Drip System Feed Times

[Grasshopping]

Just wondering what everyone's feed schedule is using a drip system in a coco/perlite mix. I personally use 5gal smart pots. My question is, how often do you feed in veg and bloom and for how long? Do you feed right when the lights come on? Just looking to see what everyone is doing as far as waterings go.

 

[El Cerebro]

Ha, yeah this is the magic question. Easy answer for me is, as often as possible! Depends a lot on your media mix, and I'm not into perlite, but for coco you want to schedule so it's always moist. The more aerated your media, the more frequent you can water. Also depends on how your system is set up, cycle-timer, drippers vs open lines, adj manifold, etc, and of course the plants' metabolism and rh in the room. Making up some test buckets to analyze helps and then you just watch closely and tweak to your desired runoff as the plants grow. Or maybe use a blumat?

FYI, I've found grow journals to be the best place for comparing notes on this. Mimicking similar setups from members with established results is usually a good place to start, then you can adjust to your situation.

 

[dankworth]

Less coco gets higher growth rates. More frequent, small irrigations get higher growth rates.
If you run drip clean, you can get away with less than 20% runoff and be okay. So a buffer for safety.
If you get 20% runoff per irrigation cycle, you will probably be fine.
1/4" tees for irrigation outlets have not clogged on me yet.
I use an art-dne cycle timer. I dig it. Set your on time for however long and your off time to determine how often it cycles.
Some of the big kids are saying that chow mix (coco/hydroton) gets higher growth rates than coco/perlite mixes. I will be doing the chow mix soon myself.
I like irrigating when the lights come on.
Coco does perform best when it is pretty saturated. You can see this by watching the growth rate peak after handwatering, then watch the growth rate slow down as the coco got drier.
I am a big fan of the growth rate that 75% perlite gave me.

 

[dankworth]

Ha, yeah this is the magic question. Easy answer for me is, as often as possible! Depends a lot on your media mix, and I'm not into perlite, but for coco you want to schedule so it's always moist. The more aerated your media, the more frequent you can water. Also depends on how your system is set up, cycle-timer, drippers vs open lines, adj manifold, etc, and of course the plants' metabolism and rh in the room. Making up some test buckets to analyze helps and then you just watch closely and tweak to your desired runoff as the plants grow. Or maybe use a blumat?

FYI, I've found grow journals to be the best place for comparing notes on this. Mimicking similar setups from members with established results is usually a good place to start, then you can adjust to your situation.

Why you gotta be like that, El Cerebro. :fighting0085:
Now I look like I just follow you around rephrasing your good advice.
Come to think of it...

Why don't you go take part in the LED poll or something.

 

[El Cerebro]

Ha, I did! Oh no wait, that was the mh at the end poll.

All my posts are cut and paste from PMs DW sends me :emo

And btw, :banana1sv6:

 

[dankworth]

Ha, I did! Oh no wait, that was the mh at the end poll.

All my posts are cut and paste from PMs DW sends me :emo

And btw, :banana1sv6:

Dude your mom rides a...

Fuck is that thing anyways? It always makes me want to drink when I see it.

That is a pretty cool emo smiley. What I don't understand is why we don't have an emo smiley that cuts himself.

 

[C21H26O2]

What drip feed timers do you guys use? I'm planning on feeding twice a day during flower also how do you figure out feeding flow rate? Or is it a tweak as you go kind of thing

 

[RastaZombie]

my first time sitting in learning, My friend used coco coir but with some perilite and about 20% pro-mix, fed twice a day for 30 seconds and 45 into the first few weeks of flower as well as adjusting for your run off. The mid to late flower 1 min feed,*but* the pot size im sure hase something to do with it as well.(we used 5 and 7 gal) as well as two feeders per pot. So it it seems to be a matter of calculation,trial error and seeing what works best with your set up. Stay blessed

 

[RastaZombie]

What drip feed timers do you guys use? I'm planning on feeding twice a day during flower also how do you figure out feeding flow rate? Or is it a tweak as you go kind of thing

Check out the other thread called new to coco if you have time.

 

[mancdank]

What drip feed timers do you guys use? I'm planning on feeding twice a day during flower also how do you figure out feeding flow rate? Or is it a tweak as you go kind of thing

Put 1 of your drippers in a empty jug and time how long it takes to fill it there u have your flow rate and for how many times and amount of time being fed should be based on this

 

[RastaZombie]

Put 1 of your drippers in a empty jug and time how long it takes to fill it there u have your flow rate and for how many times and amount of time being fed should be based on this

But would root mass have a role to play at all or not that significant.

 

[mancdank]

But would root mass have a role to play at all or not that significant.

Yes bro definitely also size of plant size of medium and so on but the fact remains that the drippers will drip x amount of water in x amount of time so it gives u a good start on how many times to feed and for how long

 

[mancdank]

Yes bro definitely also size of plant size of medium and so on but the fact remains that the drippers will drip x amount of water in x amount of time so it gives u a good start on how many times to feed and for how long

So for arguments sake u want your plants to have 2 ltr of water each day and it takes 1 min to fill a 1ltr jug so this tells me u need to fees twice a day for 1 min each time u could just give it all at once and drip for 2 mins but ime it's much better to even them out as much as possible and I suppose that will depend on what timer is being used hope this helps Bro :)

 

[Funkadelic]

Dripping into a spare jug to test EC and rate .... clever!

 

[mancdank]

Dripping into a spare jug to test EC and rate .... clever!

Also flow rate so to see how long it takes to fill :)

 

[Funkadelic]

Also flow rate so to see how long it takes to fill :)

I'm a fan of using a Titan short cycle timer. Allows a lot of control. But the jug or bottle trick hadn't occurred to me. Gonna try that next round.

 

[mancdank]

I'm a fan of using a Titan short cycle timer. Allows a lot of control. But the jug or bottle trick hadn't occurred to me. Gonna try that next round.

I'm using the iws minute second timer at the moment but I've been told the new 1s are poor quality so I guess I'm guna have to start looking for a new brand