Design for 11x11 & 13.5 x 12 flower rooms (help a newb out)

Hey there. I've got 2 new flower rooms to design and I'm pretty new to this whole thing. I'm looking for some advice from you seasoned pros -- any advice/info you could impart would be much appreciated!

Here's what I'm thinking so far:

11x11

--6 lights in checkerboard pattern alternating 630w CMH + 1000w HPS

--24 plants (4 plants per light) in 3g Coco/Perlite pots on the floor set up across 10x10 or 9x9 area

13.5 x 12

-- 9 lights in checkerboard pattern alternating 630w CMH + 1000w HPS

-- 36 plants (4 plants per light) in 3g Coco pots on the floor set up across 12x12 area

A couple questions I have:

1) Are we overkilling it on the lighting? Our ceilings are 9 feet high and I want to get as much light in there as possible.

2) Are we going to be much better off with 4x8 trays vs. running these girls on the floor? If we run on the floor, do we need a longer veg time?

3) What kind of A/C do we need to run? We're in Los Angeles and it gets hot (100+) during summer where we live. We're currently thinking 24,000 btu for the smaller room (3x 630w CMH + 3x 1000w HPS) and 2x separate 24000 btu units on opposite sides of the room for the larger room with 9 lights (5x 630w CMH + 4x 1000w HPS).

4) For CO2, we should be good with 20 lb tanks right? Any suggestions on best controller for managing CO2 in this kind of set up?

5) For reservoirs, our friend suggested that we get 55 gallon drums and put a pump in each one that we can connect our handwatering hose to. If that's the case, is 1x 55g drum per room sufficient?

6) Since we're planning on running a CO2/AC room, we've heard different suggestions on the best way to ventilate/deodorize. We're not really sure which way to go with this right now. Should we be running a standalone carbon filter that stays in the room? From what I understand we don't want to be exhausting any air in this kind of sealed set-up so I'm a bit confused on this part.

Thanks so much for any help you guys can provide it's truly appreciated!

1) the lighting is okay, most folks normally allot a 4x4 area per 1000. having the plants all clumped together in a 12x12 or 9x9 area is going to make hand watering/plant maintenance/ trellising an absolute nightmare. it makes sense to have all the lights together because of the overlapping light pattern but in practice with 4 plants per light its probably going to be a hassle.

unless you can come up with some sort of rolling tray that has the trellising attached to it.

2) trays are nice for catching runoff, if you need to protect the floors this can be nice. veg time shouldnt differ much between trays or no trays.

3) is this a residential space or commercial? whats the insulation like? upstairs or downstairs? figure about 4500-5000 btu per 1000w

4) tanks with a controller, ive got a base model titan that works fine. its not adjustable though comes preset at 1500ppm.

5)sump pump and wand work well for hand watering.

6) yes a carbon filter as a scrubber, not ducted anywhere just recycling the rooms air.

This is quite a load to run on a residential panel, do you know how many amps you have to play with? do you plan on running flip flop?

hope this helps

Speed of green said:

1) the lighting is okay, most folks normally allot a 4x4 area per 1000. having the plants all clumped together in a 12x12 or 9x9 area is going to make hand watering/plant maintenance/ trellising an absolute nightmare. it makes sense to have all the lights together because of the overlapping light pattern but in practice with 4 plants per light its probably going to be a hassle.

unless you can come up with some sort of rolling tray that has the trellising attached to it.

2) trays are nice for catching runoff, if you need to protect the floors this can be nice. veg time shouldnt differ much between trays or no trays.

3) is this a residential space or commercial? whats the insulation like? upstairs or downstairs? figure about 4500-5000 btu per 1000w

4) tanks with a controller, ive got a base model titan that works fine. its not adjustable though comes preset at 1500ppm.

5)sump pump and wand work well for hand watering.

6) yes a carbon filter as a scrubber, not ducted anywhere just recycling the rooms air.

This is quite a load to run on a residential panel, do you know how many amps you have to play with? do you plan on running flip flop?

hope this helps

Click to expand...

Thank you so much for your response!

1) That being said, would you go lower plant #s e.g. 2 plants per light? Have been looking into the "coco tree's" method and seems like that could be a viable option -- only issues that we're planning on handwatering and not autofeeding 6x per day.

3) This is a residential space. Rooms are downstairs. Insulation is okay but not great. My knowledge of insulation isn't very strong so I'm not sure how else to describe it. There is an attic that we're considering adding a bunch of insulation into before summer temps hit us.

4) Does your controller require a regulator as well? So for each room we'd need a regulator, tank, and controller?

6) Any clue as to what size carbon filter we'd want to run? I've heard Mountain Air have good products in that department...

7) Regarding the load, the panel has 200 amps and we're going to run a subpanel.

1) id keep the 4 plant per light as long as you can figure out a way to gain access to the center of your 12x12 & 9x9 clumps. you will have shorter veg times the more plants you have.

3)downstairs is good, better than upstairs.

4)yes thats correct.

6) find the cubic footage of the room LxHxW=cubic feet Fans and filters are rated in cfm or cubic feet per minute. you want to aim for one air exchange per minute. so 1000cuft room needs a 1000cfm fan & filter. Mountain air is good, ive had one last over two years on a 8k flower room

7) from just the lights and a/c you are pulling 174amps minimum. add in all the other accessories plus the general use in a house and you will be pushing it. id run the smaller flower room in the daytime 7am-7pm and the big room 7pm-7am or whatever 12/12 schedule you prefer. this will free up some amps during the day and keep you from tripping the main. your power bill is going to be $2k+ easy.