I've been away from growing for a number of years. I started off learning with a few micro grows, lots of outdoor, and then just focused on helping friends build the rooms of their dreams.
My specialty is electronics, controls and automation.
However I happen to be at the point in life where I can use some extra income, and a friend came to me with an offer to take over his space if I wanted.
The space is a 40 foot seacan divided into 3 rooms, there is a center room 16ft in length, 8ft wide 8 ft high, and then two outer rooms are 12ft long x 8ft wide x 8ft high.
Each of the two outer rooms has 6 x 600watt HPS bulbs and fixtures in batwing reflectors. They are set up on a flip flop relay box with timers. This space was set up pretty professionally.
Each of the outer rooms has a massive vortex fan with carbon filter to clear the room from the top, pulling heat to the outside and trapping most of the smell (Not that were too worried)
With a fresh air intake.
Both rooms are also fitted with a few oscillating fans dehumidifiers and temp controllers to run the extractors.
Flower rooms also feature Green LED Worklights
I'll also be installing full spectrum emergency lighting on battery backup that will kick in to preserve photoperiod incase we have a short term power outage. In the case of a long term I have a 10KW diesel standby that will be put into motion.
The center space, previously was used as a work area for mixing nutes, controls etc.
Personally I fell that that massive space is wasted, as I can compress the controls and Water tanks, storage shelves etc to about a 4x8ft space leaving me 12 more feet of room to use as a clone / mama / veg room. Im thinking a couple of 600w MH and a few Fluoros or CFLs will be tons.
We are in a pretty mild climate, our winters seldom go below -10c and only for maybe a month.
One of my concerns is for the flowering rooms. as they are basically in an uninsulated steel box (though partially buried in the ground)
Im concerned that the room currently in the dark would get too cold.
So I'm considering putting two 8" vortex fans between the two rooms one blowing in each direction. and to have them activated on the same timer as the lights, so that when the lights are on in a room it is circulating its air to the room in the dark.
This should allow for an "evening" temperature drop of a few degrees, but to still keep the girls cozy.
My next question, whomever build this setup has the fresh air intakes 6" off the ground and nothing more than a 1/2"
steel mesh over them. Personally I'd be concerned about pests and spores etc making their way in via this.
Would it be worthwhile to run the intake air through a carbon filter as well, or something with a similar micron size but without the concern for smell obviously?
Next up is the question of what to grow and what methods to use?
My ideal is as short of a veg as possible without getting into a ridiculous number of plants to trim, train and maintain.
I'd like to have a about a 8-9 week harvest cycle.
Meaning I'd have to keep a sufficient number of mamas on hand to feed me the number of clones to fill those rooms every 8 weeks or so.
Looking for advice from folks running similar setups, any suggestions graciously accepted.
My specialty is electronics, controls and automation.
However I happen to be at the point in life where I can use some extra income, and a friend came to me with an offer to take over his space if I wanted.
The space is a 40 foot seacan divided into 3 rooms, there is a center room 16ft in length, 8ft wide 8 ft high, and then two outer rooms are 12ft long x 8ft wide x 8ft high.
Each of the two outer rooms has 6 x 600watt HPS bulbs and fixtures in batwing reflectors. They are set up on a flip flop relay box with timers. This space was set up pretty professionally.
Each of the outer rooms has a massive vortex fan with carbon filter to clear the room from the top, pulling heat to the outside and trapping most of the smell (Not that were too worried)
With a fresh air intake.
Both rooms are also fitted with a few oscillating fans dehumidifiers and temp controllers to run the extractors.
Flower rooms also feature Green LED Worklights
I'll also be installing full spectrum emergency lighting on battery backup that will kick in to preserve photoperiod incase we have a short term power outage. In the case of a long term I have a 10KW diesel standby that will be put into motion.
The center space, previously was used as a work area for mixing nutes, controls etc.
Personally I fell that that massive space is wasted, as I can compress the controls and Water tanks, storage shelves etc to about a 4x8ft space leaving me 12 more feet of room to use as a clone / mama / veg room. Im thinking a couple of 600w MH and a few Fluoros or CFLs will be tons.
We are in a pretty mild climate, our winters seldom go below -10c and only for maybe a month.
One of my concerns is for the flowering rooms. as they are basically in an uninsulated steel box (though partially buried in the ground)
Im concerned that the room currently in the dark would get too cold.
So I'm considering putting two 8" vortex fans between the two rooms one blowing in each direction. and to have them activated on the same timer as the lights, so that when the lights are on in a room it is circulating its air to the room in the dark.
This should allow for an "evening" temperature drop of a few degrees, but to still keep the girls cozy.
My next question, whomever build this setup has the fresh air intakes 6" off the ground and nothing more than a 1/2"
steel mesh over them. Personally I'd be concerned about pests and spores etc making their way in via this.
Would it be worthwhile to run the intake air through a carbon filter as well, or something with a similar micron size but without the concern for smell obviously?
Next up is the question of what to grow and what methods to use?
My ideal is as short of a veg as possible without getting into a ridiculous number of plants to trim, train and maintain.
I'd like to have a about a 8-9 week harvest cycle.
Meaning I'd have to keep a sufficient number of mamas on hand to feed me the number of clones to fill those rooms every 8 weeks or so.
Looking for advice from folks running similar setups, any suggestions graciously accepted.
