Irrigation Spaghetti Line

[GrowGod]

how many spaghetti lines can I use per 300 gph pump? And the tricky part is how much gph do I lose on a T or Yjoint. Only 8 plants per tray so I willlhave to T off to the next tray unless the pump can only handle 8 noodles.
Don't have time for trial and error plus I want to buy the right size pumps the first time.
Any advice?

 

[Savage Henry]

Pressure compensating Drip emitters take out the majority of guesswork. Just make sure your pump does at least 10 psi and put a disk filter in the line before the drippers.

Edit: The little giant 5-msp submersible pump is the shit.

 

[MGRox]

I can get some approximate numbers here for you. Heh, don't have all the calculators around that I used to use in the fish store. Head pressure requires a fair bit of calcs to estimate.

HEAD PRESSURE FROM HOSE:
Water @0.5 GPM through a 0.125" plastic pipe = 2.9 PSI per foot of total length with no height change.
PRESSURE LOSS:
Water @ 0.5 GPM through a 8 foot 0.125" plastic pipe (1 foot pipe per outlet) with 8 outlets = 23 PSI Loss
HEAD PRESSURE FROM TEE:
Water @ o.5 GPM through a 0.125" plastic tee (one side) = 0.0007 PSI per fitting side.

So, assuming you have not more than 8 outlets and 8 foot of total dripline; you can just consider the 23 PSI "Loss". Each extra foot of hose that you add over this will increase head pressure by appx 3 PSI. Say your total hose then was 15 foot; the total head pressure + pressure loss would be appx 44 PSI.
Then you just need to purchase a pump that delivers 0.5 GPM @ 44-50 PSI.

In this example, something like below might work well.


Main Calcs used:

http://irrigation.wsu.edu/Content/Calculators/General/Pressure-Loss-With-Outlets.php
http://www.lmnoeng.com/pipes.php

 

[GrowGod]

I can get some approximate numbers here for you. Heh, don't have all the calculators around that I used to use in the fish store. Head pressure requires a fair bit of calcs to estimate.

HEAD PRESSURE FROM HOSE:
Water @0.5 GPM through a 0.125" plastic pipe = 2.9 PSI per foot of total length with no height change.
PRESSURE LOSS:
Water @ 0.5 GPM through a 8 foot 0.125" plastic pipe (1 foot pipe per outlet) with 8 outlets = 23 PSI Loss
HEAD PRESSURE FROM TEE:
Water @ o.5 GPM through a 0.125" plastic tee (one side) = 0.0007 PSI per fitting side.

So, assuming you have not more than 8 outlets and 8 foot of total dripline; you can just consider the 23 PSI "Loss". Each extra foot of hose that you add over this will increase head pressure by appx 3 PSI. Say your total hose then was 15 foot; the total head pressure + pressure loss would be appx 44 PSI.
Then you just need to purchase a pump that delivers 0.5 GPM @ 44-50 PSI.

In this example, something like below might work well.


Main Calcs used:

http://irrigation.wsu.edu/Content/Calculators/General/Pressure-Loss-With-Outlets.php
http://www.lmnoeng.com/pipes.php

I'm lost. Let me come back after coffee lol. Do you raise fish now

 

[MGRox]

Crap, sorry didn't mean to confuse. Yeah I used to have a marine store for a number of years.

So, above I was basing that on a few things. 0.5GPM flow (dripper rate) and common 1/8" dripline. For any pump system we need to start with an idea of flow; then we can input the components (pipes, fittings etc) to determine PSI. With a known flow rate and PSI; you can then easily pick a pump as most mfg.s should have that graphed.
You can also use those calc links along with any flow rate or pipe size you like; which can be used to estimate PSI / pump.

 

[hermit186]

All the calculations are based on a clean pump any amount of slime in the pump or on the filter blows that way down.

Depends how far your pushing and how tall are the take offs are. Too stop air lock in the feeder lines I run my feed line at the same height as the top of pots. My main feeder is held to the wall by pipe clamps. I have 2, 2x4 foot bed they will hold 3 or 4 of the medium to tall plants and 5 to 6 of the shorter I run a 350 pump and I don't use the emitter I have plastic tubing with a T making a small circle around the stem base. I drill 4 small holes, start very small 1/16" and clean the holes. Your pump will need to run for 30 min. There will be more from one or the other if plant gets to much use one with 3 holes it takes some tweaking but is inexpensive. I got it working with little very little water. got a bigger pump a 450 and it will run both beds and at the most I had 11 plants working on about 20 min for full soaking then switched to 3 times a day for 15 min and grows nicely. My reservoir is a 7 gal plastic pail I change it out every 3rd day mostly takes less than 5 gal in 3 days and I stay with fresh mix. I pump the reservoir into a bucket and use in garden mostly I get about 1.5 to 2 gals left after three days.

The reason I went to drip as all was ebb and flow when I got to 5 gal every 3 days evaporation was hard to keep control of the nutrient numbers and ph.

 

[GrowGod]

K

Crap, sorry didn't mean to confuse. Yeah I used to have a marine store for a number of years.

So, above I was basing that on a few things. 0.5GPM flow (dripper rate) and common 1/8" dripline. For any pump system we need to start with an idea of flow; then we can input the components (pipes, fittings etc) to determine PSI. With a known flow rate and PSI; you can then easily pick a pump as most mfg.s should have that graphed.
You can also use those calc links along with any flow rate or pipe size you like; which can be used to estimate PSI / pump.

just over some of those charts and am starting to understand. Need to plug in some numbers and see what I come up .