I just recently purchased Blumat drip irrigation and was wondering if anyone here has or is using it?
Supposed to be a good system and had decent reviews for a mechanical auto watering system
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I’m interested to see people’s gravity fed systems using blu mats.
Would like to see some photos of a running system before I pull the trigger on 18 carrots
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From my research they are only good for water only soil. Try to run bottled or salt based nutrients through them they are not going to work correctly.
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I’ve been using blumat irrigation for about a year. I have (2)80 gal containers and (3)40 gallon ones with a long and short carrot on blusoak tape in each one, fed by a rain barrel(outside) on one end and a elevated “brew” bucket(inside) on the other. Just ordered their digital moisture meter tonight because I’ve been just running it blind and want to get it dialed in better.
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Sounds like you have a nice amount of storage in those res’s
Any chance I can see your setup?
I’m trying to figure out how to best manage 6X 15gallon pots I’m thinking 3 carrots each would cover them decent.
I have seen some sprayers you can run off of the carrots but have never seen photos or videos of them running on a gravity system. Would be more cost effective to have 1 carrot and some extras running off to cover each pot, but I might not be so lucky
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3 in a 15gal pot should be fine, I did 2x carrots per 7gal fabrics, 3 pots total I think, and had very good luck with it. Was much better than me hand watering anyways… but I was doing water-only soil recipe too. Not tried running nutes through them myself. Would think something like jacks or mc2part would run really clean though.
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They are definitely oriented towards water only set ups using big containers that you want to keep at a constant moisture level for living soil. They can be a little fussy to get dialed in and if the res ever runs dry or the carrots dry out you have to do a reset, but mine have mostly worked great, really nice to basically let the plants water themselves.
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I’ll snap some pics today when I get a second
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They have issues if the carrots dry out or develop bubbles, which they always do eventually. When you get a bubble, they will dump your whole rez without you even knowing it, flooding the whole grow. There’s no way to prevent this, either. It always happens eventually.
As a result, don’t use blumats inside a house with flooring you don’t want to ruin, especially not a rental.
For reference, go watch the BuildASoil videos where they talk about this problem.
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Yeah, I wouldn’t have them in a space without a concrete floor and drain, but probably wouldn’t want to garden in a space where water damage is a concern anyway.
I open the line once in awhile to bleed off any air in the system and haven’t had any major problems, I do have a couple of containers with small plants in them right now that have been running on the dry side, so trying to get that figured out.
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I have had the same experience twice now. I dont use them anymore.
If you are moving pots regularly you will have to dial the carrot back in every time you move or bang your pot, as it can dislodge the carrot and you will get a flood.
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I agree about the not gardening in a place where water damage is a concern. Unfortunately, that’s not possible for most of us who rent. 
Sad but true. You just gotta use sturdy drip trays and be extra careful to not spill anything.
This is one of the big reasons to grow in a tent and carefully hand water, or use SIPs. SIPs are probably the best overall option if you’re doing organic soil growing, if you don’t mind DIYing or using smaller retail ones like Earthboxes or City Pickers.
You still get the growth of hydro with all the benefits of organic soil, with low chance of screwing up the watering once you get the schedule figured out. Plus it gives you a couple/few days buffer if you gotta leave the grow unattended, more if you DIY with bigger rezzes.
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I will trial out the Blumat classic. I have 2 brain cake phenos I am running right now. I will be going out of town soon and am doing a 6 day trial beforehand to make sure they work… I will keep you all updated.
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Make sure u still use your other senses . The digital meter imo was a waste of loot the 2 or 3 prong old school meters work just as well.
I bought it because I wanted to dial in the blumats. Ended up trusting it too much and it cost me.
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Looks like a good setup brother. I am excited and nervous to see the outcome but so far I think it will work out atleast well enough to leave the garden on autopilot when I have to go out of town
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My take on Blumats is that there is a time and a place for them for sure. I used them this season in my outdoor soil grow with a really good success and a few issues and concerns:
- They take a bit of initial effort to set up and you have to make sure you saturate the soil correctly before placing the carrots in as the carrots will use that moisture level as a reference to continue feeding, it’s not too hard but it’s an extra effort
- Once you do dial them in they are really great for living soil setups
- I still hand watered in teas and other feedings without issue
- You can have leaks and issues here and there, this only happened to me once in the summer due to a drip line buried in the soil and being bitten or cut somehow by what I can only guess would’ve been an insect or some bug in the soil
- Being that my grow was on my roof and the drainage is not an issue it wasn’t a big deal but this could’ve been a lot worse had it been indoors
- The lines running on the top of the soil can get a bit buried if you are top dressing and by rain, so it’s a bit of extra work to make sure they stay above all that stuff… I found this a little annoying but I also didn’t have to drag water up to my roof every day so it was still a win
- I set my system up directly to my hose outside with a pressure reducer and a filter to filter out the chloramine in my tap water, this worked PERFECTLY and meant I did not have to deal with a reservoir!! This is the MOST EFFICIENT way to utilize this system IMO because if you run a reservoir and it empties before you fill it and you get air in your lines you may need to reset which would be annoying and a lot of work
I would definitely recommend this system for outdoor soil grows where you can hook it up to a garden hose, it works really well in that situation. If you want to see the results you can check out my grow thread here:
Here is what I purchased to hook it up to my garden hose. A filter that fits on the end of the hose and a pressure reducer that fits onto the end of the filter.
Here you can see how it’s set up… A really easy (mostly) plug and play watering solution!
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yeah they make a big deal out of using unaerated water, like out of your water hose/spigot, not a sink(those have aerators on them) or you will have this issue. Only other option is to let your water sit out for a 3-4 days to get out the extra bubbles, and NEVER shake or stir up the res.
From there all you have to do is make sure the res never goes dry or yeah, have to pull all the carrots and bleed them again 
they can definitely be a pain but are real nice once you get them dialed in…
I think I like your SIP idea better though ^^
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I’ve had a set of these for years now, and have never used them. I recently bought a set of the meters and really liked them. So, I bought a resivoir and ordered some extra distribution drippers. The plan is to have 1 carrot per plant with drippers around it.
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I’ve tried to love them, but they are a pain to get consistent. You will have to deal with at least one run out, as nube said. I’m going to try setting mine up in an outside bed next summer and using rainwater for herbs and veggies in smart pots on the ground. That way a runout is no big deal.
I think some main points of getting them dialed in are:
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make a more visible mark of where the arrow is on top of the dial (some use whiteout, or bright dot of paint). This aids in adjustment, and if you have bad eyes like me
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If you are going to use them as an auto watering system while you’re away for vacation, be sure to set them up at least two or three weeks ahead of time. there is a learning curve and the system will take time to get right. Preferably give yourself a month or two.
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once you do have them setup and working as you’d like, don’t move them. don’t move the pots, don’t move the carrots, the lines, whatever. You will have to clean them after probably every run, if you’re perpetual, at least every six months. The system does seem to love consistency though.
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they work best with water (non-aerated) only going through them. I’ve successfully used them with Canna nutes, but you have to be vigilant about cleaning the res. I only ran A and B through them, and some barley enzymes to help keep the res clean, YMMV…
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The system works best with a full res, so try to keep the level of water consistent. Some people rig up float switches to turn up pumps to re-fill the res, but I never got that advanced.
Good luck! I’m trying out SIPs now…
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