Need help with automated watering!!

Im goin to be traveling to the netherlands next week and i can ask anyone to water my babies so i need some sort of system thats cheap and is pretty safe,
I water about every 2 to 3 days so really its 2 waterings that need to be automated so if u guys have any info that might be of help to me please share..
Also i wasnt sure where to post this tread so sorry if its in wrong place

Blumat Junior

It's most critical to know the size of the plants to give advise on this question

Walter9999 said:

It's most critical to know the size of the plants to give advise on this question

Click to expand...

I agree, and if its in veg or bloom is important as well.
Might help to know if this is soil, hempy style 100% perlite, 50/50 perlite coco, some hand water hydro setup, coco, or what. We have near nothing to go by.

you could try using the capillary effect.wick watering


http://www.thriftyfun.com/tf11765839.tip.html

metering the amount dispensed is biggest problem.how long you're gone, amount required? you're just trying to keep them alive till you get back.ive run tests with .5in. dia. braided climbing rope with great success. a single coil 1in. under surface of soil should do it.

edit:just remember to get the rope wet before you use it.

if possible you could just sit the plant in water then remove it when you get back and give it a chance to dry out. cheapest option i could think of. i've done it multiple times without issue.

i would also have to agree with what others are saying, the size and maturity as well as the medium is quite important to know

Here's is one reason medium is important to know. This is from my super soil and coco grow, but I topped the coco with Gnat Nix.
The ceramic watering spikes worked perfectly. They are designed to work in a way where when the medium drys, the ceramic watering spike drys with the medium but the ceramic never drys fully, as it gets dry it releases more fluid, it stops releasing once the medium is wet. But.... Gnat Nix is a product that you put a layer of it over your medium and it drys fast so that if gnats lay eggs they don't survive because they dry out faster than they would in grow medium. This Gnat Nix also provides a layer between the soil so gnats can't even get to the soil to eat the roots and what not. So really everything worked how it all should have. But it was my first time using the hydro spikes and I didn't realize this wasn't going to work till my tent was flooded. What happened was when I put the spikes in the medium I pushed them in right through the Gnat Nix. The Gnat Nix did what it was suppose to and dried fast, then the ceramic watering spike did what it was supposed to and got dry fast with the flipping Gnat Nix so basically the ceramic spike was constantly drying fast and basically this created a constantly open valve. So be aware of what you do if you use the watering spiked or whatever else for that matter. Really think it out, better than me even especially when you are planning to go away and not be there. I did did this because I was trying to be a lazy fucker and just use watering spikes and amended organics soil so I wouldn't have to ever feed or water, lol or worry about any gnats. I was just like meh f'it I'm just got to fill these jugs and raise the lights once a week and see what happens, but no, this did not work out so well.

They worked fine when I tested them on a plant OD before every trying to use them inside.
But the OD didn't have that Gnat Nix.

There's an off-the-shelf system with up to 20 watering stakes which can be purchased for about $80. Takes about an hour to initially setup, much less once you've used it a couple of times. Google Claber Oasis. I have one and use it for this purpose as I travel quite a bit, i typically have control of my schedule and keep it to 2-3 day trips but if it's longer I can set it up in about 30-60 min depending on number of plants and stage of the grow. You can DIY but for the price and if you need something quick it's not a bad option and works as advertised.

there are plenty of great timers out there, but obviously nothing is foolproof. Aside from the plant questions, what current method do you use? What type of nute mix, etc.? Some of these factors also come into play for devising a solution.