400w CMH bare bulb stadium SOG

[tuinman]

I've recently started devouring the information in this forum and have decided to convert a 3x2x4.5 test flowering cabinet into a stadium SOG and cram some 3 litre air-pots in there using a bare bulb 400w CMH.

From what I've seen most of these grows utilize v-scrogs and longer veg times to take advantage of plant stretch - due to the way I'm currently configured with this test chamber I don't have the luxury of vegging vertically, or getting much more than 7" or so of height when vegged horizontally under T5s in these pots.

This picture (inspired by Anti) assumes 12" if they go straight from 3-4" clones to flower, possibly 20-22" if vegged out enough to hit my height limit?

The furthest a leaf would be away from the light is about 2', and I'll be using blumats to water. Preferably I'd like to avoid getting in there at all, whether to train, water, ect. The missing space in the middle would be for a fan blowing upwards (just enough space for a 7" Honeywell pivot).

There's a second identical chamber to the right of this one, and a 2 x 2 x 7 vegging/bonsai mum area they both sit ontop of, all exhausted by a 312cfm TD mixvent. With the carbon scrubber this gives me about 1 full exchange of the entire volume per minute.

Is this doable? Did I leave anything out? Thoughts to make a better use of this space and light? Thank you very much for taking the time to stop by!

 

[forkup]

Tilt the pots inward and make it a coliseum with a few more plants on the ends? Possibly drop back to 6" pots versus the 8" ones you have drawn to allow more plants. Remember DHFs rule that more numbers means more yield ftw, lol. Perhaps you can attach wire to the walls like Marlo and others to tie the plants back to for training. Lower the light. Imo to many vertical gardens have the lights too high. The light thrown off a bulb reminds me of a doughnut shape of usable light around the bulb and imo too many have that doughnut too high.

 

[tuinman]

Thanks for the advice!

I took the 3 litre air pots I currently have (I have way too many of these things) and re-wrapped them so they're about 6" across now, and can fit four across.

Doing it this way I'll probably be hand watering via submersion unless I want to pick up another set of blumats to run between them all - with the smaller pot size this might be worthwhile to keep them at the optimal moisture level?



When you say to tilt it inward, are you talking about stacking them something like this:

/
/
/

Say, 3 shelves of 4 across for a total of 24 on the side walls, and leave the floor bare except for the fan?

In your experience, how big about is the doughnut vertically?

 

[megayields]

Fork up has good suggestions all I would add is put Relectix behind the Chicken wire (you can staple right through the Reflectix no problemo) and get all those Lumens back at the plants.

Good luck will be watching with interest!

 

[tuinman]

Thanks mega! Updated yet again... starting to get the hang up sketchup now (and enough sense to orient the picture before exporting).

Black lines represent where ties would be used to pull the plants back away from the light. Configuring it this way would allow me to get 24 in there. I could also try and fit a single row of shelves along the back wall to bring it up to 27.

Looking at this the easiest way to water seems to be placing the pots in window planter boxes and flooding them, with a spigot on the end to drain what isn't wicked up. That or removing each individually to submerge... but that does take a good deal of time. Tilting the pots like this I believe would ruin the effectiveness of a blumat watering system?

Currently the cabinet has white poly on the walls - I'll remove this and add reflectix, the pop some hooks through it to use as tie offs.

 

[Anti]

Nice job with the sketchup. I think your last design is going to result in a lot of bleached leaves and burned buds.

You don't need quite such an angle.

Also, if you were to put shelves on the "door" you could hang plants all the way around.

I'll be watching as this progresses.

 

[tuinman]

Nice job with the sketchup. I think your last design is going to result in a lot of bleached leaves and burned buds.

You don't need quite such an angle.

Much appreciated. =) I was worried about the angle and closeness myself, but figured I may as well gusto it and look for criticism. Even with severely pulling the plants back they'd be pretty damn close that way.

Also, if you were to put shelves on the "door" you could hang plants all the way around.

I'll be watching as this progresses.

I'd love it, but the door is actually two of them and they swing open from the center, so it's pretty much dead space. Thanks for the input - your thread is what pushed me over the edge into trying this. Great info there.

 

[tuinman]

Quick cell phone pic of the cabinet... just finished lining everything with reflectix, and will be installing the shelves this weekend. Wish I had found out about this before - it's really easy to work with, and a lot more reflective than poly film.

One wall's worth of the compressed air-pots (cut the bottoms down to make them 5 3/4" instead of 8" across) are being stored in there right now... those are a huge pain in the ass to wrap tighter. They hold about .6 gallons of soil now.

 

[HushemFlupskluk]

I agree with Anti. He forsees the damage this technique will cause, I can speak from experience. Scorching leafs should be prevented

 

[tuinman]

I agree with Anti. He forsees the damage this technique will cause, I can speak from experience. Scorching leafs should be prevented

Are you saying that running them up and down the walls is going to cause scorched leafs, regardless of the angle? I was going to do another sketchup but my original save corrupted - the angle that was going to be used will be much shallower, per Anti's suggestion.

Or would it be better to drop back to the second picture, the stadium style?

 

[Bobby Stainless]

CMH FTW!

Great avatar!!!

 

[HushemFlupskluk]

Are you saying that running them up and down the walls is going to cause scorched leafs, regardless of the angle? I was going to do another sketchup but my original save corrupted - the angle that was going to be used will be much shallower, per Anti's suggestion.

Or would it be better to drop back to the second picture, the stadium style?

Short distance lamp-plant would scorch the leafs/buds like shown in here

3 foot wide, 400 watt bulb.. The mid plants will be gone almost entirelly burnt while the lower plant will have good light at the top only. The upper rows will start to show claw action b/c of light shortage from above.

I guess the distance lamp-plant there in the middle should be something like >25cm or >10 inch. Now only >1/2 foot is left on each WALL leaft and right for the plants to grow in without scorching.

I dunno if you should drop back to vsog pic 2. I rather see a room a bit wider. 400 watt will be perfect for 100cm * 100cm.

GL!

 

[tuinman]

Here was what I was actually thinking of building shelves for (found an old sketchup file and redid this) - the closest any part of a plant is this way is about 8.5-9" away, in the center. The furthest is 2' at the base of the bottom pot to the tip of the estimated plant in the top.



That's unfortunately under the 10" you're saying is within the scorch area, and building the cab out bigger unfortunately is not an option.

To still give this a go I could drop the top two shelves and do a stadiumish style like picture two and go with less plants, that wouldn't be a problem.

 

[HushemFlupskluk]

I'm not positive about this design with a 400 wattbulb. 2 foot width would even be tight for a 250w bulb vertical.

Roll back to 250 watt and adjust the position of the plants a bit. b/c 4 foot highth is what you might need for 1 plant AND pot. Cut off the design the upper row of plants.

GL building!

 

[tuinman]

That's what I'm gathering from everyone, I'm going to drop it back to a stadium style like the second picture and see how it goes. I'll probably pop those in tonight.