My 9k Adventure

[freedominphilly]

Hey guys, what's up. I haven't posted in quite awhile so I'm starting a thread chronicling my trials and errors with this new project with the hopes of getting feedback from all you great folks on how to fine-tune my skills.

The space I am working in is 21.5'x10.75' with 7 foot ceilings. I decided to run 180 plants in this area, illuminated by 9x1000w HPS (if I wanted to leave myself with no room to walk around at all, I could have gone with 200 plants and 10 lights, but I need space for myself, as well as a reservoir and a couple standup canfan filters). The plants are being grown in 3 gallon growbags with PromixBX and added extra chunky perlite. Also some lime to adjust Promix's acidity. For the first two weeks of flowering during their stretch, I will hand water the plants, then at two weeks or so, switch to the irrigation system.

For the irrigation system, I've simply set up a bunch of 3/4in lines with spaghetti tubing and drippers at the ends going into each growbag. When the plants need to be watered, I will determine the nutrient mixture I feel they need that day, fill up the reservoir, pump it out and that's that. I've been using Botanicare's nutrients lately and I love them. I'll be using PureBlend Pro Grow and Bloom (soil formula), Sweet (berry), and Liquid Karma.

1 plant per square foot gives me a 5'x4' area of plants under each light, giving 50 watts per square foot.

I went with air cooled hoods because I am super paranoid about shit getting hot in here. The hoods have their own dedicated fresh air circulating at all times with a Vortex 6 inch fan. I also have an Eclipse 6 inch fan for exhaust. It's rating is 725cfm I believe, but with the CanFan filter attached, it drops to about 600 CFM. The entire volume of the room is just under 1600cu.ft., so I should have complete air exchange once every 2.5-3 minutes or so, if I did my math correctly.

So that's about it for now. The room will be complete by this evening. We're finishing up the electrical and ventilation this afternoon and then I have the fun task of checking for light-leaks. Tomorrow all the dirt gets mixed up and the 180 ladies get transplanted.

All comments, advice, and questions are warmly welcomed!

Here are some pictures to hopefully give you a better idea of what's going on.
this is before the wall went up.


wall is up and painted.




the ventilation for the lights all hooked up. I'll be tying up the slack from those parts of the ducting that are drooping down.


...and finally, the true stars of the show, the Sour Queen. These are from the first batch of SQ Rezdog put out. My buddy had a few phenos and I got ahold of this one. She's super easy to grow, looks BEAUTIFUL (check my gallery for some really colorful shots of her), has pretty low odor during flowering, gives you a great daytime smoke that gets you baked NICELY everytime you smoke it, smells really nice, and I can get at least 1 kilogram per light out of her. Honestly, the only thing I don't like about this strain is her taste. Other people don't have a problem with it, I just am disappointed when the smell doesn't translate well to the taste. But I digress.

 

[cellardweller]

Im callin couch dibs!
nice nice set-up man!
thats the room of my dreams....

 

[asher1er]

 

[freedominphilly]

Hey thanks man. It's been a lot of hard work. But oh so much fun getting here.

thats the room of my dreams....

...it's funny you say that because for the past 4 days all I've been saying to my girlfriend and partner is, "You really have no idea. This is seriously a dream come true for me." :smile:

 

[EnZee]

beautiful! think ill tag in..

 

[cellardweller]

I understand exactly what you are saying.
You can just tell by looking at it that this is not just a hobby gone mad. This is a labor of pure love of "the grow".
I have one question though. If your not happy with the taste, then why grow it? There are so so many other tasty things out there to play with, and it looks like you know how to play. So why mess with it?
ok..ok..few more questions.. those are from clone right? 1 kilo per light? sounds like a winner for sure (now I know why) but is it a scrog? You can scrog any good yielder,no?
just my thoughts.
I'll live my dream vicariously in your thread here...
~cd
edit: how'd the transplanting go?

 

[1tytersx]

I understand exactly what you are saying.
You can just tell by looking at it that this is not just a hobby gone mad. This is a labor of pure love of "the grow".
I have one question though. If your not happy with the taste, then why grow it? There are so so many other tasty things out there to play with, and it looks like you know how to play. So why mess with it?
ok..ok..few more questions.. those are from clone right? 1 kilo per light? sounds like a winner for sure (now I know why) but is it a scrog? You can scrog any good yielder,no?
just my thoughts.
I'll live my dream vicariously in your thread here...
~cd
edit: how'd the transplanting go?

probably because its a very high yielding strain or he doesnt want to wait couple weeks to get a 180+ clones of something else... just my 3 cents

 

[freedominphilly]

You can just tell by looking at it that this is not just a hobby gone mad. This is a labor of pure love of "the grow".
I have one question though. If your not happy with the taste, then why grow it? There are so so many other tasty things out there to play with, and it looks like you know how to play. So why mess with it?
ok..ok..few more questions.. those are from clone right? 1 kilo per light? sounds like a winner for sure (now I know why) but is it a scrog? You can scrog any good yielder,no?
just my thoughts.
I'll live my dream vicariously in your thread here...
~cd
edit: how'd the transplanting go?

Yeah man, labor of love, pretty much bordering on all out obsession.




1tytersx is right for the most part. There are actually several reasons that led to the SQ being chosen for this run. My strainbase isn't too too extensive right now. I have ECSD, AE77Calio, Bubba Kush, and SQ for mothers. I had to recently start a new ECSD mom...you know how a mother will start to get really shitty sometimes after you've had her for over a year? Otherwise I would have LOVED to have run her. I'm kinda new still with the Calio and for the past year, I had been having trouble getting her dialed in correctly. The run I'm finishing up now with her though is NICE. I'm gonna try to do all Calio's after this batch of SQ. And like I said, the SQ is SUPER EASY to grow, and she grows huge. Obviously all this herb isn't just for my head, and I get compensated the same if it was 1 pound of tastey bubba that took two lights to grow or 1 pound of something bland like say maybe NL#5 (that's just an example, i really dont know if ALL NL#5 is bland ) that took a half a light to grow. You follow me?

Yes, they are from clone. I hadn't considered an actual SCROG setup. Space is really tight and one big screen or several smaller screens, I'd imagine, would be extremely cumbersome and navigating to the different plots to train the plants properly under the screen would surely be a pain in the ass. What I've been doing the past several years is a combination of supercropping and LST with stakes. I supercrop the top over, down about 4 or 5 inches from the top and tie it to a stake at a 90 degree angle. This is done anywhere from the first day of transplanting to the 3rd or 4th day of flowering. I continue to add up to 4 or 5 stakes, all the while bending the tops over to maintain an even canopy. After the stretch is over, I go and trim all the bottom shit off that doesn't get much light. Then, I arrange all the plants like putting a jigsaw puzzle together and they stay there in that spot until they get chopped. I get very nice, even canopies like one would with a scrog, but with no screens.


Yesterday was a rather frustrating day. All I needed was an exhaust fan for the entire room, with the exception of patching light-leaks, to be finished. The store was supposed to be getting the one i needed yesterday. They did, sure enough, but not until 4:30. So most of my day was wasted, doing nothing, waiting for the fan. THEN, when I got back to mount the fan that had been holding me up, A MOUNTING BRACKET was missing. Oh well. Like I said, this is borderline obsession for me. Yesterday was a simple reminder that no matter how hard I try, I absolutely cannot have EVERYTHING go my way, no matter how badly I want it

So. Transplanting was supposed to be today. That's moved to probably tomorrow. I found a bracket at my other grow this morning, so I'm about to go hang that fucker now.

There are WAY more light-leaks than I thought there were. This is gonna be more of a pain in the ass than I thought. I have NIGHTMARES about light-leaks, no lie. Since I started 10 years ago, I will have them every once in awhile. Somehow, even when I go over the shit like 100 times, I'll still find one, like months later.

The ventilation for the lights is now complete though. I took care of that last night since I couldn't install my exhaust. We're pulling fresh air from the outside to cool the lights. My partner constructed a nifty box to set in the basement (did I mention this is in a basement???) window with a 3M Filtrete filter.

I'll get more pictures today.


Thanks for checking in everybody. Talk to you all later!

 

[bingobango]

holy shit dude thats mint

 

[cellardweller]

Hey freedom..again, thanks for explaining the "why" at length.
About those light leaks, Im not sure how many or how big they are but they make a product called GREAT STUFF. You've heard of it Im sure. It's an expanding foam crack filler. Easily available at the Hemp Depot or Blowes...

I like the way you described doin your LST, and I look forward to that nice even canopy you spoke of!
Best Wishes,
~cellard

 

[High Jinks]

I am so excited about this. Did you set up your electrical system yourself? What is the monthly bill like? Is this the basement of a ordinary suburban house or some industrial spot? And- if it is a residence, has the electric company ever said anything about the usage? This setup looks so clean, I'm expecting great things. I wish you the best of luck, and a massively fruitful, safe grow.

 

[freedominphilly]

About those light leaks, Im not sure how many or how big they are but they make a product called GREAT STUFF. You've heard of it Im sure. It's an expanding foam crack filler. Easily available at the Hemp Depot or Blowes...


~cellard

Yeah man, that shit really is....GREAT STUFF...I love it, just don't let it get on your hands and if it gets on your clothes, forget about it, fucking ruined. I actually have a set of jeans and sneakers to wear when I know I'm gonna be handling that shit. I've gone through about 5 or 6 cans so far and expect to go through another 3 or four. It's coming along well.

Did you set up your electrical system yourself? What is the monthly bill like? Is this the basement of a ordinary suburban house or some industrial spot? And- if it is a residence, has the electric company ever said anything about the usage?

I didn't do the electrical, my partner did. He's a 60 year old retiree who is very experienced in home repairs and remodeling. It's in the basement of a suburban home. We haven't had an electric bill yet, well, not one that reflects burning 9kW of lights. At our current grow, also in a residential home a few towns over, we had 4k for flowering and a total of 2k for veg and also 2 A/C units running and the electric bill was $900 for the past two months. That's the highest it's been in the past all year. It's been in the $400-$600 range, but we've been continually expanding. The electric company hasn't said anything about the usage. I suppose a simple "Thank you" from them would be nice, since we're such great customers by using so much of their service, we always pay on time, and we don't steal it.

Yesterday I mounted the exhaust fan. My partner hung and weatherstripped the door. The ballasts are all hung high near the ceiling and the wires are all off the floor, out of the way and hooked into the ceiling. I went through several cans of GREAT STUFF filling in most of the light leaks. I'm going to add a 4" Vortex fan for active air intake. Here are some pics. Oh, and the obligatory apology for shitty photos taken on a phone would apply here.
ballasts

exhaust


nifty box I mentioned my partner made for the intake for the lights.

this is where I will connect the 4" Vortex for intake.

I'm taking a day off from the room today. No transplanting. Tonight, we're chopping 20 Bubbas from the other grow and giving them a little pre-trim.

Please think positive thoughts for my partner. Like I said, he's getting old. He's lived a straight life for 30+ years raising a family and his now ex-wife screwed him in a divorce. But that's not why I want you to think positive thoughts for him. This past week and a half has been almost pure hell working with him. I really think he is paranoid beyond belief and he really needs to get his shit together for this.

Thank you.

 

[Tonatiuh]

very nice bro, i run a few lights myself and love to see other big grows poppin off.i'll be taggin in bro,squeezin between enzee and c-dubb so i can smoke all thier kalichakra and erkle
peace bro.

 

[Brad]

lookin great dude, keep it up!

 

[cellardweller]

'ere..puff puff pass..
Whuttup T?
Freedom, are you worried about your partners mental stability? you said he's lived the srt8 life for 30 years and now he's smokin good ganja? This is something I would worry about a little bit I think..but then again there is a reason he is your partner and you must trust him. I would talk to him about how he feels in all of this and try to get it on the table before it blows up in a couple of months..+K to both of you!
~cd

 

[Black Ra1n]

Nice setup... can't wait for an update of that area filled with green.

B/R

 

[yamaha_1fan]

This past week and a half has been almost pure hell working with him. I really think he is paranoid beyond belief and he really needs to get his shit together for this.

That sounds like your biggest liability right now.

I agree with Cellard, you need to talk to him and get this straightened out.

 

[freedominphilly]

Hey everyone, thanks for stopping in.

cellardwellar and blackfoot-I've been breaking him in steadily over the past year. He smokes daily, but really very little. In fact, for the first 6 months or so, he actually preferred smoking the trim leaf over the bud. I'm pretty sure it's not the pot that's making him paranoid. I just think it's the sheer magnitude of the whole project. Put yourself in his shoes. Just a regular working class, family man. Never committing any crimes other than speeding or sometimes driving after having one or two too many. Now all of a sudden, after just one year of being in the game, he's got over 300 plants on his hands. I'd probably be paranoid too if I were him.
The whole thing pretty much reached climax yesterday morning. And since this is my diary, I'm going to write about it We had been having some minor heat issues in our current grow for about a week. It was getting up to about 84-86 degrees and it was bothering me, because everything was great until then. Partner knew it was bothering me because I update him on everything and he also knows how passionate/perfectionistic I am about what I do. Keeping the AC on and having the door open during lights on kept the room at 81 degrees max. I actually put a sign on the AC saying "Gets up to 84/86 degrees. No good. Please keep AC on." Fine. No biggie. 2 mornings ago, the temp is back up to 85 degrees. I run it by him, he says he has no idea what it could be. I had a million things to do that day, so I couldn't figure it out right then and there. The next morning on my way over I realize that it could only be the AC. Sure enough when I get there, the AC is off. He made the decision without me to go ahead and turn it off. He didn't ask me if it would be cool to do. He played dumb the previous morning when I brought the temp issue to his attention. This is supposed to be a partnership and he made a decision to do something, that wasn't even in his area of expertise, without consulting me. And whyyyyy did he turn off the AC? "Because it was getting cooler outside and I didn't want anyone to think anything weird about the AC running." Dude, it's still 75 fucking degrees during the day! My girlfriend and I live in a one bedroom apartment and we're still running BOTH ACs 24 hours a day. We're not growing pot in the apartment, and I highly DOUBT anyone thinks we are, just because we have our ACs on.

See, he's been fine up until now. The past 2 weeks he's just been thinking WAYY too much. I won't even get into the whacky scenarios he's come up with in his head that I've had to help bring him back to earth and get him to rationalize the shit out.

I've been telling him that he's got to get his shit together. I've been telling him if he can't get his shit together, then I absolutely cannot work with him. But this AC thing is where he stepped over the line and actually ACTED OUT his paranoid delusions and did something that could have negatively affected the project without discussing it with his PARTNER.

I flipped out and told him that this just isn't going to work, blah blah blah.

Way too long of a story made short - whilst trimming our amazing bubbas last night, I reminded him of the HUGE investment of time, money and energy the both of us have made. I also reminded him of all the good things that have come our way this past year and that many more excellent things will follow. I told him that all I ask is for him to hold it together for at least this one cycle. He promised me that he will never ever again act out on his paranoid delusions and that he will always call me, no matter of the time of day, and consult me with his concerns.

The 9k adventure continues.

Thanks for reading.

 

[George W Kush]

Holy shit!!

Excellent job on laying out all the details, great pictures, etc.

Only thing that has my head scratching is the use of a single fan (and all in-line) for that many lights.

Also, looks like you got those ballasts hooked up for 120v? What's your electrical setup like?

Glad to hear that you got the partnership thing sorted in the right direction. Been there myself in the past and can fully understand & appreciate what you're going through.

 

[freedominphilly]

Only thing that has my head scratching is the use of a single fan (and all in-line) for that many lights.

Also, looks like you got those ballasts hooked up for 120v? What's your electrical setup like?

I've actually been scratching my head over that one too. I turned them all on the other day and all hoods are cool, until you get to the last two. They aren't blazing by any means, but they are warm. My main concern is how HOT the fan gets. I can keep my hand on it, but it starts to get a tad uncomfortable after a minute, if you understand what I'm saying. It's at the end of the line and PULLS the air through and out. Before I fired them up, I ran my whole setup by the dude who runs the grow shop I buy from. I know he's extremely knowledgeable and he's assured me I should be fine with temps in the room. The temperature of the fan certainly concerns me though. I was thinking of buying a couple booster fans to put inside the duct at different places in the line. Anyone have any ideas?

As far as the electrical goes, it is 120. I have a 20 amp breaker (WAY more than I need, I know, but I'm not the electrician ) for each of my ballasts.