Good day all. I was hoping to get some input on automatic Nutrient Dispensers. I purchased a Growee w/ pH pumps, hope to add the rest soon, but my real question is…
Anyone using a pH pump and/or nutes and have issues with keeping nutrients “well shaken?”
Thanks,
Jim
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I personally haven’t messed with any of the newer stuff so I won’t be of much help there but for the nutrients staying in suspense I use to use one of those marine circulation pumps or wave makers, just don’t point it at the ph probe, enough movement can sometimes cause a wonky reading for half a second and might throw it off enough to cause the pump to dose.
Fluval makes great marine pumps.
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Automatic nute dispensers like the dose a tron and its knock offs have been used in agriculture for quite some time but are extremely expensive and not necessary for home size grows. They are better for commercial sized grows. Automatic drip emitter watering systems drawing from a reservior full of premixed nutes is a better alternative and much more affordable
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Thank you @Medicineman33 and @Autos-only <-love the name, but I am looking more for input on how to keep the nutrients properly mixed up in the concentrated form being pulled in by the pump.
At the moment, I grab a bottle ands shake it well before I use. Not something I can do when mounted to a pump system.
I’m an automation person. I want to be as hands-off as possible.
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I see! Give me a few minutes and I’ll message a buddy of mine, he runs a massive grow in Ohio of over 40k plants. I will see what he uses and how he does it.
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I use this and it works well… you do, however, need to shake the contents often or the nutes settle. I’m working on a diy one that has a recirculating pump to keep things mixed up but haven’t got it finished yet. You may also need to install a back flow prevention device but that depends on where it is located compared to the plants.
@Autos-only JESUS CHRIST! That is a lot of plants.
I was thinking of something like a mixer plate where you drop a pellet in the container and set it on the plate and it spins it at variable speeds. I just don’t know how well that would really work, and could I just use the retail containers?
I’m curious to hear back from the Pro’s.
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He got back to me but thought the same thing I did… pump and it was already mixed into water. I’m still waiting to hear back about the concentrate…
He was a room mate of mine many many years ago when I was 15-16 and always watched me grow, it’s funny how now he grows for a living and I grow for fun.
He will message me from time to time to bounce questions and problems off me.
Couple months back he had a problem with powdery mildew only in one spot and he told me it was two different strains, I told him if it’s two different strains and in only one spot it’s not a cultivar or phenotype weakness, it’s an environmental problem. Something is different over there, lack of airflow/humidity something…
he told me there is an ac unit over there and it was just cleaned… they moved the vent pointing down, I told him to grab an IR gun and get a Leaf surface temp reading, sure enough was in the upper 50s. Hasn’t had the problem since.
This is the facility, currently two high working on getting the 3rd level running.
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He said everything is hand mixed… 8 650 gallon tanks for flower room…
I don’t see why your magnet stirring idea wouldn’t work. Set it in a timer for 5 minutes ever 4-6 hours?
How many plants are you planning on growing at a time? Smaller grows, say 2-5 plants, do fine with a cheap Amazon automatic drip feeder, and an even cheaper aquarium wave maker. The wave maker keeps your nutes mixed and the drip system, well, does that lol. You still have to mix, but the wave maker will keep your solution mixed, with less pH drift. Liquid nutes are going to settle when left unused and have to be shaken, for the most part.
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Morning @Borderryan22 , I have 5 plants I will be running under an SoG in an RDWC tote system. This will be my first SoG, so I am sure I will be making adjustments from what I learn on the first run. I’m starting my automation with just the pH pump system. I’ve already purchased, and installed it for the next grow. With Growee, it will cost me $335 to add a pump that does two nutes or supplements. So my pH Up and Down will be setting below the pump, next to the reservoir. Growee has a distance limit of 23" max from pump.
The only problem I see with this idea would be if PPMs swing up and unknown to you be left for too long.
I feel like that would be a better plan for flood and drain but I haven’t done hydro is 12+ years, would love to hear everyone’s input cause this has me curious.
I guess you could set up a supply of RO water to the system, either less then the plant can consume or an overflow to drain, this would be a waste but it would probably accomplish what you want.
@Autos-only Growee has a full monitoring system builtin as well, so I always know temp, pH, and ppm via the app.
I’m not 100% on automating the nutes yet, but my pH swings were pretty hefty while I was figuring out what my plants wanted. For that I welcome automation to keep my pH between 5.8 and 6.2.
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Not 100% sure, but I don’t think keeping the pH chems stirred will be as big of an issue as the nutes, will it?
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Yes it’s normal for ph to swing a lot, my concern is nutrients cause you can only go one way and that’s up without adding fresh water.
Same concern. Working on auto-top off for the res too. I run RO water.
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Sorry for any typos talking into the phone.
I think your best bet would be a constant supply of ro water in small amounts with an overflow to drain this way parts per million are constantly going down while your automated system is increasing. Obviously that causes more problems and concerns like products like Hydro guard, you would need another reservoir to handle that in the proper amounts all of which is definitely doable, really depends on how hands off you want to go with a Hydroponics system, being hands off of Hydro is a concern all of its own.
You will need multiple different dispensers for multiple different products.
It’s sounding more like a check res in the RDWC circuit, that’s adjusted on the fly for pH, and then a fill res of manually mixed solution, hooked up to a float in the check res for keeping it topped up between changes/strains/veg-flwr, etc. I do like the sound of auto adjusting pH.