DIY Gravity fed drip system for soil

I recently put a scrog screen over my girl right before then went into flour. Well a couple of weeks later and its starting to get hard to get in and water them. After searching the internet for a while i couldn't find one DIY drip system that I liked. So after talking to some guys down at the like grow shop I came up with this.

ITEMS YOU'LL NEED

1. drill
2. 3/8 drill bit
3. five gallon bucket
4. 6mm rubber grommet
5. An 8 way spliter
6. 1/4 inch rain drip tubing
7. 8 drip sticks
8. scissors
9. lighter
10. string

DIRECTIONS

First i drilled a hole at the very bottom of the bucket. Then inserted the grommet into the hole. I put the spliter in next but found out later you just leave it out for now. Then i got my bucket up higher then my girls, and measured out the distance to the plants. and cut the tubing to length for each one, sending two hoses to each pot. then connected one end of each hose to the manifold using a lighter to slightly heat up the end of the tubing to really get it on tight.connected the other ends the the drip stick and put into each side of the pot. Fill the bucket with the same amount of water/nutes that you normaly would do and let gravity doe the rest.


Thanks a bunch RIU, your the best

After I've used it a few times I've shortened the length of the hoses so the lowest part of the hose is the outlet to make sure all plants receive the same amount of water/nutes

7 years later digging up this post, but this is a simple solution that I have been searching for. Not quite sold yet on running Blumats, but was trying to figure out a way to make watering easier without running pumps and octa bubblers. This is a nice simple solution that can be expanded on later. Going to give this a shot.

A way to water easier how so? There are multiple methods to make actual watering easier many different ways. What is it that you want to change about doing it? Do you want to not have to worry about phing your water? Do you want your plant to feed itself? If it's the later, you can do this quite easily by making your soil with perlite and making the bottom 4 inches nothing but the perlite (in a fabric pot) and the rest should be peat moss or the like. In turn, this will make it so you can put it into a waterproof table thats about 3 inches deep and fill it with water about 2 inches. The fabric pot and pearlite will wick moisture up into the plant keeping the peat moss wet and allowing more oxygen to the roots.

Now in order to keep the water from getting any bad bacteria, you'll want to put an airstone and pump in it. There are a ton of variations on this method and some that even make the watering automated once the level reaches a certain point. Really, it's all a different take on the same concept.

I was looking for a gravity fed setup that I could still manually dump water into, but not have to water each plant individually. Similar to a Blumat setup but seems like those can be tricky to setup and can still result in runaway. I like to have a nice wet/dry cycle anyway so I want to still control it myself for now rather than relying on a timer for a pump. I like the op's solution because I wouldn't have water sitting in there beyond what I just fed the plants. Was also thinking If I get a 8 way splitter with individual valves I could also dial in more or less for specific plants as needed.

I do already have a pump, tubing, and octa bubbler kit that I purchased last year but never got around to setting up. I am currently trying to use as little energy as possible though and was trying to find a solution that wouldn't require plugging in a pump and having more electrical wires in my grow space.

The method you describe seems like a nice setup, but won't work for me for a few reasons. The fabric pots have given me trouble before with uneven watering and drying out to fast, and they are a bit messier than using square plastic pots. I guess your water table would solve that but I wouldn't really want to have standing/open water like that near electricity either. Interesting concept for a grow on the patio though.

I have thought about maybe trying a SIPs setup. Similar to what you are describing but more in an enclosed bucket. I am doing SOG in 2 gal square pots tho, and not sure I want to give up the space for bigger pots I would need to make that work.

I like this setup. Unfortunately I don't use a trellis anymore. I use detachable plant rings. I also use a pump action sprayer now to feed.

Had I not already done these two things I'd for sure use that idea.