EZ Flo

[coronacars]

Does anyone have any experience using this compared to other methods like a dosatron? A few people at our local club have been using them and seem to like them. I want to use it from a reservoir of water (Holding tank of RO) and thinking a low pressure pump with a built in pressure switch before this should be ok?

http://ezfloinjection.com/products/dispensing-systems/hose-bib-and-drip-systems-2/

 

[Ray]

Not good for this application.

The way they work is by adding water to the tank, pushing the contained solution into the water stream. What they means, however, is that while you start with a concentration of "X" when the tank is full, as you use it, the concentration in the tank is becoming lower and lower.

That may be fine if the entire contents is distributed over a fixed area (as in a lawn, which is what they are designed for), so that it gets the entire dose, but if you want to use it for hand watering, the first plant you feed will get your target amount of fertilizer, but each subsequent plant after that gets a little less than the one before it.

Several years back I had a long conversation with the president of the EZ-FLO, and tried to get them to simply put a rubber bladder in the tank to separate the incoming water from the fertilizer solution - it would function just fine, without diluting the contents - but it apparently fell on deaf ears.

 

[coronacars]

Ok. Thanks for the feedback. I have other things to try one on and I'll check the tds during different stages and see how it goes. What you are saying is exactly what I was afraid of, but their own literature states differently.

Do you know of a simple, but better solution for this?

 

[Ray]

Yes, they claim to create an "invisible bladder" that separates the fertilizer from the incoming fresh water, but I believe the real reason they claim that the TDS stays more or less constant is because they charge the reservoir with a solid fertilizer in an amount greater than its solubility in the first place, giving you a saturated solution to meter into the water flow. As the water dilutes it, more dissolves, maintaining the saturation level until it all dissolves, at which point it becomes more and more dilute.

The problem I see with that is that they are relying on a fertilizer formula that dissolves at a pretty uniform rate for all of its ingredients. If you use something like K-Lite or MSU that contains calcium and magnesium, I doubt very little of those ever make it into the water stream.

The solution is to invest in a true metering pump. I have never tried one myself, having used Dosatron or Dosmatic in my greenhouses use, but I have several customers sing the praises of the Chinese knock-offs of the Chemilizer they purchased through Amazon.