I'm looking a small submergeable water pump for house plant drip irrigation that does under 5 gallons per hour, preferably around 1 gallon per hour. I've looked all over the net and in every tool catalog I get and they are all waaay to powerful for my needs. I've looked at fish aquarium pumps but they too are a bit too strong.


any suggestions?

3/11/2008 6:42:16 AM

go buy one of those $20 desktop fountains from wal-mart or home depot or wherever and sacrifice the pump out of that

it's small and should be adjustable to under 5gph.

i've done this maaany times for various projects.

3/11/2008 7:42:24 AM

put a bilge pump on a light timer/voltage regulator?

3/11/2008 3:38:40 PM

well its not for me.. its something I want to rig up for my mom. She has a glassed in porch where she stores all her winter plants inside. Currently she has a 5 gallon bucket attached to the wall that she fills with water and she has drip irrigation that drips water into each plant. I though it would be cool to get a small water pump because she often has to fiddle with the height of the bucket if she moves her plants around to get water to flow to the very end of the tubing... So it needs to be low flow enough that it doesnt blow off the tubing or spray water halfway across the porch

3/11/2008 3:42:38 PM

maybe rig an overflow into the irrigation system?

3/11/2008 3:45:53 PM

aquarium pumps aren't too strong; they have a higher flow rate than you're asking for but they can't pump water high enough for most applications. Unless you're hooking the system to a reservoir mounted above the plants to be watered, an aquarium pump will not work.

Get a pump with a decent lift height and put it on a timer. you can regulate the flow rate by selecting the nozzle size.

3/12/2008 11:31:42 AM

well right now the "reservoir" is a 5 gallon bucket suspended about 4 feet off the ground. It has a spigot about an inch from the bottom of the bucket and some drip irrigation tubing connected to the spigot. I would like to keep the drip function as to not have water pouring out and flooding the porch.

The plants are sitting on the porch floor or on a small stand below the bucket

[Edited on March 12, 2008 at 12:22 PM. Reason : .]

3/12/2008 12:21:46 PM

i dunno if its an option, but harbor freight sells a drip irrigation kit for $7 that hooks right up to the spigot. Couple that with a $10 digital timer from lowes and blammo.

I set this up for my wife's hanging baskets and she absolutely loves it. It waters her plants every day for her.

Kit:
http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=93261



[Edited on March 12, 2008 at 3:33 PM. Reason : added link for kit]

3/12/2008 3:32:01 PM

ha.. thats exactly what my mom is using for her drip irrigation! I'll check out the timer thing too

3/12/2008 3:38:36 PM

submersible

3/14/2008 2:52:48 PM

Quote :

"put a bilge pump on a light timer/voltage regulator?"

3/14/2008 2:58:10 PM

I also bought a more expensive (still not expensive, just more expensive than the HF one) misting kit from lowes that takes care of her flower beds around the yard.

3/14/2008 3:58:51 PM

^ hmm that could be an option also for her outside plants....

3/15/2008 3:19:55 AM

My wife really loves it, it makes her flower beds gorgeous during the summer, and pretty much maintenance free.

The misting kit at lowes is a brand called "Mister Landscaper" or something very close. It basically consists of a connection to the faucet and a really long black tube. Wherever you want to put a mister, you punch a tiny hole in the tube and snap a mister connection in it.

They have like 12 different mister "heads" that spray in different patterns. It allowed me to pattern it exactly to the shape of her flower beds. I gotta say, im pretty impressed with the product.

3/15/2008 7:06:02 AM

^
http://tinyurl.com/3xts8b

Quote :

"Watering by Automatic spray or non-automatic irrigation is prohibited. Watering by Hose-end sprinklers is prohibited. Watering by low volume drip irrigation systems is prohibited; except, the watering restrictions of this ordinance shall not apply to low volume drip irrigation for watering of commercial containerized plants and commercial plant stock in trade. Watering by Hand held hose is prohibited."

I hope those flower beds are worth $1000 for the first violation

3/15/2008 7:27:10 AM

Harbor Freight had them for 7.99, I think it was a coupon, but it wasn't that much less than the retail. Seemed like it was capable of your demands.

3/15/2008 10:40:35 AM

^^ Gee FuckNuts, maybe not all of us live and work inside Raleigh city limits? Some of us might even have access to or live on property in the COUNTY and thus be able to do whatever we need to do as far as watering.

3/18/2008 5:03:55 PM

and some of us may have 6 rain barrells in the yard to get water from

3/18/2008 5:42:28 PM