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Hexagon homemade project

d1ff1Ko1t

Member
Hi there fellow growers! Since the first time ive seen a colliseum (a couple of years ago), i was fascinated by it, but always thought it was a bit pricey. So i started to make my own design, trying to improve its flaws too since i was at it. Well the biggest flaw is the price, but hey that's why i'm making my own. :D The second flaw is that u cant move the plants closer to or away from the lights. The third one is that u have to grow the same strain and ur clones have to be the same height in each cup so they stretch at the same rate. After a couple of failures i finally managed to build a system that eliminates all 3 of these flaws. Back then, i was pretty bad at cloning, so i had a hard time to keep a continuous flow of healthy clones into my system, but even under these circumstances i managed to pull 9 lbs in 8 weeks. I honestly think the system is capable of more, i'd say up to 12 lbs. I used this system for about a year, but then i was out of the growing scene for a couple of years. Now i'd like to build one again pretty soon and i'm asking u guys' help to make it even more efficient. There is lots of room for improvement still, opened to suggestions So here is the rundown: I was using 2 x 1000W HPS. the system had 6 poles hosting 40 plants each = 240. The poles were filled with hydroton and drip fed from the top. Each pole was standing in a 3 gallon bucket that was connecting back into the reservoir. Each bucket was sitting on a dolly with WHEELS, that i made out of 2x2s i had laying around and bought the wheels from home depot for about $7 each. The pole u see on the pic is made of COROPLAST, a type of vinyl plastic that comes in 4 x 8 feet sheets and is used in signmaking, pretty easy to get and very cheap, about $8 a sheet. It kind of looks like a sheet of cardboard if u look at it from the side, but its a ridgid plastic. Its very easy to work with. So i took 1 of these 4x8 sheets, cut 1 foot off (because i had low ceilings) and bent it into a hexagon shape and taped it together. After that cut out the 40/240 holes, fitted the little netcups in,then set it in the buckets that r connected to the res, fill it up with hydroton put the plants in and i was ready 2 rock. As long as i have strong clones, no need to veg in my opinion, u can move the plants as close to the light as u want (specially if u have cooltubes), I can have a different strain in each pole, i can have poles at different stages of flowering as long as i have a couple reservoirs. As they grow i could move them further away from the light, keeping them at optimum distance, eliminating stretch!!!
 

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d1ff1Ko1t

Member
some more pics
 

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d1ff1Ko1t

Member
and some more :D
 

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*mistress*

Member
Veteran
nice concept & garden... considered doing this w/ those tall, rectangular trash cans that are used for recycling & underneath bar counters. the slim profile & height provides lots of room for media.

beautiful!

enjoy your garden!
 

d1ff1Ko1t

Member
my yield was usually around 1.5 lbs per pole, 9 lbs per system, but like i said i used to suck at cloning. If i could have filled it up with healthy clones all the time, my yields would have been way more than that. i wouldnt use the 1000 watters again, they suck too much electricity and put out too much heat. On my next run i'll use aircooled 600's, that's the real deal.
 

d1ff1Ko1t

Member
thats not a bad idea, i was thinking about that too but with the 1000s all the heat would collect at the top, but on the other hand using cooltubes it wouldnt be an issue.
 
S

squirrelfooker

Nice setup.
1.8 grams per watt if 2000 watts and 9 lbs right?
 

Power13

Member
I would suggest more tubes, and less clones per tube. You won't be able to bring the light quite as close, but plants will stretch towards the light anyway. Additionally, i think 1k's are great but in cool tubes, like you mentioned.
 

tmu

Member
What strain is that? One of my girlfriends is using 24 plants around a cooled 600. Her yield isn't even close to 1 gpw every 30days! Are you using CO2? What is the radius of each plant site?

I would maybe suggest aero if you're up for it. And veg for a few days using bloom formula to get them prepared to bloom. There really is no need to use grow formula at all. Not even for mothers if you're flushing regularly. I've found that clones root faster and don't stretch as much when entering flower.
 
T

Teeg420

yep run the 8" air cooled cool tubes with the neoprene collars with 1ks and a big fan underneath blowing up. works well.
 

d1ff1Ko1t

Member
squirrelfooker: i dont know how to convert grams and watts

power13: are u suggesting to keep the plant number the same or reduced it?

tmu: its critical mass, not bad eh? :D I wasnt using co2. i belive the radius of the netpots was 2 inches. i dont know much about aero, what would it take to do it?

teercsidbreeder: no, these pics are from my first run with this system, it took quite some experimenting as u can imagine. i got 9 lbs by my last run when i broke down and decided to buy the clones. unfortunately these r the only pics i got left with, my house got broken into and my laptop got stolen with all my pics, i had these saved on an external hard drive that they didnt get to.

if i'm gonna build this again, i'll be using 2x aircooled 600's, connected to an elicent 200 or smthg.
i also would like to do something about the little netpots, tilt them a little, and use a 6mm Coroplast instead the 4 mm, gives it a little more stability, these were kind of flimsey as u can see in one of the pics.
 

d1ff1Ko1t

Member
I would suggest more tubes, and less clones per tube. You won't be able to bring the light quite as close, but plants will stretch towards the light anyway. Additionally, i think 1k's are great but in cool tubes, like you mentioned.

Do u mean having 24 skinny poles with 10 plants each for a total of 240, instead of having 6 thicker ones with 40 plants in each?
 

Power13

Member
Do u mean having 24 skinny poles with 10 plants each for a total of 240, instead of having 6 thicker ones with 40 plants in each?

24 is a fairly large number, that might be difficult, but definitelly more than you have. Plant count is up to you, for the same system as what you show, can be used to grow large plants into a bush or vertical scrog.
 

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