably go back to MaxiGro and MaxiBloom. I haven't had any runaways since I got rid of the algea & mold in my system, just a few sponge fulls in my trays during the last flowering.

I started my current grow too wet. Germinated right in the gallon smartpots saturated with dilute nute solution and the Blumats already installed but turned off. Excellent germination (12 out of 13 Cantaloupe Skunk) but I turned on the Blumats too early. A better method might be getting your coco in the right moisture range overall in the pot and then "cementing" the ceramic Blumat cone into the coco by adding extra water right there. Bury the "carrot" right up to the green cap.

 

[BeenBurned]

On problems with Blumats....Do you have a good floor drain? Lol

j/k (not really) bro but they are finicky. I've been growing with them a couple of years now and have my tech mostly figured out. I believe they would be more consistent if you use them with the tap water pressure reducer and just run straight water and hand feed nutes, but I use a double reservoir system to keep the head pressure stable and I slam the nutes to the gals through the Blumats - kind of like an IV drip.

On research material, I can provide tons. The link to ICMag is a massive thread with tons of great info (sorry moderators if this gets me in hot water, but it's excellent research). IMO the guy that provided the best info and stuck the thread through was a guy named Rives - I would focus on his posts because the total thread is ~3500 posts.... happy reading bro

#1 piece of advice. Don't chase a blumat that the plant won't latch onto after a few days.... just pull that fucker and plug a new one in a different hole. Most runouts I've had have been from Blumats that wouldn't latch up and had to be fucked with throughout the grow.

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=111046&page=237

A sketch of the all important (IMO) plumbing design is attached. Again, this is Rives' design, I just sketched it out.View attachment 433952View attachment 433953

Thanx man, great info and thanx for the link...lots o' stuff in there.

 

[BubbaG]

@seaslug IMO you can get yourself in trouble burying the carrot that deep. In the event you need to flush, or hand feed, there's a good chance you get grit in the actuator, which can ruin your day cause the blumat never valves in and out right again. Just sayin. I have migrated to the maxis and I leave a couple inches of medium from the top of the pot and I insert the carrot so the cap is above the lip of the pot so no trash can possibly get in the cap. From my experience, it doesn't make any difference how deep the ceramic cone is as long as you get it down to the roots.

 

[basement bob]

It's time for automated watering for us.
Blumats v Dosatron
I've not goggled extensively. Please be polite. Just looking to restart a thread and get input.
I know it's apples (automated pressurized irrigation) v oranges (gravity fed pre mixed) but I want ya'll farmers opinions.

Here's pre harvest pixs run for fun

Bob

 

[superbudding]

Blumats in coco work great once dialled in. Couple of points from me, Mr 1 post! I have read the other thread more than a few times, it all got rather complicated so I went back to basics.

• I run a base low nutrient solution through the 8mm pipe on a bulkhead around 13mm from the base to avoid picking up junk and 3?mm T's to each Blumat with a tap to purge.
• I can water manually with teas or heavies or whatever. The Blumats just switch off really and wait to be called on again as it dries. Which is why I'm playing with regular heavy pumped feeds and Blumats taking the strain as a daily low nutrient and moisture keeper as coco hates been dry :(
  
• I find filling the carrots with water 24-48 hrs in advance and leaving them to sit submerged pointy end up in a jug of water up to the very top cleans the caps and carrot a bit and also ensures they are fully saturated. If the carrot internal water level isn't enough (air bubble too big) or the level drops too much they can't create the vacuum needed to reopen the valve and the plant dries up without intervention no-run death the opposite of a runaway.
• After a drought or a forgetful spell (many of us have them!) make sure to pull the carrots and check for water level inside as the medium pulls the water out as it dries and they don't work again until refilled and saturated.
• I hand water for the first day until run off with the Blumat dialled right down 5-6 arrows past a clinging drop after watering fully so they are off, little hose pointing upwards the lot.
  
• Before watering again (dryish pot) I dial the blumat to a 2 second drip and note the full arrows moved to get to this point.
• Hand water until runoff and dial back to a clinging drop again counting the arrows moved.
• The difference between dry and wet (last two points) + 0.5 each way is the range for your container from bone dry to run off wet I mark this on the blumat.
  
• I now have the Blumat set to be off when I am at run off so adding +1-1.5 arrows clockwise, is I have found the sweet spot for me in most pot sizes.
• If a working Blumat starts behaving oddly either the level is low in the carrot, the medium isn't contacting all of the carrot, the pipeline has a blockage, stretch it out and roll it including through the valve to clear. or the cap has something blocking it's operation.
  
• I ran several deck and patio systems on bedding and fruits, herbs etc and really figured these things out. They are simple and work well once dialled in first 24 hours are not stable so leave them to settle.
• My golden rule is mid range of the difference at run off -1.5 arrows and adjust .5 at a time.

Hopefully start writing up my plan for forced and regular maintenance feeds in coco soon :0)
Nothing good happens quickly in this game.

 

[seaslug]

I just set up a fourth reservoir for Blumats at my place so I do like my system of MaxiGro/MaxiBloom into gallon smartpots of bagged coco. Unfortunately, I'm still fighting white mold in the lines. I haven't installed black split loom tubing over the transluscent orange silicone and I believe that is where it starts growing. I keep bleach in the reservoir but if total Cl ever gets below 2ppm the mold reappears.

I bought Hanna and Hach free chlorine colorimeters but the test is unreliable, IMO. Even timed down to the second, I couldn't get repeatable results. Using Hach reagent for free chlorine in the Hanna digital colorimeter, I get good repeatability at the eight minute mark. This matters because I need a higher range than the 3.50ppm of the total chlorine tests. I don't really care what the actual total and free chlorine numbers are--I just want to stay in an effective but safe range. My most sativa clones in the veg room recently distorted their leaves from having too much chlorine. The six other phenotypes showed no ill effects.

So anyway, if you want to keep it simple--run a clear water reservoir with a soil mix or something.

Edit: The Hanna Total Chlorine (HI-711) and Free Chlorine (HI-701) colorimeters are identical.

 

[BubbaG]

Blumats in coco work great once dialled in. Couple of points from me, Mr 1 post! I have read the other thread more than a few times, it all got rather complicated so I went back to basics.

• I run a base low nutrient solution through the 8mm pipe on a bulkhead around 13mm from the base to avoid picking up junk and 3?mm T's to each Blumat with a tap to purge.
• I can water manually with teas or heavies or whatever. The Blumats just switch off really and wait to be called on again as it dries. Which is why I'm playing with regular heavy pumped feeds and Blumats taking the strain as a daily low nutrient and moisture keeper as coco hates been dry :(
  
• I find filling the carrots with water 24-48 hrs in advance and leaving them to sit submerged pointy end up in a jug of water up to the very top cleans the caps and carrot a bit and also ensures they are fully saturated. If the carrot internal water level isn't enough (air bubble too big) or the level drops too much they can't create the vacuum needed to reopen the valve and the plant dries up without intervention no-run death the opposite of a runaway.
• After a drought or a forgetful spell (many of us have them!) make sure to pull the carrots and check for water level inside as the medium pulls the water out as it dries and they don't work again until refilled and saturated.
• I hand water for the first day until run off with the Blumat dialled right down 5-6 arrows past a clinging drop after watering fully so they are off, little hose pointing upwards the lot.
  
• Before watering again (dryish pot) I dial the blumat to a 2 second drip and note the full arrows moved to get to this point.
• Hand water until runoff and dial back to a clinging drop again counting the arrows moved.
• The difference between dry and wet (last two points) + 0.5 each way is the range for your container from bone dry to run off wet I mark this on the blumat.
  
• I now have the Blumat set to be off when I am at run off so adding +1-1.5 arrows clockwise, is I have found the sweet spot for me in most pot sizes.
• If a working Blumat starts behaving oddly either the level is low in the carrot, the medium isn't contacting all of the carrot, the pipeline has a blockage, stretch it out and roll it including through the valve to clear. or the cap has something blocking it's operation.
  
• I ran several deck and patio systems on bedding and fruits, herbs etc and really figured these things out. They are simple and work well once dialled in first 24 hours are not stable so leave them to settle.
• My golden rule is mid range of the difference at run off -1.5 arrows and adjust .5 at a time.

Hopefully start writing up my plan for forced and regular maintenance feeds in coco soon :0)
Nothing good happens quickly in this game.

Excellent info man. If you're only going to post once, that's the way to do it. I agree on most all of that and I too have returned to the kiss method - similar results on carrots getting sucked dry and what to do after a drought.. good stuff.

What I have learned that is most impactful is that multiple blumats using the pressure reducer in large beds absolutely rules

 

[CelticEBE]

@BubbaG, one thing that I haven't noticed here is that if you do run them with Coco, that you should run straight coco and no perlite. This comes from the guys who make them. They told me not to use coco....but if I did to make sure it was straight coco. This was after I flooded my place about 3 times using a 60/40 coco and perlite blend.

After the floods I set up in 2 gallon smarties with straight coco and ran Heavy 16 as my base. It ran super clean without the Prime and I didn't have any issues with clogs.

 

[superbudding]

Tried setting up a drip to waste and it's been nothing but a pain in the arse, gave up and have stuck a blumat in and set the res. So much better and easy as piss!

 

[seaslug]

I'm finally giving up on my Blumat system because I can't control white mold in the reservoir and lines.

Going to try two gallon plastic hempy buckets, hydroton on the bottom, a hole drilled two inches up, then 100% Canna coco. Hand watered with the same nute solutions I was using with Blumats.

 

[superbudding]

What nutrients do you use Seaslug? do you think it is those that are causing the mold or some bennies, salts in the line? I use Vitalink coco and it has been fine for ages res goes a bit furry sometimes if I leave it too long. I have the blumat supplied brown silicone lines and black feed pipe with a sealed bucket res so no light leaks into the system and the rez is remote so the temp doesn't go sky high which caused allsorts of issues for me personally.
Sounds like an odd issue you got well not odd per say but.. weird...
Replacement is known good and tested. Good luck :)

 

[BubbaG]

I'm finally giving up on my Blumat system because I can't control white mold in the reservoir and lines.

Going to try two gallon plastic hempy buckets, hydroton on the bottom, a hole drilled two inches up, then 100% Canna coco. Hand watered with the same nute solutions I was using with Blumats.

Sorry to hear that man... the pressure reducer thingy is the way to go - been using that vs a res for the past 6 months - no comparison and no chance for mold IMO

 

[seaslug]

I live in an old house near Seattle and my general hygiene is OK (bathrooms and kitchen) but this mold has kicked my ass. I've tried Zone which has copper sulfate and potassium nitrate and that seemed to help only a little, in combination with chlorine.

I used to follow the big Blumat thread at IC and some people need to use bleach in the reservoir but I've never heard of a serious problem like mine. It isn't even the nitrates in solution--I've always run chemical nutes, Drip Clean and sometimes silica or fulvic acid--a bubble cloner will develop the same mold.

An aquarium chiller unit would probably help but screw that. I was hoping to get this situation under control with chlorine so I could post a tutorial about using (and monitoring) sodium hypochlorite or calcium hypochlorite.

If my flower room was in the basement I'd be more likely to run a pressure system. I could run a gravity Blumat system with clear water and chlorine but I like the idea of continually feeding coco. My runs have been remarkably free of bugs or else I'd be tempted to go with the ammended soil mix like I used years before.

 

[superbudding]

Bad times Seaslug, Do you get it in the pots too? I can't run DWC or hempies because I always end up with 'chewy' water! I don't know what it is I thought it may be the tap water. I tried RO , h202, bleach allsorts and no dice. Must be something in the air here as a sealed res is fine.

I'm thinking for your problem maybe some ozone bubbled through or UV treating the straight pre mixed water would help, I did think of doing this with mine but went blumat instead? I believe you can still run ozone in the rez without chems dropping out whereas UV I believe knackers the balance up. I know more from the Reef Keeping side about this but UV and Ozone were my 'easy mode' for keeping unwanted biological stuff down? Might be a step to try short of a chiller? or maybe go down the more positive bennies crowding out the moldy stuff and replacing with the good dudes?
The other one you could try is taking a sample of it and getting it checked out by one of those friendly testing university places? Knowing what you're up against will give you ideas to tackle it.

Just trying to help dude, not teaching you to suck eggs :rolleyes:

I'm going to go read this thread :)
https://www.thcfarmer.com/community/threads/ozone-use-for-water-sterilization.46536/

 

[seaslug]

My basement veg room reservoir is manageable because the average temperature has been about 70F versus 79F in the flower room. I don't have a good way to place the flower reservoir outside the room.

My mold loves oxygen. It goes wild with aeration or H2O2. I saw people having trouble with organics in Blumat reservoirs so I decided to run "dead". Bennies might be an option but I'm ready for a change. I'm also in the middle of a sativa seed run I don't want to lose. Right now, I have to change the res almost every other day. Even bringing it into the shower isn't enough--the ABS seems clean but it isn't. Not in the mood to go hospital level clean to grow weed. I've scrubbed with bleach, H2O2, and isopropyl but that only helps temporarily.

The tap water isn't bad stuff. I had a bucket full, soaking Blumat cones, that was left in the basement maybe four days. A thin, clear mold "slick" started to form on the surface by the third day. The city treats the water at just under 1 ppm total chlorine.