DIY : Automatic Fertilizer

[guest123]

I thought I would share this for people interested.  

I am leaving for 1 week and wanted to fertilize my plants while I am gone so I decided to make myself an automatic fertilizer.

Here is what I did (the picture is probably self explanatory) :
- I took an empty plastic container and made a very small hole near the bottom.  I used a paper clip to make the hole.
- I needed a very small tube so the fertilizer could drip into the aquarium slowly over the week.  I used a tube from an empty perfum spray bottle.  Make sure to clean it properly.  I guess you can also use the small tube that comes with a WD-40 can.
- I put the tub in the hole I had made.
- I filled up the container with my fertilizer mixed in with water and VOILA!!!

- I had to make an adjustement since it was dripping too fast.  To make the adjustment I used a lighter to melt the end of the tube and then made a very small hole with a needle.

TOTAL COST : 0$.

[tigerize]

That is really cool! I've been wanting a way to fertalize my plants continously instead of just giving them big doses twice a week. What was the water to fertalizer ratio though?

[guest123]

Since I have just done this today I haven't really calculated the fertilizer to water ratio.  Plus, this all depends on how fast it is dripping.

The best thing is to put a small measuring cup underneath the unit.  Check how fast it drips and then calculate how much water you need.

Example :

Drips at 7.5 mL per hour (or 180 mL per day).
If you require 10 mL or fertilizer per day you need 170 mL of water per day.
This means for a week it would be 70 mL of fertilizer plus 1.19 liters of water.  In this situation you can take a 2L of pop for the container to be big enough.

[artw]

hey thats a good idea!
can you figure out how I'd go about adding 5ml of Flourish Iron each day?