Soil Drip System Help

[doniboy]

Four part question. I want to build a timed drip system to auto water my plants that are in soil. I already have the stakes, tubing, and pump. I'm going to use a 5 gallon bucket for the reservoir for right now.

My question are:

1. Can I still use Fox Farm nutes that were meant for soil (Grow Big, Big Bloom, Tiger Bloom)?
2. Being that my medium is soil based, do I need to use air stones?
3. Will the nutes that are sitting in the reservoir go bad, or will it be okay to sit of a week or so?
4. Fox Farm says to feed after every other watering. Being that my reservoir will always contain nutes, will I be okay with feeding every watering with an even weaker solution than I would use under a normal feeding schedule?

doniboy Reviewed by doniboy on 06-24-2013. Soil Drip System Help Four part question. I want to build a timed drip system to auto water my plants that are in soil. I already have the stakes, tubing, and pump. I'm going to use a 5 gallon bucket for the reservoir for right now. My question are: Can I still use Fox Farm nutes that were meant for soil (Grow Big, Big Bloom, Tiger Bloom)? Being that my medium is soil based, do I need to use air stones? Will the nutes that are sitting in the reservoir go bad, or will it be okay to sit of a week or so? Rating: 5

[Token LaRoche]

Don't know if you're still hanging around -- just noticed this.

I just used an automatic drip system for a week and a half while out of town. It did exactly what I had planned.

I used a Claber Oasis watering system (you can buy the whole thing off Amazon for about $65 as I recall). It has a gravity fed reservoir and uses tubing and drippers and has a 6.6 gallon tank. The math wasn't working out for me on the watering -- there was just no way to get enough water out of the thing using a reasonable number of drippers. So, I built an auxiliary controller that would leave the valve open longer (a LOT longer) to get more water with fewer drippers. Two plants -- I was estimating one 3-liter watering every 4 days. Worked great -- I watered before we left and the box watered 4 and 8 days after we left + the day after we got back. At that point, it was out of water.

Anyway, about your questions. I don't know any reason why you couldn't use the FF nutes except that they don't seem to stay mixed in water for very long. You mix up a batch and after a few hours, I bet they've separated a bit. Airstones in the reservoir might fix this -- you'd have to give it a shot (and please report back!). Can't think of anything that would cause the nutes to go bad over a week or three. In my setup, I had read that the Oasis can get gummed up with ferts, so I used pH adjusted water only. This worked out perfectly because it was the 2 weeks before harvest.

I do think you're okay feeding the nutes all the time but at lower concentration. I just finished my first round with this and mixed everything at half recommended strength (FoxFarms nutes using their hydro schedule with coco coir and perlite). Keep in mind that coco / perlite has no nutes built in, so this might be expected to need more than a soil grow. You might do well to start at 1/3 concentration in soil. My philosophy was that if the plant didn't have signs of being over-fed, I fed them. If they were starting to look a little burned, I switched to water. Everything adjusted to a pH of 7.0. Turned out, I was pretty much feeding twice then watering once. I'll try a lower dosage of nutes next time and see if I can feed every time.

Haven't found too many folks who are into the auto-watering, and I only use it when I need to be out of town. Bound to be some experimenting. Let us know what you learn!