Yeah, that’s why I mentioned peroxide as the common solution for non-organic situations.
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My bad. Lol
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I’m pretty sure @Fitzera uses a blumat system he could probably share some experience details.
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That’s right! Love them. Hate the cost and shipping cost getting replacement hose from the states. My cats seem to love the silicon hose more than the hard plastic line…as do I…
I’m an RO only guy so can’t comment on cleaning. But yeah once dialed in they’re very reliable.
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They are great. There are a few threads about these:
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I’m thinking of trying Blumats to give me some time away without killing my plants! I grow in coco/perlite in 2 gallon Airpots, drain to waste, would they work for this?
It would be 1 plant per rez.
If they’d work, would the classic, classic XL, or Tropf or another be the best choice?
Could I leave a bloomer for a week?
Thanks for any help, I need all I can get, lol!
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I would check out the above links. I’ve only used them in soil. Not sure if you are talking about feeding through them or just watering to keep them alive, but I would be irresponsible to guide you either way.
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Peroxide doesn’t work on biofilms tho, not at the concentrations we would use it at. Biofilms are remarkable colonies of microorganisms and have managed to evolve to defeat nearly everything we can throw at them in a functioning irrigation system. Other than disassembly and total deep cleaning with an strongly alkaline then a strongly basic foaming detergent, you’re not gonna kill biofilm matrix with H202 in the lines.
This Dramm white paper on biofilm is helpful and sort of chilling. The only real answer to continuous management of biofilm in a living soil irrigation scenario would be continuous ozone injection:
Biofilm in the GreenhouseSM.pdf (434.8 KB)
How to remove biofilm - TechNotes – Critical Cleaning Advice from Alconox Inc..
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@HorseBadorites They work great with coco I have heard. I use living soil myself, so I don’t have any experience personally. But I have seen lots of people use them with great success in coco. You can’t do drain to waste with them as they constantly keep your medium and the set moisture level. I’ve heard you can use them without flushing by feeding at a much lower ec level than you would usually use when watering coco. Not sure on exact numbers though.
You want the trompf blumat. Don’t get the classics.
Once you have them dialed in you can leave them but you would want a pond liner or flood table that can hd your rez volume on your floor in case of a runnaway
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I use organic, self-amended soil, and blumats are great. I have a friend that runs nutes through his and I"ll get some feedback from him. I’m pretty sure he uses H2O2 to clean the lines, and successfully so for many years. I’ll get his recipe
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Ok, so here’s a synopsis of what my friend said. I told him he should come visit the forum, we’ll see if he does. He feeds nutes through his Blumats with a gravity system with coco
Anyway
Use RO water or UV treated water to keep the 3mm tubes clean. Tap water gunks up tubes after awhile (we also have high calcium water, too)
Use Heavy 16 or House & Gardens Cocos
1ml/gallon Dyna Grow or ProTek Silica
1ml/gallon CalMag (Techna Flora)
(use half strength of anything if you’re in organic soil)
Drip Clean 1ml/gallon … this frees-up the 3mm lines
Hand water in Veg
in 10+ gallon pots use longer carrots (shorter carrots in anything less)
Nutes should be applied one week early (on schedule) for Blumats as it takes a little time for them to get into the soil
He hand waters once a week to make sure all the medium is getting wet, as well as kinda resets the carrots
He suggests vegging in 2gl pots with Roots Organics then uppot to 7gl by adding FFOF as filler
Canna Nutes are weak, and House & Garden are twice as strong so use half strength and save $$$
He did not mention H2O2, although he did point to Drip Clean as helping keep the lines clean, as well as RO or UV treated water
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Thanks 
The Blumats just seemed to fiddley for me to set up for a week, but if I ever decide to go with a full time system, I will give them a try.
Instead I’m trying a system with a pump/timer which seems to be working out, so far, lol!
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I’m surprised I don’t see more people with blumats or atleast posting about them, I got 3 set up last Monday, only took a couple days to fully dial in the preset ones, and these are the happiest plants I’ve ever grown, of any type! I want to get one for my monstera now.
Roots growing out of the soil
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Agreed dude. I was hesitant because I’d heard so many horror stories about floods, but I got a 4 x 4 living soil bed and decided I’d give it a shot. I did overwater once after the initial setup but ever since I made that one tweak the beds been running with perfect moisture the entire time.
I’ve got mine set up to go a little dryer than most because I like to feed ferments once a week or sometimes every 2 weeks. It’s so easy I can’t believe I didn’t get them sooner
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I started using blumats recently. Was heading out of town for several weeks mid grow and needed a stop gap. They work great, when they work. I have had them flood multiple times. I think it was usually due to user error and hastily adjusting them. I do still use and enjoy them.
I’ve found that my ac infinity tent will hold several inches of water without leaking through (vivosun does not ime, but it has some wear and tear on it), but having a flood tray of sorts as a backup is a good idea.
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I haven’t had any run aways. What’s your process for setting up? How long are you soaking the carrots and the assembled carrots?
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I don’t remember soaking them for a for a specific amount of time. Just tossed them in a bucket of hot water while I got all the tubing laid out. And tried my best to get all the bubbles out. Once assembled, I jammed them into the pots and watered them well, giving a few minutes or so before trying to adjust the flow.
I’ve never had multiple plants over run. I did notice once that had a growing air bubble inside for some reason. Usually when I’ve had them overrun, the pot was too dry and I tried to recalibrate the flow, then the lights go off and next day I notice the water pooled.
In general, I think they are a great product and I do continue to use them and would recommend them.
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Hey guys, been using blumats for between 5-10 years in my flower tent. They work great but runaways(floods) are a pain.
A good tip is to use a flood table on your floor in case of a runaway, I don’t have and flood table so I just bought a quality pond liner for my floor. It works good enough for me.
The reason I get runaways is because I use alot of dehumidifier water for my res and it gets the lines a bit gunked up with slime. I run all organic soul so don’t want to use those chemicals that would keep my lines clean.
It’s a good idea to have a valve opposite your res to purge your lines of air bubbles and debris every week or so. I hooked a 8 foot line to it so I can also water stuff with it.
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Same thing has happened to me after adjusting them after being to dry. Now I will make a small adjustments and then water with the line coming from my purge valve and check back in a day or two to see if it’s keeping the moisture with the small dial up or if it’s going back to too dry.
When adjusting you have to do it in very small increments due to them being so sensitive.
Some are more sensitive than others, I am starting to think that the more full your blumat is the more sensitive it is. Sometimes after I’m done my run I can see small amount of air in some of the blumats while others are totally full to the point of them not even looking like they have water in them.
I really like the blumats, really a time and back saver. And the plants seem to really like the constant moisture.
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I soak my blumats unassembled for hours, sometimes days, and then assembled atleast for an hour. I assemble them below water as well. This is the important part to not have runaways. I’ve never had one.
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