What water pressure are you running to the emitters?
I have eight 20 gallon tanks on a rack that I am trying to set up a semi-auto drip system on and I keep blowing the emitters off.
According to the gauge on my RO my water pressure in the house is 55-60
I ran !/2" PVC to each tank and capped it. I then drilled/tapped the PVC cap and threaded in a hose barb.
First attempt I used blue silicon airline tubing to connect emitters to hose barbs. Turned water on and almost immediately lost most of the emitters lol
Second attempt I attempted to control the pressure a little by using the ball valve shut offs going to each tank. This helped slightly but it is way to difficult to accurately adjust ball valves for this purpose. I either had too little flow or too much and popped emitters again.
Third attempt I changed out the soft blue silicon tubing for some older clear stuff I had laying around which was more rigid and gripped the barbs a little better. But with ball valves wide open I still lost some emitters.
Fourth attempt I ran to Lowes and bought a cheap inline pressure regulator and plumbed it into the feed line. It is non-adjustable and suppose to regulate the pressure down to 25psi. This gave some better results and I thought I had problem fixed. But as I was sitting here reading on some fish forums just now one of the emitters popped off again.
The emitters I have on right now are 2gph which is more than I want but its what I had available right now. I want to switch to 1gph which I assume will put more back pressure on the system and increase my popping off problem.
Someone please enlighten me....what am I doing wrong? How can I get a reliable connection?
many many thanks
I have eight 20 gallon tanks on a rack that I am trying to set up a semi-auto drip system on and I keep blowing the emitters off.
According to the gauge on my RO my water pressure in the house is 55-60
I ran !/2" PVC to each tank and capped it. I then drilled/tapped the PVC cap and threaded in a hose barb.
First attempt I used blue silicon airline tubing to connect emitters to hose barbs. Turned water on and almost immediately lost most of the emitters lol
Second attempt I attempted to control the pressure a little by using the ball valve shut offs going to each tank. This helped slightly but it is way to difficult to accurately adjust ball valves for this purpose. I either had too little flow or too much and popped emitters again.
Third attempt I changed out the soft blue silicon tubing for some older clear stuff I had laying around which was more rigid and gripped the barbs a little better. But with ball valves wide open I still lost some emitters.
Fourth attempt I ran to Lowes and bought a cheap inline pressure regulator and plumbed it into the feed line. It is non-adjustable and suppose to regulate the pressure down to 25psi. This gave some better results and I thought I had problem fixed. But as I was sitting here reading on some fish forums just now one of the emitters popped off again.
The emitters I have on right now are 2gph which is more than I want but its what I had available right now. I want to switch to 1gph which I assume will put more back pressure on the system and increase my popping off problem.
Someone please enlighten me....what am I doing wrong? How can I get a reliable connection?
many many thanks
