I'm after some advice on how to rig an automatic watering system. Funds are tight so this needs to be a budget job.
I'm going on holiday for 10 nights, which is why I intially thought of a self watering system, but thinking about it now I'd quite like to have one set up and watering my plants for me - I'd still check on them every other day as I currently do, but I wouldn't need to spend as much time in the loft as I do at the moment and it would generally make life easier. I do not have a water outlet in my loft so I would have to fill up some sort of resevoir and pump it from the res to my plants.
My plan so far is as follows;
Purchase a micro irrigation system from eBay - item number 161978254008 - £5.35 and comes with all the pipes, fittings and drippers etc.
Hook said irrigation system up to a small submersible fish tank pump similar to - ebay item number 121910288232 - £5.99 - 3w, says it can pump 250 litres of water per hour
Connect pump to a timer so that it comes on at specific intervals and drips water into my soil for a certain length of time.
The below picture roughly illustrates how I intend on setting it up.
My current plant takes roughly 3 litres of water every 2 days(ish), this plant will be done soon and I have another 3 plants in there just about to pop their heads up. Basing my calculations on the current 3litres of water per plant every 2 days, I'm thinking the following;
- Pump capable of 250 litres per hour............... = 4.2 litres per minute
- 3 litres per plant x 3 plants.......................... = 9 litres required every 2 days
- Req water / litres per minute
.......( 9Litres / 4.2L per minute) ..........................= 2.1 (operational minutes to pump 9 litres)
Based on the above calculations I would have my pump turn on for 2.1 minutes every 48 hours - alternatively I could have my pump turn on for 1 minute every 24 hours.
I understand that my new plants mayt not require exactly 3 litres of water every 2 days - I will have to tweak the amount of water they recieve as required - but for ease of understanding I've based this on the 3 litres.
Anyone set something like this up on a budget?
Would that pump be strong enough to pump the water along the pipe to my plants - we're talking max 3 metres of pipe in total.
Would the last dripper release as much water as the first dripper or will the pressure get lower the further along the pipe I go
Would drippers be my best option, or would I be better getting some of those rings that would encircle the main stem?
Any advice would be much appreciated. Cheers
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