First drip system setup - couple questions

[OCKushCollector]

I'll be switching from soil to coco next grow so I'm planning out my setup before I go shopping and trying to get a better understanding. I'm in a 2x4 tent, so one plant per square foot puts me at 8 plants. Should I use 1 gallon or 2 gallon pots for this?

I already have an ecoplus 633 gph pump laying around as well as an air pump/stone for the res. So I was planning on running half inch clear tubing from the pump to the plants, then 1/4" from the main line to the drippers.

Would I just run the main line in the middle of the two rows of plants then cap it at the end? If the res is at ground level, I wouldn't have to worry about the siphoning effect right?

What timers are you guys using to run the pump for a few quick intervals throughout the day?

Lastly, how many gallons per week do you think I would go through with this setup? I'd like to change the res once per week so just looking for a rough estimate to gauge res size, then tweak it from there.

I realize this is a loaded topic so I appreciate any help I could get. Can't wait to get out of soil. It's almost not worth growing, for the small yields I'm producing in this space with it.

 

[rick ratlin]

I just converted to top drip; however, my medium is hydroton, not coco. I'm not sure about the watering intervals with coco, but hydroton can be really flexible.

Yes you can run 1 line down the middle, I use 1/2 " BLACK tubing as my main line (don't use clear tubing ever, it will bite you later) Unless you're buying drippers with 1/4 inch fittings just go with the smaller 5/16" tubing, it fits all the irrigation supplies at the casa depot.

Keep your rez nice and dark too. Size depends if it's dtw or return. And plant size, and lots of other stuff.

I found that there are a lot of parts for top drip (sprayers, drippers, etc.) so look around to find what fits your set-up.

 

[Unit541]

I top-drip for 30 seconds every 60 minutes during lights on, and once for 60 seconds half-way through lights out. I use this schedule for top-feed in hydroton, diatomite, perlite, or coco (straight or cut).

Pump size has a lot to do with how long it should run for. You've gotta figure out how much solution you want going into the pot per cycle. The time required to meet that volume of solution is dependent on pump size, line size, and emitter flow.

My hydro setup (recirc) for example is a six site. Each site has 8 1/4" open drip sites with a half inch feed line. My 750 GPH pump pushes half a gallon through the 8 drippers at each plant site in about 27 seconds.

Coco girls that are DTW are configured to flow about half that much in the same amount of time. Add pot-size and run-off volume to the variables here.