Welcome to the Matrix...2000W 8'x8'...Smith is back!

[Agent-Smith]

Thanks Anti! That picture looks awesome! I love it!

I wish there was a way to show you guys how crazy bright this room is with the ORCA film in there. It literally glows!

 

[stussy22]

Looks like you are crossing things off the to do list pretty quick. Looking good I bet that room is bright. I wear welding goggles into mine

Anti that picture is bitchin. Love it.

stu

 

[Agent-Smith]

Thanks stussy

Slight change of plans with the ventilation. Gonna use a portable A/C for now since the fans I need to use are extremely loud. I'll get a picture once I get it in there and set up tonight.

 

[Maddhatter]

oh man im totally in on this!!! im currently building 2 rooms myself and watching progressing on others keeps the motivation up

 

[VerdantGreen]

looking good - im watching...

VG

 

[Agent-Smith]

Thanks Madhatter and VerdantGreen, welcome to the show

So tonight I got even more done. Turns out the fans were way too loud so an a/c unit was installed. 12,000BTU Dual-hose unit kept it at a very comfortable 75 degrees no problem with the Gavitas running full blast at 2300 watts!

I got the layout of the buckets pretty much set. They're gonna look exactly like the picture except for the one in the far right corner is going to go into the empty middle spot to make room to walk around the A/C that was put in that corner.

Got the water hooked up yesterday and I installed the feed directly into a float valve that's been plumbed into the reservoir. The reservoir filled up yesterday, so today I installed a 633GPH pump with the airhose fitting on the outlet side in the bottom of the reservoir so my reservoir would get aerated and circulated all with one pump. As you can see in the pic, it's swirling like a hot tub in there!

I put the nutes in tonight for their first week of veg. The feed schedule is measured out for 55 gallons of RO water. I ran all of the nutrients at about half strength to start except for the Zyme caps which are a full strength dose.

SensiGrow A & B = 400mL each
Aussie Tonic = 100mL
Root Builder = 500mL
Zyme Caps = 5 caps
Rhino Skin = 200mL
Pro-Cal = 250mL

The Zyme Caps are the little white things you see in the water, they hadn't dissolved yet when I took the picture.

And here's the babies just waiting to go in! Tomorrow is going to be their first day under the Holland sun

See yall on the flip side!

 

[benjuanman]

Looking nice and clean bro! definately tagged for this. Also how long is the light rail?

 

[stussy22]

One thing you might want to look into with that portable AC unit. The HOT "condenser air" that is being blown out of those tubes uses air from inside your room. Make sure that it is not a problem if it gets to stinky later on. Since it is pull air out of your room your room it is now going to be in negative pressure. So air is going to need to come in from some where. Just a heads up making sure you have all the bases covered.

stu

 

[Agent-Smith]

Welcome in benjuanman The lightrail is 94" long but I'm not using all of it. Depending how the early growth looks I might lessen the distance the lights travel because the spread on these Gavitas are unbelievable.

Thanks for the tip stussy but that's one I already knew I'm going to be installing a Biozone ionizer for the room and if I still have smell, one in the attic. Thanks for trying to help...I always loved that about the people on these forums. Their always trying to help out

 

[Agent-Smith]

Finally, the plants are in!

It took me working overnight but I got them in and growing finally. They are being fed at a ph of 5.8-5.9 and about 850ppms.
The root growth has been very explosive since I gave them a shot of this new nutrient mix yesterday, I can't wait to see how well they lay 'em down over the next week

Here's a pic of the Hanna meter I'm using. I've used this model for years, it's very reliable and very accurate.

Here's a little progression of the system as it was put together

Here's a shot of the controller bucket plumbed and a shot of the entire wall with the reservoir, chiller, and controller bucket.

Here's one of the girls up close

And a view of the Holland sun from the plant's perspective

 

[Budweiser13]

Looks perfect nice setup love the buckets I will be lurking...

 

[stussy22]

Just looking out for you as I know you would for me.

WOW ! Love the craftsmanship on that setup. I can tell you have been putting in some work my friend. Can't wait to see what it looks like in there later on.

stu

 

[MPL]

Very nice. I am super interested in the Gavita/Philips system so I'm looking forward to this.

 

[Wise]

There's nothing quite like seeing a well thought out plan come to life. Good job and please keep us updated!

 

[il19z8rn4li1]

Wowza :-D

Very nice setup my friend.

you should do a walk thru of the system.

What kinda system is this exactly?

I only see one line coming from the buckets.. the large black one.

 

[Agent-Smith]

Hey there Budweiser13, Wise, and MPL, thanks for the props and welcome to the show

stussy, any time my friend

il19z8rn4li1, I thought I was doing an OK job of explaining but I'll break it down a little more technically for you if you like. Feel free to ask questions about anything you don't understand and I'd be happy to explain it to you.
As far as what kind of system this is, it's called a Flo-N-Gro and it's made by Titan Controls. It is an Ebb and Flow bucket system. Go to their site, it'll tell you way more than I would like to type at the moment and they even have a video showing the set-up.
http://www.titancontrols.net/products/grow-systems/flo-n-gro-system.aspx

So here's a little update for today.
I'm working on getting the room dialed in but it's taking a little work in this dry weather. I've got the room running steady around 78° right now but the humidity is giving me trouble right now. I bought a pretty decent humidifier and it's struggling to keep the room around 40% right now and I'd hate to have to buy another to get it up higher right now so I'm going to run it like this for now and see how it goes for the next week. I've also been dialing the feed timer in. Because I have such low humidity here I had it feeding every two hours because I was unsure of how fast the hydroton would dry out. I went to every 4 hours, and now I'm at every 6 hours, and I may cut it down even more over the next day or two depending on the dryness of the medium and how well the roots start laying down.

Also, I finally broke down and ordered some real growroom glasses. My eyes are bad enough as it is, I might as well try to save them while I got them right? I bought a pair of these growgles, they're really nice, I tried them out at the trade show in June and have wanted a pair ever since. Here's a picture and a brief description for those who don't know about them.

Growgles offers glasses specifically designed to remove sodium glare (red/orange) and protect the eye from UV and IR emitted by HPS lighting allowing the grower to see their plants again for the first time. Lenses made from amethyst crystal.

Blue/Green Growgles: for garden maintenence and observation, not to be used to look directly at HID bulbs.

Dark Green Growgles: for garden and equipment maintenence, can be used to look directly at HID bulbs. More pure, denser crystal.

Growgles are available in two different frames; the larger "Heavy" frames are designed to protect the eye from the front and sides and can fit over the grower's eye glasses or are worn comfortably by themselves.

The "Q's" are a more economical frame designed to protect the eye from the front and include removable side shields to protect the eye from the side.

So on to the pics. My cell phone absolutely wasn't cutting it for pics, especially when it came to trying to show the brightness of the room, so I broke out my trusty digital camera
Here's an overview of the room. You can see just how much better the digi cam is.

This one was taken below the level of the lights so it really shows off the brightness a lot more.

As I was saying earlier, I am trying to get the room dialed in and I'm working with a new strain so there's going to be a learning curve for a week or so till I get it figured out. Plants will tell you everything you need to know about what they want, what they need, and what they are experiencing if you just learn to read them. Almost nobody talks about deficiencies in their threads but I see them all the time going unchecked and unfixed and I don't mind talking about mine. The more info that people read and know the better growers they will become so I'd like to help that in any way I can.
So I'm going to show you a few up close shots and tell you what I see when I look at them, and maybe it will help someone identify problems in their grow some day.

These plants are being over-watered at the moment because I'd rather over water than under water in the beginning and after another day or two, that problem will have been solved. A classic sign of this is the leaves being more droopy and sagging than pointing up and out.
I also see an issue with the low humidity. A classic sign of this is down-curling leaf tips and dry krinkly leaves.
Another problem is wind damage. I have alot of air circulation in that room but too much of a good thing can be detrimental. Instead of running all four oscillating fans, I have only one running right now and I alternate between the different sides of the room to get even coverage and to make sure they are staying strong. A classic sign of this is krinkly abnormal growth that is sometimes mistaken as heat stress or nutrient deficiencies. You can see this especially on the plants older growth.
Last thing is Nutrient burn. I gave them a dose of 850ppm feed while they were still under t-5s and about two days before I got them under the Gavitas because I thought I was going to finish construction and have them transplanted way sooner than I did so they kinda got burned a bit for my bad timing issues. Classic signs of this are burnt leaf tips and weird leaf formations with light green or yellow marks around them.
Anyways, on to the pics:

That's it for now, I'll update again soon, and thanks again for looking everybody!

 

[rasputin]

Lookin good Smith. All these e&f threads coming up around the time I'm sitting around thinking about a hydro set-up, like e&f.... Fancy growgoggles ya got there. I use some old shades and have some welder's goggles for when I did a vert run. A worthwhile accessory in the garden.

 

[il19z8rn4li1]

hum.... OK thats kind of what I thought it was going to be.. but just wanted to ask to make sure..

That 55gallon drum has enough water in it to flood all those buckets you got?
From the size of those neat pots.. and from how high that FILL valve is placed in the
control bucket.. looks like there will be about 4 gallons filled into each bucket.

You got a lot of buckets... on 1x 55gal drum.

Def interesting setup and style :-D

Ill be sure to lurk around hehe

 

[Agent-Smith]

Thanks HP13exclusive and Rasputin

il19z8rn4li1, The 55 gallon drum is enough for 24 buckets but just enough. The setup comes with 12 buckets but is expandable up to 24 so I'm running it at maximum capacity. The buckets themselves are 4 gallon buckets but there is a small reservoir left in each bucket of 1/4 - 1/2 gallon after the drain cycle is complete, the buckets aren't filled to the very top, and the buckets only fill a couple of gallons each when they fill because of that so it does come close, but it works no problem

 

[budelight]

Heres to a great grow for you AS!



-Budelight