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My GroBuckets were delivered yesterday. I was checking them out and set one up in an empty bucket.
I realized that if I can’t get in from the sides of a tent to water that my watering wand was to big for the fill tube. So here is my fix for watering plants in the rear of the tent.
I took an exacto knife and trimmed a small hole to hit a 1/2 inch irrigation tube in it.
Inserted tube in it.
Made sure the Level Indicator would slide up and down.
Added a barbed elbow to it.
Drilled 2 holes that I could slide a zip tie though to keep the tubing from hanging up on the Water Level Indicator.
Assembled it.
Tested it.
Works great!
I’m going to run run the irrigation tubing to the front of the tent and label them. To see the Water Level Indicators, I plan to have them facing towards the center middle of the tent. I would have preferred 3/8 tubing for this modification, but I used what I had on hand.
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Hey, there thanks so much for the photos. Wondering if there’s a reason you don’t fill the buckets all the way near the top? Remember I’m still learning…
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Not sure this will help, but I’ve copied and pasted a post from one of our Facebook “GroTech Garden Group” growers. He’s the one who had 100 buckets hooked to irrigation out in his Alaskan greenhouse. This post was re: indoor growing:
GroBucket central irrigation example, part 3. Here, I have used a 5 gallon bucket as a water/nutrient reservoir instead of a hose bib or trash can reservoir as the source. The control bucket is the same one as I used outdoors. Perfectly scaled for an indoor grow. The reservoir and control bucket do use quite a bit of valuable space and the system could be significantly optimized. In case you are wondering what I am up to? I grow in zone 1B. I have to finish most peppers indoors, so these were plucked from my outdoor and greenhouse GroBucket gardens. After having central irrigation all summer, I wasn’t going back!
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I saw a video that I think was on your kick starter release irrigation system that if each bucket had the float valve in it, it would be perfect for me. That way I could grow different strains in a tent without hand watering. My current irrigation systems have water bucket reservoirs on the outside of my tents that I could modify to your old system. I’m interested on the irrigation system you guys are working on now!
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I’ll keep you posted when I can get you one for you to try.
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Thank you very much!
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Fun fact since we are chatting about 5 gallon pails being different sizes…lol… Our Canadian gallon is bigger than the Americal gallon… an American gallon is 3.78544 liters and a Canadian gallon is 4.54609 another coincidence the Canadian gallon also works out to grams in a pound 454g… the only reason I went to 5 decimal places is because we fuel freighters at work and with 400,000 - 500,000 liters going on a boat that adds up fast in pricing inaccuracies…
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Very minor changes in the ph and now an upswing, hhhmmmm very interesting… thank you for running this test. @nacho151
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I really am glad I am able to do this test. So far what I’m seeing is not what I expected. I planed on 7 days but might run it for a few days longer.
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What changed Prior to day 4?
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I’m not sure, but I think it might be water temperature. Water temperature will effect ph and ppm’s. Tent environment may be cooling off more now at night when the lights go off…
It also might be a hydrogen ion buildup.
these plants were root bound in 4 weeks after being put in a 2L pot…
I wanted that root system to be down in the Reservoir area day 1 to ensure new stalk growth vs. new roots.
in another 3-4 weeks, [I’ll post Pics] those plants will be 2-3X in size. then I will take clones for growing.
the grobucket, will be topped off with my Coco mix as they grow and then keep the plants long-term as Moms in VEG state.
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@nacho151. You think hydrogen ion build up? In all buckets hhmmmm my uneducated guess is microbes of some sort any way of looking at the water under microscope? See if anything is growing.?
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I’m thinking water temperature. My tent stays at 75 to 77 degrees with the lights on and drops to between 63 to 65 degrees when the lights are out. But I read an article saying use pH’ed water and it will bring the readings back to normal. Also remember I haven’t added plants or soil into the game yet. The soil will help with pH and the plants will set the rate of water used. If you top it off with pH’ed water it will bring the pH and ppm back into acceptable range. I’m wishing I had recorded the water temperature everyday.