new vertical system - help with design

Hello

a bit about myself as this is one of my threads on ICMAG.

growing for about 12 years on and off, only in soil, tried most of the nutrients out there, but biobizz was the one that worked for me.
Had a vertical soil system back in 2009 with 2 x 400@ HPS. the design was based on Heath Robinson system which I cant find on the net anymore. it was 4 levels, each level had 9 3.6L pots with soil and BioBizz.
The pots themselves were at an angle of about 30 degrees toward inside, which gave me hard time with watering

anyway, Im back now

the new setup at the moment is 1.2mx1.2mx2m growing tent,600W magnetic HPS, with 9 x 11L pots. soil with BioBizz of course. no mother so I started some seeds yesterday (SS happiness, BF liberty haze, FMS C99).

after the first run my plan is to have 3 mothers, one from each.

now about the vertical system that I wanna build.
ist gonna be inside the tent, so space is limited.
what Im going to try this time is a complete new concept to me, hydro. never grow in hydro before.
the design is going to be based to what I remember from Heath Robinson and someone named Mr Smith from other forum.

This is Mr Smith vertical system


My design, the tent is 12mX1.2mX2x


And now the questions:
1) in this small tent, the distance from the bulb to plan stem is 50cm. which light should I use?
the options are:
i) 2 x 400W HPS with or without cooltubes
ii)1 x 600W HPS with cooltube

2) I am thinking of 5 levels, the first level is 60cm from the floor. each level is 25 cm above the other, the top level is 40cm from the roof.
i) is my spacing is enough?
ii) 2x400W HPS will give me a better covering compare to 1 x 600WHPS?

3) ventilation - room tmp is around 22-25c. which mean that heat is going to be an issue. but noise and electricity is also an issue (can leave the a\c on all the time, and cant have 2 big vents. right now I have s&p td silent 350/125mm which is very quite and with the 600W inside its about 29-31c at 100 cm height. Im going to order air cooled hood to help with getting the tmp a bit. not sure that I wat to add more ventilation (noise)
i) with 2 x 400W, inside cooltubes, tmp is going to be an issue?
ii) 2 x 400W without cooltubes, with fan lying on the floor facing up, can I manage the tmp problem?

4) hydro for the first time
i) water reservoir : 18 gallons is big enough? when the system will run around 8-12 gallons of water will be in the tubes and in the reservior around 5 gallons, so in case of pump failure all the water can drain safely to the reservoir)
ii) water pump : 400l/h? more? (its going to run 24/7)
iii) PVC tube diameter : 110mm (4.3 inch) VS 160mm (6.3 inch)
iv) pots size : 2 inch Vs 3 inch
v) nutrients : after reading "a bit", I think that i will go with GHE flora grow/micro/bloom. for booster my options are GHE ripen, advance nutrient big bud or B'cuzz bloombastic. any advice will help/

Honestly I would do coco drip to waste and not mess with the recirc hydro. Benefits are not worth the risk IMO (I grew hydro long time before switching to coco drip). Hydro is very easy to lose your crop in a day.

I would also do a lot fewer plants and rely on some trellis netting for support.

Try to exhaust from the ceiling if u can. Id definitely stack the lights. if those r ur lighting choices id do the 600w over the 400w. If u cant control temps then 400w stacked would work. Definitely without cool tubes. Just use the small honeywell 9" fan or equivalent under the stacked lights and the exhaust above them and u have ur invisible cool tube effect with no loss in lighting from the glass. U can get buds as close as 6 to 8" from a 600w this way. Id try to stay around 10" away though.

With ur spacing of rows id say ur going for more sog so go with the 4" pipe for a short veg time and less water.

My dams didn't hold well when the pump was off causing the water to overflow my original 14 gallon tote. So I just upgraded to a cheap 32 gallon trash can for a res to catch all the water. So whatever u use, just make sure it can handle all the system water.

I used the 1000gph pump with a t in the res with a valve aimed down back into the res. This way I could divert a little pressure and create another source of oxygenation. But really with a pump around 1000gph u get the water flow rate that heath tries to achieve. That pump, I def had to open the bypass valve a little to slow the flow down.

3" net cups.

Just use base nutes at 1.2ec around 5.8ph. Beat gpw my first time with this system with gh nutes.

I agree with Ganjourno regarding the difficulties with the recirculating hydro system. Not only is the system less forgiving, but the real issues are canopy control and accessibility. I have run a few recirculating designs and they are very tight inside and hard to work. You can run these in half systems that are still connected just able to be disconnected for maintenance.

Hydro is great though. I am a fan and you can build a stacked RDWC system with buckets if your on a budget. The tilted shelf theory is a myth. Not necessary at all so if you wanted to use pots you could do that as well. Plant them right at the edge of the pot so your main structure is against the trellis and completely exposed. The 3-5 gal RDWC systems using tomato cages seem to be the best home set ups I have seen here. I haven't seen anyone here stacking them, but its just building shelves and utilizing both the downward and horizontal recirculation. These can be built using semi circle shelving and being able to disconnect them so you can work inside. Whatever you do put everything on wheels so they can move with ease.

You seriously expect Libery Haze to produce buds smaller than 40cm?
This system might make sense for very short and stout Indicas, but such sativa?

C99 might do OK, and I would surely not mix the 2 in the same level as height differences will be huge.

I would use a reservoir of at least 150L just to regulate the pH and EC more easily and to maintain a more constant water temperature.
You will need a water chiller with these temperatures to avoid biofilm issues and other nasty stuff.

P.S. BioBizz BioBloom is bullshit for cannabis.

If i will go with hydro the height of the plant is neglected, try to think of walls of plants and the bulb in the middle, 40cm indica and 60 cm sativa will have the same distance from the bulb.

BioBizz is a good organic fertilizer for soil (works for me), and will not be used with hydeo system.

and regarding the seeds that I started, have to kill them as moved to a new place (again ). I got a cut from AK47 (serious seeds, 2008) and managed to veg it to a nice mum. right now have 9 clones from her. hopping to get 4 big mums in 30 days or so.

N3W said:

If i will go with hydro the height of the plant is neglected, try to think of walls of plants and the bulb in the middle, 40cm indica and 60 cm sativa will have the same distance from the bulb.

Click to expand...

Not exactly. Remember u are talking about being able to train vertically n keeping a distance away from the bulb. but u will have a row of plants above that u would be training into. u still have to account for canopy management by having equal space for each plant. bottom line is if u build this system like spec, then u have room for a 16" tall plant before it grows into the plant above it, n that's with the bottom 4" being pruned off, because its too far from the light source, and ur growing the row below it 4" into the next row.

4" tube, 8" gap between tubes. Plus bottom 4" pruned off, gives u 16" of plant height before u overcrowd the plant above it.

Will be interesting to see how it turns out