SOIL Have a look at this beauty!!

[Kingkrab]

My new HGL V550 R2 light rocked this test run!! I’m blown away. Full compliment of Advanced Nutes with ProMix and a bit of FoxFarms Oceanic. Cookies Kush fem seed no auto.

[Kingkrab]

Sry... phone shit the bed. Here are pics

[Kingkrab]

More pics. These ones from yesterday.

[MrPNW]

Man those are sweet!

What size pot is that and what is the system you have there watering?

I’ve got a white food grade 30 gallon barrel on a table outside my tent with a 10’ hose and watering wand hanging inside. I turn on the barrel’s spigot lever head in and water with ease. But the idea of adapting my barrel to feed an automated system is really appealing.

[Kingkrab]

Pots are 3.9g cloth pots in an autopot Smartpot XL

[MrPNW]

When you have soil are the auto pots just feeding the water from below? I plan the do the super soil technique for my 2nd grow and not worrying about water would make it practically seamless. Do you know if the have autopots that big?

[MrPNW]

Is this the right company?

https://www.autopot-usa.com/

[Kingkrab]

Ya that’s the place. The have multi pot tray systems that are all fed from the bottom. It works great

[Cali]

MrPNW have you ever heard of Blumats? A lot of living soil growers use them to keep the soil at optimum hydration levels. I use them myself in a couple grows. I have to set them back up but been doing changes to my grow room so I been doing it by hand this last run. I use a 5 gallon bucket for my reservoir and it waters my two 20 gallon pots. With a 55 gallon drum you are going to need to find another hobby. The plants will literally grow themselves.

[MrPNW]

Thank you. I have not but bookmarked it to read up.

https://blumat.com/en

Someone adapted a pet watering system to plants. Interesting idea, now he just needs to tie the PetPot into a reservoir.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZ24XbF-TRE&t=468s

[Kingkrab]

Lots of great ideas out there. A buddy set up a hydroponic system with just a gravity fed system to feed and a pump that cycles on and off only when reservoir needs topping up. Works great he says and saves on energy and pump replacement since it only runs for a min or two every couple hours.

[MrPNW]

I contacted www.sustainablevillage.com a US distributor of Blumat and got a price for setup on six 7 gallon fabric pots. The clay carrots sound pretty cool.
Now the question is, do I want to pay more for a bottom feed system? I like the idea of not having all these carrots, drippers and tubes sitting on top of the soil.
I’m not sure how much they will be in the way of thing.

Qty. 2
https://www.sustainablevillage.com/8...tank-connector
Qty. 1
https://www.sustainablevillage.com/r...bing-25ft-roll
Qty. 1

https://www.sustainablevillage.com/blumat-8mm-tees-bulk

Qty. 3
https://www.sustainablevillage.com/b...off-valve-bulk
Qty. 6 (the deluxe had more drippers for my 7 gallon size)
https://www.sustainablevillage.com/b...pot-kit-deluxe
Qty. 1
https://www.sustainablevillage.com/b...tor-drippers-7
Total” 133.70

Qty. 1 (optional)
https://www.sustainablevillage.com/b...moisture-meter
$74.60

He says the double line equalizes the pressure better.


The 5 gallon kit comes in 3 level, each level contains different quantities of drippers.
The deluxe kit had the most dripper so provides the extra water for my 7 gallon pots.

[MrPNW]

I contacted the US Autopot dealer to see if their system was adaptable and it is.

So far this feels like the better option.
With their recommended one aquavalve per 4x4 area, and my 5x5 tent, I would probably stay with 4 plant grows, instead of going to 6. I rather like the extra room around the plants (I often find myself just sitting on a bucket and talking to them). I have a milkhouse heater, radiator heater and 8” oscillating floor fan on the floor now.
For the 4 plants, I would only need to have one AQUAvalve in a plastic pan.

My 30 gallon water barrel is up 4’ off the ground and has;
3/4” GHT brass Spigot $17.95
3/4” GHT to 1/2” barb brass Adapters for mainline $9.00

I’ll need; UPDATED
1/2” water hose
1/2″ mainline to 3/8″ In-line Filter $8.55. (more filters)
3/8” water hose
AQUAvalve5 for 1/2” main line to 3/8” valve/plant lines $21.95
Root control sheet 46″ by 20″ $23.55

This 36” x 36” x 2” Drain Pan would hold all 4 plants without the need for individual saucers or pans. I would run the 1/2” hose through the pan wall and then use the reducer to 3/8” hose to hookup to the AQUAvalve5

There are many sizes of heavy duty plastic pan and trays for pet cages. Dura-Tray is a great product, they just didn’t have the size I wanted.

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Description
Choose 3/8″ for AQUAvalve5. Top Hat Grommets provide a water tight connection using 3/8″ pipe with plastic reservoirs. Positioned at the bottom of the reservoir. Drill out to 1/2” diameter using a step drill. The grommet is then inserted into the hole and a length of 3/8″ or 1/4″ pipe (according to the grommet used) is then pushed through the grommet. Push the pipe all the way through the grommet so that you can see the tube protruding inside the reservoir.

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Manny at Autopot had this to say.
Thanks for reaching out. You can adapt most reservoirs to have a tap on the bottom, but we don’t sell the parts you would need for that. Ultimately you would need to find a tap or bulkhead that you could put in the bottom of the tank and then seal it in a way that was watertight. You would just want to make sure that your tap was made to connect to a ½” mainline. You would need our valve kit ( AQUAvalve & cover) for each pot and an oversized saucer to put the kit and the pot in. I’ve attached some pictures so you can see what that looks like.

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I then asked;
It looks like a single valve can feed as many pots that can fit in a tray with room for all. It looks like the pots sit on the tray bottom. How tall do the tray walls need to be?
A single valve can feed multiple pots as long as they are all within a 4’x4’ area. The valve fills the tray to ¾” wit water. So anything bigger than that would work. Ideally at least 2” to avoid spills.