Need help setting up a reservoir?

[simondetroit]

I want to make a reservoir to water my dirt grown plants by hand. I figured I would just use a 55 gallon drum. However I cant figure out what type of pump I would use that could be turned on and off as I am watering? hope that makes sense? I figured I could just put a pump in the bottom of the drum and have a garden hose attatched to the pump? But then I started thinking........What happens if I'm watering my plants 15 feet from the reservoir and I want to shut the water off immediately?

 

[CannaRebel]

Re: Need help setting up a reservoir??

I would suggest that you install a drip irrigation system, this is what I'm gona do for my 50+ plant grow.

Decide how many plants you will be irrigating, how much water you want to give each and how often.

All you need to do after that is to figure out how to divide the water output so each plant gets it's share. for example if you have 10 plants and want to give each of them 3 liters, you will need to drill smaller holes into the hose and connect spaghetti tubing to the holes. Seal off the other large end of the tube, turn your system on and figure out how many liters per minute is every tube generating, fine tune it till you have all tubes generating the same output.

So you have 10 plants, 3 liters per day each for a total of 30 liters. suppose it takes 45 mins for every small tube to generate that much water. All you have to do now is spread the tubes among the plants, connect a timer to your pump and set it to go on for 45 minutes everyday whenever you want to irrigate.

Off the top of my head, I never done it but I have been researching how to do it myself, I found the following link enlightening:

Do it yourself landscaping: how to install a drip irrigation system

Hope this helped, good luck!

 

[ptg701]

Re: Need help setting up a reservoir??

...I would just use a 55 gallon drum....However I cant figure out what type of pump I would use that could be turned on and off as I am watering?...

You don't need a pump - use gravity and a four dollar hose valve from the garden section of the hardware store.

Mount your 55 gal drum horizontally with a spigot at the bottom.
Attach your hose to the spigot.
Attach a hose shut off valve at the end of your hose.

 

[simondetroit]

Re: Need help setting up a reservoir??

You don't need a pump - use gravity and a four dollar hose valve from the garden section of the hardware store.

Mount your 55 gal drum horizontally with a spigot at the bottom.
Attach your hose to the spigot.
Attach a hose shut off valve at the end of your hose.

I'm glad things can be so simple. How do you think the pressure will be if the res is hooked up to a 25' hose?

 

[CannaRebel]

Re: Need help setting up a reservoir??

That's even better ptg, +rep from me!

 

[ptg701]

Re: Need help setting up a reservoir??

I'm glad things can be so simple. How do you think the pressure will be if the res is hooked up to a 25' hose?

You don't need pressure, you just need flow.
Length of the hose won't effect that as long as the drum is raised above the level of the hose.

If you want to use a pump, you can control it remotely with a wireless switch.
I have one mounted on the headboard of my bed which control a lamp across the room on the dresser.

Kind of a technical update of The Clapper (Clap ON - Clap Off).

 

[simondetroit]

Re: Need help setting up a reservoir??

You don't need pressure, you just need flow.
Length of the hose won't effect that as long as the drum is raised above the level of the hose.

If you want to use a pump, you can control it remotely with a wireless switch.
I have one mounted on the headboard of my bed which control a lamp across the room on the dresser.

Kind of a technical update of The Clapper (Clap ON - Clap Off).

Interesting..... Can you reccommend a certain "wireless switch" that would work for this specific application? Thanks

 

[ptg701]

One like this would work: