Drip Irrigation

[Two Jay]

I am procuring a whole lot of drip irrigation from the used greenhouse we have bought.  I don't know what kind it is, don't have experience using it etc.... Most of them are thin black or white tube with a red tear drop shaped weight at the end.

Questions: Is anyone using drip irrigation, if so, how?  Also, if you are, what are the pros and cons?  I am worried about salt and algae build up.  This seems like a great time saver and I see where it could be very useful in feeding both water and nutrients from the FT to some potted plants set within the greenhouse.

Thanks in advance.

[TCLynx]

I will warn you against trying to run Aquaponic System water through any drip irrigation lines, drippers or fittings. The 1/4" or 1/8" spaghetti tubing will clog, the drippers will clog, the barb fittings will clog. Even if it is fairly well filtered water, it is likely to clog. Last year I had some hanging pots on my porch that I hooked up some drip irrigation lines from my system to feed those pots. I just used the tubing and no drippers and it still clogged. I would have to go blow out those lines once per day and the water being sent to them had already been filtered through grow beds. I finally got sick of it and unhooked those. Water that has been filtered through gravel beds will be fine for DWC or NFT but I would avoid running it through any spaghetti tubing or small barb fittings unless you are ok with cleaning them out daily. Bio-slime, particles, algae, and whatever are going to be throughout an AP system and unless you are running really fine particle filters (which would need cleaning daily) you don't want to bother with any tiny tubing.

Of course that is just my opinion and there are some people who use the spaghetti tubing to feed vertigrow towers but I don't know if anyone has stayed with those small tubes long term with aquaponics yet.

I would recommend using the drip irrigation stuff to feed regular irrigation water to soil plants.

[Two Jay]

Thanks... I had a sneaky suspicion that would be the case. I am not even going to try it. The lines will be dedicated to plain ol' potted plants.

TCLynx said:

I will warn you against trying to run Aquaponic System water through any drip irrigation lines, drippers or fittings. The 1/4" or 1/8" spaghetti tubing will clog, the drippers will clog, the barb fittings will clog. Even if it is fairly well filtered water, it is likely to clog. Last year I had some hanging pots on my porch that I hooked up some drip irrigation lines from my system to feed those pots. I just used the tubing and no drippers and it still clogged. I would have to go blow out those lines once per day and the water being sent to them had already been filtered through grow beds. I finally got sick of it and unhooked those. Water that has been filtered through gravel beds will be fine for DWC or NFT but I would avoid running it through any spaghetti tubing or small barb fittings unless you are ok with cleaning them out daily. Bio-slime, particles, algae, and whatever are going to be throughout an AP system and unless you are running really fine particle filters (which would need cleaning daily) you don't want to bother with any tiny tubing.

Of course that is just my opinion and there are some people who use the spaghetti tubing to feed vertigrow towers but I don't know if anyone has stayed with those small tubes long term with aquaponics yet.

I would recommend using the drip irrigation stuff to feed regular irrigation water to soil plants.

[Michelle Silva]

I am going with drip irrigation..think the tubing meas is around 1/4". I am hoping that since it is a farily good amount of pressure that it will help to keep them clear. Also, the nutrient water is only going over to the verticals after going through three 4'x40' raft tanks. The idea being that the beneficials and bio slime on liner and rafts will have broken down the waste by the time it gets to the verticals.