Perpetual Grow - Odor control for 25 + 25 Plants (Help Needed)

[Mr. Tony]

"Quote: "Hydro-Soil: 10x12x9 is also a pretty big room for a single 1K
Ya I was thinking of adding a 250 or 400 hps to the mix in flowering room #2."



10X 12= 120 sq ft

you need about 50 watts per square foot.

that equates to 6000 watts needed for that room

a single or even two 1k's isn't going to cut it.

 

[Bi0hazard]

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[toastfighter2]

Personally, I would get two carbon filters, two bigger than needed fans, and a speed controller for each. This way, if the fan is too loud(which might cause just as big of a problem as stink with the neighbors), you can dial them back a bit(as shutting off the fans completely will drop the negative pressure in the room, the stank will just flow out all the cracks, and you will have wasted a ton of loot on carbon filters). Also for lighting the flower room #2, I would kep the 1000 watter, add two 600's on either side(long ways, and also add a couple t-5's(or cheap shop lights) hanging between the hps's and the wall. Sorry for the sloppy ms paint job, but it was quick and dirty

 

[Bi0hazard]

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[Lazyman]

Albert Hofmann,

however it is also the smallest (10x12x9 feet) with a 1000w Hortilux HPS. Lets call it "Flowering Room 2". I can only fit 25 plants in there, while I can almost double the amount of plants in the Early 1-6 week flowering stage room, "Flowering Room 1" (14x12x9 feet) due to its shape and smaller plants during this stage. The Flowering Room #1 will have two 1000 watt Hortilux Superblue HPS/MH combo bulbs.

Bi0hazard

Flowering room 1 has 120 square feet, and only 1000 watts. To get to the minimum (50w/square foot) you need 6000 watts.

Flowering room 2 is 168 square feet, and would require 8400 watts to illuminate properly.

Also, thos combo bulbs are very expensive, and put out less light than even a plain MH 1000W bulb. Ditch em and buy more ballasts and hoods with your savings.

 

[Bi0hazard]

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[Bi0hazard]

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[Lazyman]

Lazyman,

Really? I have heard good things about them and had decent results with a single 1k Super Blue (600hps / 400mh) grow where I got 2 pounds dried.

Also the purpose of using the SuperBlues over the Flowering 1-3 week section and the Flowering 3-6 week section was to help add stem and stretch growth along with the hps (hps/mh combo) before all the plants were moved into the final stage (Flowering Room #2) that was solely a EYE Hortilux 1000w HPS for crystal and thc production. during the last 2-6 weeks, depending on the strain.

Bi0hazard

Yep, check the lumen output, its 80K lumens if I recall, which is 10K less than a MH, about 60K less than an HPS! Crazy. They are just a 600W HPS and a 400W MH in one bulb but cost about $220 each. I don't think you can pull enough amps in an apartment to run the lighting these rooms require.

 

[Bi0hazard]

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[toastfighter2]

For the power draw, I would flip flop the lighting(not with a relay for the ballast, but have one room on while the other is off). It might stress them for a day or so after you move them, but it really shouldn't hurt them much more than the actual act of moving them from one room to another. I also remember reading somewhere that you can run about a 1000 watts per bedroom befor it even starts to raise a flag, but if you remember to pay your bill in full and on time, they get their money and generally leave you alone. We were completely remodeling an old victorian style house, and I know that we were drawing a lot more power than that for about a year solid. The power company actually called after about two months in and asked us about the power usage(to make sure the meter wasn't messed up,or at least that's what they said). If they every inquire about the change of electric usage, you could always tell them you are a computer nerd, and have several servers running 24/7, in air conditioned racks, along with an air filtration system for them. Then you could ask them out of the blue if they want to come over and play WOW with you(that way they will KNOW you are a lonely computer geek)

 

[Bi0hazard]

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[toastfighter2]

The amp draw is different from ballast to ballast, and the same for the fans, a/c, and ect. Just look on the side panel, and the is normally a sticker/metal plate that list everything out as far as voltages and amps.Write all that stuff down on a sheet of paper(mainly the amps), and add it all up. From there you will know exactly how many amps you need to be able to pull. As a rule of thumb, you want to pull less than 75% of what the breaker is rated for(amp wise) on each line. You can run slightly higher than that, but you should never try to pull a full 20 amps at one time over a 20 amp breaker. With that in mind, simply find what you can safely plug into each outlet. I hate to say it, but personally, I would have had a 240v sub panel put in before running 4 extra 120v lines. Oh yeah, do you plan on living there too, because if you do you have to take in to account your fridge, and basic home appliances also.

 

[B. Self Reliant]

Is there any advantage to running the exhaust all the time vs every 2-3 minutes, or is all the time over kill. Also if it runs every 2-3 minutes how long should I leave it on in between the 2-3 minute breaks? And I think I will be turning my 800cfm fan down to 600 or 650cfm. I plan on using it in bigger setups in the future, but I also wanted to make sure I had the power to be covered if it was needed.

There's two issues we're dealing with here. The first is ventilation/temp control, and the second is odor control. They are linked together, but I'll cover ventilation first.

For venting, you'll need a fan for each room. You can have the fan on all the time, you can have it on a timer so it's on for X minutes, then off for Y minutes, or you can have it on a temp. control panel.

• On all the time kind of sucks, but it can work. It's always making noise, it's using electricity, and it's a pretty shitty way to go about business, especially if you're investing a lot of time and money into your garden. Your garden sill be a few degrees above the outside temp all the time, so unless you live where the temp is ideal all the time, you really don't have control over how warm it gets.

• A short rang timer that turns on the fan for a few minutes, then turns it off for a few minutes is better, but it's still "stupid", meaning that regardless of whether it's 10 degrees outside or 110 degrees outside, it still vents your room the same way. This can work, but the needs of your garden will be different when it's hot outside than they will be when it's cooler outside, and this type of venting setup won't compensate for that.

• A temp control panel will turn your fan on when the max temp you entered is reached, and it turns it off when the differential is reached. I use a Sentinel and I would recommend it to anyone who wants to make cash from their garden because it will pay for itself in one harvest. For example, if your max temp is set to 78, and you have a 3 degree differential set, then when the room reaches 78 degrees, the fans turn on until your room is 75 degrees, then they shut off. It adjusts according to the room's needs at any given time, so if it's freezing outside, then it will run the fans for a shorter time than when it's hot as hell outside.


For odor control, you also have a few options.

• You can set up your filter so that it's part of your ventilation system. All the air that's exhausted is sucked through the filter, then exhausted out of the room. This means that all the smelly air is filtered one time (as it exits the grow space). As long as you have the right size fan for your room, and you have a filter that is the right size for the fan, then regardless of how you trigger your fan (constant, short cycle timer or temp control), you'll probably be fine.

• You can also completely separate your odor control from your ventilation. The down side of this is that you'll need a fan for venting, but you'll also need a fan & filter for filtering the air in your garden. With this type of setup, you still need to vent your room one of the ways outlined above, but you'd also have an inline fan that on all the time, sucking the air in your garden through a filter and then spitting it out back into your garden. The idea is that rather than filtering the air only once as it exits your garden, it gets filtered many times over. For example, if your ventilation system comes on roughly every 10 minutes, and you're running a separate 6" vortex on a filter that's always on, then the air will be filtered about 5 times before it gets exhausted. This method wouldn't work if your ventilation system was going all the time.

• Your last option is to filter as the air is vented, and also have a constantly running filtration system. The best of both worlds, but it not only required two fans and a filter, but a second filter as well.

 

[Lazyman]

Lazyman,

Thanks for your insights and helpful knowledge.

I know the landlord well. The floors came with 2 (20 amp circuits) and 1 (15 AMP circuit). I had them install 4 (20 AMP) Circuits on top of the others that were already there.

So. 6 (20 AMP circuits) and a (15 amp circuit).

Do you have an idea of how many amps my current setup with 2 (600 to 800cfm scrubbers), and 4 (6,000 BTU air conditioners), 2 (1000w hps/mh superblue), 1 (1000w hps hortilux), 3 (400w MH). Do I have the power to add another two 600 watt hps?

Ok, you can only use max 80% of a rated breaker, so a 20 amp is actually 16 amp max. Most 600w ballasts draw about 5 amps at 120v, but I wouldn't put more than two on one breaker. Ac's vary, yours are probably about 4-5 amps each. You'll also need a dehumidifier or two which will use about the same amount of power. My 400W MH light used 4 amps, and 1000w lamps draw about 9.5 amps.

So you have:

4 ACs = ~18 amps
3 1000W = 28.5 amps
3 400w = 12 amps
2 600w = 10 amps

That right there is a total load of 68.5 amps, and with your 15a circuit you have roughly 108 usable amps. You'll have to be careful about what plugs into what circuit and run lots of THICK extension cords to power it all, but yes you should be safe.

I still don't think you have anywhere near enough wattage to light those rooms, if you're using the whole room for plants. You have 5400 watts total and just the two flowering rooms alone would use 14400.

 

[Bi0hazard]

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[B. Self Reliant]

Fuck your electric bill. Just like you, the electric company makes its money from paying customers. Pay your bill and you'll be fine. The electric company hates growers because they sometimes steal power, not because they rack up high bills. Most people run into cooling issues long before they run into problems with the electric bill getting too high.

To determine if what gear you can safely put on any given breaker, go through this simple equation:

1. Like LazyMan said, multiply your amps by 80% for a safety margin. That's what you can put on that particular circuit.

2. Determine how many amps each piece of gear is using. Watts/Volts = amps used, so if you have a 600 watt lamp, and you're using regular 120 volt outlets, then your 600 watt HPS is using 5 amps. If the same 600 watt lamp is plugged into a 240 volt dryer outlet, then it's drawing only 2.5 amps.

3. Add all the gear that you want to put on a single circuit and make sure it's below the number you came up with from step #1. When you add up the amps from all your gear on any given circuit, assume they'll all be on at the same time, even if you think that your pump won't be on at the same time s your dehumidifier or whatever.


A common mistake growers make is simply replacing a breaker with one that's rated to at a higher number of amps. Everything that makes up that circuit needs to be upgraded, not just the breaker itself. Outlets are rated at a certain load, wire comes in different gauges for different loads, breakers come in different load, etc. All of teh above advice is assuming that these things were done right. My buddy just had a problem with this recently. "Well the breaker said it was a 20 amp circuit. . ." Yeah, but the outlet itself was rated at 15 amps, and he didn't bother to check, so the breaker kept poppin'.

 

[Bi0hazard]

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[apartmentblower]

Bad assumption. I've had plants go weeks in flower before they smell and others stink to high heaven within days of the 12/12 flip. Unless you KNOW otherwise, I'd plan on it stinking beyond belief. Can we really be too safe in this area?

you are absolutely right. ive got plants in veg barely @ 2 weeks right now that STINK!!!! i put off setting up the carbon filter and IT WAS A MISTAKE. always have everything dialed in before you plant

 

[Mr. Tony]

I think your going to have to scale down what you want, 6 in an apartment is pushing it...

 

[Bi0hazard]

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