Great question!
This is exactly why they can be finicky. If you set the valves to the dry side (consistently moist, without runoff), it won’t be an issue.
It’s only when one gets carried away trying to hit some runoff amount, and then usually with valve adjustments more frequent than the recommended 24 hr reset period, that there’s a flood risk.
Then, as I found, it’s possible to find your girls swimming in the tent. Fortunately most tents come with a catch tray for this very reason and my reservoir is not enough to overflow it. TLDR; follow the instructions patiently and you should be good.
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Now for some rez questions.
1st time using a rez, so do you let it run almost dry or do you let it go half way and top it up?
I read that you loose pressure as the rez gets lower.
What temps do you keep the rez at?
Do you use soil or hydro ph?
I will be using a peat moss blend,pro mix hp.
Do you get ph swings in the rez?
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With 4’ of lift, don’t worry about pressure loss. If you let it run totally dry, though, your girls won’t have anything to drink.
Re: temperature, to avoid bacterial growth in the reservoir, it’s generally better to be cool than not. IDK where the cut off for this is, but I keep my reservoir out of the tent (in part) to limit temp and light exposure. I wouldn’t run a cooler through it, or anything like that, but heat is not your reservoir’s friend. By ambient temp default, my reservoirs stay around 70F.
Re: pH, it’s wholly dependent on the media and nutrients. Feeding from a reservoir doesn’t change that, so set it at whatever you normally would use given your nutrient mix and medium.
Re: pH swings, I’ve had them before but it’s usually a slow crawl upward (if anything). This is partially from the source water, partially from nutrients, and partially from evaporation. For example, I have used 50 gallon brute garbage bins and the pH swing was affected by evaporation across the wide surface area at the top of the reservoir. That said, larger volume reservoirs tend to be more pH stable over time than smaller ones. My current reservoir is sealed, so there is no evaporation but my pH crawls up from 5.5-5.8 to ~ 6 over the course of a week, just before I refill.
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Sweet, thanks for all the great info, I’m starting to feel more comfortable in doing this now thanks.
I will have my rez outside the tent, right beside it on a 4’ stand and it will have a lid on it as well.
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I’ve used Blumats for 3 years and they work great. One warning. If your blumat carrots dry out and you add water to the reservoir, you can have a runaway blumat. The carrot will empty your reservoir slowly (over 12 hours) and flood the grow space. When I flower two plants, they can drain a 5 gallon bucket in less than two days. If you keep your bucket filled, you will have no problems.
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Thank you for mentioning this!
Blumat carrots, IME, take a while to dry out bc the all the medium around them has to dry out first.
Try to always have something in the reservoir, if you can. If a carrot does dry out, though, you will need to soak and reset it. My coco girls have gone days without feed from the blumats and I have not seen the carrots dry out completely during that time. YMMV.
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I have another question for ya, do I have to change the amount of nutes I use since they’re getting fed constantly?
I use 1/4 tsp per gal now, and feed 2L to each plant every 3 days in 1 gal pots
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Just pulled the trigger on 2 deluxe boxes, with 12 each in them. It will still be 6 to 7 weeks before I can use them…
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What does this translate to in EC or ppm?
I have no idea, never used ec or ppm
Guess I gotta get a ppm meter too
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to the one that 20 chars
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So it says my 20 20 20 at .25 tsp has a ppm of 150?
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I’m going to follow this, I’m using just super soil, but in instances like this week I’m working 4 OT shifts and I’m gonna be a day late on water… Keep us posted
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20 chars
does it really ?
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20 characters and then some more
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Yes I agree with that, I feed everytime I water
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Make sure you get the tri-meter Rock… It will monitor ph, temp, and ec/ppm… Ya know, for the upcoming dwc bucket grow… lol 
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Holy cow!!.. Thought it was much higher than that! 150 ppm?? 
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I know right… I dunno, I’m gonna get a ppm meter
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