I am a big fan of automatic dosers. When they work well they take all the effort out of growing and let you do things that would be incredibly time consuming to do manually. The main benefit I gain is not having to go to my plants daily (or more) just to check things like PH, or EC. This lets me have a life 
What do you think of automatic dosers/nutrient management systems?
Considered it a while back. But as you say āwhen it worksā is something Iāve come across frequently when searching for references. Salt based nutrients are gonna fuck any system over time. Any pics of what you run?
I am as busy as a one armed paper hanger, but still, thereās no where I would rather be.
99%
I use canna nutrients personally. When you say what I run, do you mean the doser, the pumps/solenoids, or something else?
@99% if only we all had the luxury, I live 120 miles away from mine. I would prefer to spend my day looking after them too Even being 120 miles away though, I know my PH right now is 5.563 (set to 5.5) my TDS is 803.5 (set to 802) my water temp is 20.3c and I can see a chart of those values going back weeks.
I mean pumps etc mate. Into what size res. How many plants etc. A picture speaks a thousand words
I am way too much of a control freak to ever feel comfortable leaving my plants unattended for any protracted period of time.
I also assess each individual plant in my gardens as to its unique need for maintenanceā¦move/rotate/food/water. All of my plants never need food/water at the same time. I check on them (when not in dark cycle) several times throughout the day.
I grow in soil-less mix in containers indoors and outdoors year round. I usually have a minimum of 25 to 30 cannabis plants all together. I feed/water them all by hand.
It is a labor of love.
And it is truly laborious!
The things we do for love!
For a grower like yourself who sounds like they truly care for each plant individually the extra benefits would be far less than if you were less experienced, or had less time, or less access, if there was any benefit at all. They are also suited more to people who monocrop and have a lot of the same plant.
At the end of the day the limiting factor is the plant and if you are already getting 95% of the possible result from your plant then no matter what you do to try and improve you will only ever get a few percent on top.
For myself, I am unable to have plants conveniently near and so I have to remotely be able to check on them, well at least their nutrient solution. The difference for me being able to have a device that keeps all the numbers where I set them is about 50% extra yield.
I am away from my system for a week or so but I can post some pictures after I have been there.
I have 4 solenoids (from buckets containing A,B,Calmag,PH+) gravity fed into an 80 litre tank feeding 11 plants. You have a bucket with your solution it in, a tube that leads to the solenoid, then a tube from the solenoid to your tank. You wire the solenoid to your doser and it can dose the solution into your tank whenever it is needed. For the doser to get readings I have a little sampler pot which has nutrient solution being fed into it from a spur off my pump tubing. It sits above the tank and the nutrient just flows back into the tank.
I will be upgrading it to 8 peristaltic pumps for the next cycle so I can have more additives than just CalMag. Also there is less dosing variation between a full bucket and an empty one.
@MicroDoser what is the automation/doser system you use?
I use the one I am currently developing, I used to have the Intellidose and found it OK but thought it could do more, especially for the money.
I used to make electronic devices and code so when it eventually died I decided that making one myself would not be too hard (haha!)
That was 18 months and many thousands of pounds agoā¦
I now have a working and reliable device which is capable of operating loads of individually addressable pumps (up to something like 80-90), as well as 8x12v@0.2A outputs for controlling relays which in turn could turn your lights on and off, or a humidifier, or a dehumidifier, or a fan, or a heater etc There is still some coding to do in this area but the hardware is there and is tested.
It stores a year of data and can display it on a built in 7 inch touchscreen. Currently it records TDS, PH, nutrient temp, air temp, air humidity and there are plans for the future to include options for CO2, DO, tank solution depth, nutrient bucket depth (or at least warnings on low level) I also have future plans to allow the user to control the doser over the Ethernet with a tablet. If I can find someone who knows how to do secure internet routing I want to expand the tablet idea so you can control your room from anywhere in the world from your smartphone.
Where most devices measure PH to 0.1/0.2 mine measures to 0.001/0.002. I am able to hold my PH in a range smaller than most devices can measure, between 5.65 and 5.675 for example.
I have decided to call it the Microdoser as it can micro dose, it also has a microcomputer in it which will enable it to analyse your tank more than the currently available devices, so it could for example see that your plants had stopped taking up food and if that is in combination with a rise in PH warn the user about root rot, or maybe overfeeding.