# How to auto-drip Hempy type buckets???



## admiral of the black (Jan 9, 2010)

Please explain how you would outo drip hempy buckets?  What size pump, and would you need a run off line to each bucket, and would the run off be good to reuse as water???  Suggestions welcome as I am starting 15 under 1000w hps 4x4 room.  I tought that outo drip watering would be the most efficient?  Anyone have experience with this?


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## dirtyolsouth (Jan 9, 2010)

hi,

If you use a small water pump with a 5/8" fitting, it's very easy to set up a drip system.  I used to have automated grows at remote locations for years in hydro and soil and I have used and played around with irrigation and a lot with emitters etc.  IME I've had much better experience using drip lines with NO emitters... Yup, nada...  Emitters periodically clog, especially if you are partial to organic nutes like I am.  If you feed your pots with 1/4" irrigation hoses coming off of a distribution 'manifold' made out of a length of 5/8" irrigation hose that are equal in length fed from an i.e. 185 gph pump you'll get a nice slow feed rate of about a half gal per 5 minutes depending on the size of your pump.

Recently I had to go out of town for a week at Christmas so I rigged up a temporary automated watering system to use in my bloom closet.  I was gong for about 7 days and that was a bit longer than I felt I could let my plants go before watering.  I have a TGA Deep Purple plant in a 10 gal pot and a Mandala Ganesh in a 5 gal pot and I had a plant finishing up in the closet too.  Here are some pics of my setup.  In the past I've found that if you get a bit stronger pump that comes with a valve for flow control you can easily dial in your desired feed amount with the valve and a digital timer with one minute programming increments.  I had these dialed in to get a 1.5 gal feed 4 days from when I left.  

You'll want to check with coco growers to find how how often you should run your feed cycles but I'm sure it would be a great way to go, especially with coco since it needs to be fed daily...  i think...   Any coco growers out there?

Here are some pics of my crude but very functional watering setup...

Peace!


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## leafminer (Jan 9, 2010)

There's a European drip system called the Wilma that seems to be popular. Basically a kit of different drip spikes for various media, tubing, square pots, res., pump (I think) but not including the timer.
I've been thinking along these lines myself. I grow in coco. I think a small fountain pump plus a timer, some 1/4 plastic tube, Y joints, and as for the drippers? I guess I can ghetto some up without too much pain. Maybe a bit of tube with the end sealed off and some holes made with a hot needle?


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