PPK vert 4 plant 5 light grow show and DIY, 3400w, CO2

[Desert Hydro]

a little unorthodox to have cooltubes in a vert grow but we gotta do what we gotta do. i dont have any bare bulb sockets to spare and we had these laying around and since heat is always an issue i opted to set these up for the other patient. its gonna be 2 600's with 10 plants around the perimeter trained through a screen towards the light. should do pretty good for the time being i think.

 

[otis33]

clean set up... it may be easier to have the screen attached to the walls and tie the plants back to the screen with pipe cleaners or something similar. fill the screen 1/2-3/4 depending on how much the strain will stretch. just my 2¢. in any case it looks like you have a handle on things, your rooms are clean, ttyl8r plants look good, keep killin it!

 

[K.O.Genetics]

just wondering.. if i go from air cooled hoods.. to barebulb vertical.. how much more exhaust power shouold i be looking for in a fan to cool the room?

 

[Mister_D]

just wondering.. if i go from air cooled hoods.. to barebulb vertical.. how much more exhaust power shouold i be looking for in a fan to cool the room?

Aim to exchange the entire volume of air in your room twice per min..

 

[Desert Hydro]

2x per min seems to be the standard as mister d said. i try and do at least that much.

otis, i think you are right about having the screen behind the plants. training through is a very tedious chore but the results are pretty awesome looking.

 

[Desert Hydro]

so i got my lighting controller in and im just waiting on my 240v cords. dont know why i didnt think of that before hand lol. oh well. ive got the wire run through the ceiling and out to where the controller is, i just need to fish it into the panel and hook up the fuse. that will get done tomorrow.

im gonna flip them tonight. and then when the cords come in tomorrow or the next day i will get all the lights fired up and really blast them with watts. they look happy and healthy and are getting HUGE in these ppk's. its rather impressive.

ive got a couple small mosca negra bubblegums im gonna toss in the corners as a test run to check and see if they are keepers or not.

 

[DabOnDabs]

so i got my lighting controller in and im just waiting on my 240v cords. dont know why i didnt think of that before hand lol. oh well. ive got the wire run through the ceiling and out to where the controller is, i just need to fish it into the panel and hook up the fuse. that will get done tomorrow.

im gonna flip them tonight. and then when the cords come in tomorrow or the next day i will get all the lights fired up and really blast them with watts. they look happy and healthy and are getting HUGE in these ppk's. its rather impressive.

ive got a couple small mosca negra bubblegums im gonna toss in the corners as a test run to check and see if they are keepers or not.

Looks good man.. cant wait to see them explode with some proper wattage and the flip! Watchin this closely, put up some big numbers!!! 8-9 Lbs or bust!!

 

[Desert Hydro]

so im all set up but the temps in there are out of control! ive got 3 6 inch fans and one 8 inch fan all on full blast and they are still way high. i turned all the 600's down to 50% power for tonight until i figure something out. the room temps are set for 76 and its still about 88 in the tent. im thinking i may have the fans under the lights on too high. i remember it being said that you want a slow upward draft so as to not blow the hot air all over the tent. im gonna lower all the muffin fans to slow speed and then order some more exhaust power i guess. shit balls

 

[Grow4Flow]

having the bulbs fans on high will do it, best to keep the fans on the lowest speeds as you want to create a wind barrier around the bulb rather than rushing the wind up and bouncing all over the place before the exhaust can extract it. Speaking of extraction, are you extracting from the ceiling?

i tried having my exhaust/filter combo sitting on the floor and it was difficult to control temps; i went with a mini split now. anyways, since heat rises, you wanna pull from the ceiling (but you already knew that). Once i figured out that turning the fans down would create that barrier around the bulb, my plants would almost lean against the bulb and the upward air would keep the plants from touching it.

I have seen them get within 2 inches of the bulb without even bleaching the leaves. Here are the fans that i use...
http://www.walmart.com/ip/10980207?...34584870&wl4=&wl5=pla&wl6=39991138630&veh=sem

Maybe the airpots are also restricting some air flow? Also, do you typically leave the tent open to try and keep things cool? by having it open, you might be losing some of the vacuum effect to exhaust the heat, just a thought.

 

[Desert Hydro]

having the bulbs fans on high will do it, best to keep the fans on the lowest speeds as you want to create a wind barrier around the bulb rather than rushing the wind up and bouncing all over the place before the exhaust can extract it. Speaking of extraction, are you extracting from the ceiling?

i tried having my exhaust/filter combo sitting on the floor and it was difficult to control temps; i went with a mini split now. anyways, since heat rises, you wanna pull from the ceiling (but you already knew that). Once i figured out that turning the fans down would create that barrier around the bulb, my plants would almost lean against the bulb and the upward air would keep the plants from touching it.

I have seen them get within 2 inches of the bulb without even bleaching the leaves. Here are the fans that i use...
http://www.walmart.com/ip/10980207?...34584870&wl4=&wl5=pla&wl6=39991138630&veh=sem

Maybe the airpots are also restricting some air flow? Also, do you typically leave the tent open to try and keep things cool? by having it open, you might be losing some of the vacuum effect to exhaust the heat, just a thought.

i turned all the fans to low. the air pots are ok and i still get good flow through them. maybe even too much. all of my vent fans are just sitting on top of the tent and pull directly from the ceiling. i will need to figure out a way to scrub the air soon. i may have to push the air through my 8" filter which i know isnt advisable and kills the filter faster but you gotta do what you gotta do. i think i will put my giant filter in a 2x4 tent and then put an ozone genny in there as well and the air will get forced out the top into the attic and then out.

i keep the tent sealed at all times because i noticed the temps are lower. ive got a can fan max coming in soon. its an 8" 1000 cfm. im thinking if i have a small fan pumping air into the bottom of the tent it will help as well. i also ghetto rigged a trash bag over the AC air duct and then cut two holes in the bottom and squeezed in some 6" air ducts and pump ac directly into the tents whenever the AC kicks on.

 

[Desert Hydro]

here's the other tent with the two 600's and cool tubes. 7 AK and 3 C99 and they are filling in proper. im gonna move them in closer today

 

[Desert Hydro]

so my can fan max 10" came in really fast which is awesome. that thing is powerful and loud! im gonna build a box to insulate it and keep the noise down as much as possible. i dont see how my temps could be a whole lot over ambient with this thing in there with all my other fans.

as stated before im gonna try and send all the exhaust into a 2x4 tent which will house my filters as well as my ozone generator and all that air wil be forced up into the attic and out any passive vents on the roof and sides.

another thing i noticed is that at night time when it cools off the attic area is much colder than the room itself. i may find a way to pull cool air into the room with a temperature controlled outlet to save some energy from running the AC.

my new generator hose will be here any day now and then the temps in the low 80's will not be such a bother.

 

[Desert Hydro]

with my max fan replacing one of the smaller 6" fans in the corner ive now got the lights all up to full power and only about 2 degrees over ambient room temp. im happy. when my co2 hose gets here i will be all set to churn out some monsters.

 

[Desert Hydro]

pics from right now.

i had a bit of a timer malfunction and my pump stayed on too long and flooded the ppk's a little bit. i think i bumped the control knobs while moving stuff around. got it all sorted out finally but in my frantic moment i went ahead and ordered a sentinel digital timer to avoid future errors. money well spent for peace of mind. i believe it has two outlets so i can build my veg ppk and have it all on the same timer nice and easy.

 

[Grow4Flow]

Looking good Desert, how hold are the girls in PPK now?

 

[Desert Hydro]

they are on about day 10 of 12/12. i will have to look up how long they have been in the ppk's. the best growth rate happened with the ppk's when i switched to vertical bare bulb in stead of a reflector over the 4


EDIT: they went in the ppk's on 8/27. the first few weeks of veg were done with the horizontal 600w. if i would have done bare bulb 1k from the get go i would be 2 weeks ahead of where im at right now for sure. they exploded so damn fast under the 1k's. i used to think 600's were the shit because of their efficiency until i tried out some 1k's. now im hooked. 600's have their place but they are nowhere near the workhorse status of a grow fine tuned for a 1000w

 

[otis33]

I agree, if you are able to keep the temps in line,1ks are better all around... bigger spread, deeper penetration and more intense light= more, bigger bus in the end. you are going to love the sentinel drt1 it easy to program and you don't have to worry about bumping those touchy knobs on the artdne.

 

[Desert Hydro]

I agree, if you are able to keep the temps in line,1ks are better all around... bigger spread, deeper penetration and more intense light= more, bigger bus in the end. you are going to love the sentinel drt1 it easy to program and you don't have to worry about bumping those touchy knobs on the artdne.

thanks for the reassurance. i was really feeling a bit dumb for spending 150 on a damn timer and one day shipping lol. hopefully it will be the last one i ever need to buy

 

[Grow4Flow]

they are on about day 10 of 12/12. i will have to look up how long they have been in the ppk's. the best growth rate happened with the ppk's when i switched to vertical bare bulb in stead of a reflector over the 4


EDIT: they went in the ppk's on 8/27. the first few weeks of veg were done with the horizontal 600w. if i would have done bare bulb 1k from the get go i would be 2 weeks ahead of where im at right now for sure. they exploded so damn fast under the 1k's. i used to think 600's were the shit because of their efficiency until i tried out some 1k's. now im hooked. 600's have their place but they are nowhere near the workhorse status of a grow fine tuned for a 1000w

Nice! mine are about the same age in the Flock and are doing really good under the 1k's too but i'm doing over head this round, just over 4.5' wide. I haven't heard of the DRT til now, but i have had my MDT-1 a few years now and love it. Sentinal does it right.

Looking forward to seeing your end product.

 

[Desert Hydro]

yours look good too. i loved doing the flock grows but the prep is kinda crappy. other than that it was all smooth sailing. i did notice im my reused stuff it seems to be more picky about ph and whatnot. i have been getting some burn this round where as the last i didnt even touch my ph the entire time for the most part.

my ppk doesnt even give a shit about ph or ppm. i stopped checking lol. i am gonna do a full change out when its time to tone down the N and thats it. that wont be for another few weeks though. its been on the same res since its inception ive only topped off daily. sometimes i use fresh water but most the time i top off with full strength nutes.

this is my first bigger grow for me so its still very much a learning experience. my timer came in right now and im gonna get it all figured out, then im just waiting on my co2 generator hose and im all set. i'll be able to deal with slightly higher temps and wont have to run my ac except for the fan part of it which as an external intake bringing in cool air at night.