15,000 watts and a few questions. Suggestions?

[Thaniel]

redonk, yeah, I'm looking into the dehumidifier situation right now, I probably just need to get one of those commercial units. About fans, I have 3 total, they move quite a bit of air. One on the back wall, and two on the sides to keep it moving in the direction of exhaust.

 

[joe fresh]

hey man, i have 2 rooms each with 10 lights, i have a 3 ton water cooled a/c in each room keeping teps at 74, but at night my rh jumps from 50-60% all the way to 95%. ive noticed on a few plants some PM but i plan to get a sulfur burner to solve that before it goes any further, but as for the RH if you are able to solve your problem i would be very interested, i dont know how big a comercial dehumidifier is but i dont think it would fit in my rooms as im cramped for space already. if you guys got any suggestions id be glad to hear em

btw im running a cge as well

 

[praisehim.]

joe fresh. 95 ? ouch, that sucks. i'd build a shelf above the lights on a wall, all you need is like a 80-120 pint dehuey. empty it every few days..

 

[Thaniel]

geez, yeah, 95 percent. I've never heard of that before. Thats jungle humidity in the amazon for sure! google search for commercial dehumidifiers. They probably do a decent job.

 

[NEARTHEBEACHBOY]

looks like a A1 setup!

 

[Wasabi420]

haahaaaa my brotha! Big tymin' it. I wonder if a little pruning would help with your humidity problem. It would help the air circulation and possibly less transpiration??? not too sure about that one but it would deffinately help to boost those top buds and limit the popcorn nugs. Lookin excellent though. it must be a full time job+ some maintaining that forest!

 

[toohighmf]

joe fresh, a properly installed chiller AC should actually help with dehumidification. What brand chiller & what are you using for a res? where is it located? is the actual chiller unit outside? if dehueys are needed, it's best to mount the dehuey high and drain the unit via hose to a bucket or storage container OUTSIDE the room. drilling a hole through the wall and letting it drain outside the room will help a little, and you dont have to change out 70 pints every day.. the less water in the room the better..

Thaniel, beautiful room. love it! RDWC is notorious for pythium and other disease, so it's best to keep the water constantly moving and to get it down to 68-70. If you have issues keeping under 70, I would simply add h202 to the res every 3 days. it's good to hear that your plants are eating and the PH is raising. a little swing every day is a good thing. When you run RDWC constant, the PH will be more stabile. Pure blend pro is organic and a meter does not read the full the full EC because of the organics and not being salt based like hydro ferts. figure 1000 ppm is like 18-2000! I would keep it steady where you are and not up the ferts until mid bloom if ever. sometimes less is really more. great show. keep up the good work!

 

[LiLWaynE]

 

[toohighmf]

What type of AC is that? does it recirculate or is it pushing exhaust from the room out, taking cold air and co2 with it? I was interested in units like yours but I found they werent ideal for CEA rooms. is this AC different? how many BTUs or tons are those things? I'm going water cooled AC myself next run if I get the damn chiller made in time. couple more questions.. do you have a control room or something? how big are your res/'s? love to see your load center/timer setup. running magnetic or digis? any idea what kinda amperage your running during bloom w all the AC's dehueys, chiller etc?
I will say that I probably would of flipped them sooner or spaced my lights a little further and space them out to fill in with some fiming to the lowers. Who knows, maybe the light intensity will help. I wish I could run 75w/sq'!! what are you using to cool the hoods? do you cool each string of 5 with a single fan, or are you running a boxed/ducted heat pump? how many cfms?

 

[Thaniel]

THMF- Thanks for the info about the EC reading with the PH Nutes. That sounds right on. I think last run I upped the nutes too much, causing a lockout of some others. I never posted the end of that run because it wasn't pretty.

Okay, heres my fan setup. First, for the lights. My intake for all 15 lamps is via a 12 inch can type blower, I think its about 900 CFM. Out of that 12 inch blower, it separates into 3 six inch flextubes going to each strip of 5 lights. Out of those 15 lights, I have 2 seperate exhausts. There is an 8 inch HO 740cfm canfan from the exit of 2 strips of 5 lights (10 total), and that heats my house. The exhaust from the remaining 5 lights goes through an 8 inch maxfan (540cfm?) and simply goes outside.

Now, for the cooling of the room itself, as it still gets a bit warm... Passive intake. Exhaust is via two 10 inch canfans and the biggest carbon filter I could find. These canfans, I think they are made in italy. Elicient maybe? I hate them, they are not very powerful. So, to boost things and help pull all of this air through, I have a huge 1/2 hp dayton blower hooked up to the window. The air is not being filtered super well, but it doesn't matter where I am at.

Okay so I did just now add a photo. This one shows my res, which is just a 27 gallon tub from Home depot. I top it off daily at 8pm, lights on. I think lately they drink about 20 gallons per day. The chiller is also there, its an aqua logic 1/4hp. You can also see the intake for the lights.

Second photo is the 8inch HO canfan to get the hot air into my house. It doesn't have too far to go.

 

[Thaniel]

About that A/C, its a movincool classic plus 26. It's 24,000 BTU. It's less than ideal because yeah, its basically a supercharged portable a/c unit, so it exhausts room air out the top (as well as smell I would imagine). I haven't used it yet, but will when I need to. Unlike regular portable ac units, this one actually pumps out some serious cold air. I think it sells new for almost 4k. I really didn't pay for it, so this is why I will use this if I have to.

Any of you guys use one of those split ductless? I think those are probably the best, but I don't know anything about a real a/c instal. Someday I'll figure it out.

Thanks again for all the replies.

 

[Thaniel]

One more thing. If I was to do this all over again, I would DEFINITELY get air cooled hoods that are larger than 6 inches. 8 minimum. Or perhaps 10 would even be good. When you put them in a line like this, the first 3 stay cool, but the 4th and 5th get hot. You can't possibly pull enough air through fast enough to keep them cold.

 

[Thaniel]

Also, yeah I should not have vegged these for as long as I did, but it was a new strain for me, and I wasn't sure how big they would get... Next time I know, that is, if this Hindu Skunk turns out okay..

I can guarantee you I will never get clones from blue sky again, this was the first and last. Shitty clones to begin with. Came complete with PM. The stems of many were also damaged as they had simply ripped extra growth off, and this caused some infection in the bottom of the stalks in 4 or 5. Those plants in my room are considerably smaller, and clearly there was an infection as the stem has gotten so busty in the bottom. Anyone know what I mean? Here is a photo I just took, see how its all swollen and split? Its because some idiot taking clones tore off a branch near the base of the clone instead of cutting it proper, which led to infection. This is the case with 5 of these plants!

 

[Thaniel]

Okay this is it for me tonight, here is my load center. Actually, this is only for 10 of the lights. The other 5 ballasts are in the room, on a metal shelf high on the wall. 14 of the 15 lights are running off 220.

So, the main load center is great. I can't take credit for creating it, but I did hook it up myself. I've learned a lot about how this stuff works in the past year, that I had no clue about. 2 lines are going into this, each one for 5 lights. Those wires are 8 guage, good for 40 amps I think. The photo should be self explanatory. It needed to be divided up because those timers are only rated for 40 amps I believe.

EDIT: damn, I really need to clean that area up, it looks like a total mess. There are a bunch of wires just hanging out that aren't being used in there for anything, and its messy. Anything that is actually being used there is quite clean and wires well ran I think...

 

[toohighmf]

definitely functional & simple. I use relays and external timer, but a T-104 will def do it.

 

[newhiddengrower]

Hey bro, everything looks amazing. One thing TRIM All your popcorns not only will this help with the obvious. It will decrease your crazy humidity level by at least 30%!!!

 

[joe fresh]

for a/c i got a thermoplus 3 ton watercooled a/c but they only run when lights are on and i have a hose that runs the condensation into a pit with a pump that leads to a sink, i only got 1 dehumidifier and it too has a hose running to the pit, but the dehumidifier only drops the rh by 10-15%. and to tell you the truth i just built this grow and im kinda in the hole($$$), so i cant really afford much till harvest, and at 300+ for a good dehumidifier and i would need atleast to the way i see the one i have works, i seen a 130 pint per day removal, but at 1000$ plus worst of all is the size

so when the lights are on its ok, but when lights out the a/c compressor stops working but the fan stays running, but no water removal happens at night , only in the day. so that is one of the reasons why my rh is up at night

ps just thaught id say sorry if im jackin the thread, i just figured i seen someone with a room similar to mine that i might get some answers here.

just thaught id mention im not in hydro, im in a promix style medium

 

[Thaniel]

THMF- For the remaining 5 ballasts, thats exactly what I do. Well, with 4 of the 5, that is. I just have a cheap relay that controls 4 lights, hooked up to a timer. I had no idea how well these worked until only a month ago when I hooked it up. So simple!

NHG, Thanks, I will get after that. I'll take a few days to do it to avoid too much stress.

Joe, no problem, we both have the same issue, get some answers here if you can.

 

[mcattak]

I guess things look okay so far, but I usually start having problems around this time. Today is day 15 of flower, the strain is Hindu Skunk. I probably should have done a lot more pruning. The canopy area is about 15 feet by 13 feet. Are my lights too close? How far should they be from the tops of the plants.

System is a RDWC. I'm using tap water now with Pure blend pro at 15ml/gal plus about 2.5ml/gal of cal mag. PH between 5.8 and 6.2ish. I'm using the drip ph tester because I have had nothing but problems with digital, so I just know I'm around 6.0 for PH.

Temp is about 76 during the day and 70 at night. I have a chiller in the res that keeps it at 70. Plants are fed 15 min on and 15 minutes off all the time via 2 small pumps, and then onto 2 feeders for each plant.

My most happy upgrade was the installation of a regenerative blower instead of all of the stupid air pumps that I used to use. This is so much easier.

Are you kidding...Those pics look great...I usually do some pruning underneath around the same time they stop stretching...

If you have problems later it might be due to the 70 degree water which could be higher in the buckets...Maybe a bigger chiller and get those temps down to 65....

 

[mcattak]

Also, PK, how exactly do you monitor food intake via PH? I guess if ph rises that means that the plants are eating a lot, yes? These girls seem to be feeding a lot right now as well, because I've had to dump in a lot more nutrient lately in addition to my 15ml/gal in order to keep EC to about 1.5. Maybe it should even be a bit higher?

From what I understand if the plants are drinking water and the ec goes down everyday..Thats good...