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closet grow 3x 600hps vertical scrog

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p0opstlnksal0t

Active member
Ok im designing a closet grow and im wanting to run 3x 600w hps in a vertical setup. i plan to run 3 levels high and 5 plants per level. I guess my biggest question is what is the best most effecient way to cool this much heat in such a small area? Closet dimensions are 3'9"x4'7" and 8' ceiling. so 137.5 cubic feet of space. i think cool tubes with a gnarly fan (500-600cfm) in the attic sucking air through a DIY Intake header at the footer of the closet door (pulling 75f cooler air from the room) should keep things in check!? Or am i living in fantasy land here? if not i will need to incorpprate an a/c unit somehow to cool off the small enclosure.
 
foaf

foaf

Well-known member
Veteran
look at mine in my current album and old threads. Ive got 3000 watts in a similiar space. The adjacent room that the closet gets its air from is air conditioned, but not the closet itself. It works out fine with 1000 watts of my light being in an aircooled hood, and the other watts not. Im so happy with my 3x4xtall space setup and the yeilds Ive gotten, but its kinda a crazy setup. I have two can carbon filters at the top, one is for the aircooled light, the other is just exhaust. they are usually not running full speed, I have one of those grozone controllers that adjusts the fanspeed to keep a set temp and always leaves some idle speed for co2 and humidity control.

my temps can get into the lower 90's sometimes in veg, but not during flower since I run the lights at night when its cooler outside.
 
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p0opstlnksal0t

Active member
Thats great bro, way more wattage than even i can imagine in such a small space. how hard is it to keep c02 levels up when you are constantly replacing air to keep the area cool? I really want to keep the temps to around 80-82f inside the closet. and id like to be able to get c02 in there as well. but i can imagine being able to do this if im replacing air fast to keep temps down. If i only need the air coming in from the intake under the door through the grow light (remembering its a closed run directly through the cooltubes into the attic) the air inside the actual closet will be sealed up inside the room. this way i could run c02 very easily. and just have a homemade scrubber and blower recirculating the air within the closet to elimanate odor.

I plan to get a large wardrobe to keep clones in and veg inside a aerocloner for 2 weeks or so under CFL lighting, then move into the closet to veg for another 2 weeks then flip on the 12/12.

I guess the million dollar question is, will the room temps be ok with this setup? if the air inside the closet stays sealed up, and i run a straight loop from the intake below the door up through 3x 600's and exhaust directly into the attic... I guess my only test is to hook it all up and test it out right!?

*** well i think i may be able to fit 21 plants ok in the closet... if i can see 2lb every 2mos from this setup i will be golden.

foaf said:
look at mine in my current album and old threads. Ive got 3000 watts in a similiar space. The adjacent room that the closet gets its air from is air conditioned, but not the closet itself. It works out fine with 1000 watts of my light being in an aircooled hood, and the other watts not. Im so happy with my 3x4xtall space setup and the yeilds Ive gotten, but its kinda a crazy setup. I have two can carbon filters at the top, one is for the aircooled light, the other is just exhaust. they are usually not running full speed, I have one of those grozone controllers that adjusts the fanspeed to keep a set temp and always leaves some idle speed for co2 and humidity control.

my temps can get into the lower 90's sometimes in veg, but not during flower since I run the lights at night when its cooler outside.
Click to expand...
gl
 
foaf

foaf

Well-known member
Veteran
I have skipped co2 for this grow since Im doing the ventilation different, I couldnt use it successfully now. my older setup in my sig had just what you described. cool tubes with the air for the cooling coming in from an adjacent room and going outside. I had co2 supplimentation and the temps ran in the low 90's, but thats really what you want for maximum growth rate with co2 supplimentation, but you need your res cooler than that, sooo... a chiller becomes a very helpful addition. co2 is great, but to make it work in there will probably add more complications than the moderate growth rate increase is worth. 2 lbs every 2 months? dont you need a seperate veg room to keep that optimistic rate up? and do you have space on the side for all your stuff? for example, my res/rofilter/chiller/ballast is all outside of my grow space. If you put all that in your closet, you are going to have a complicated mess to deal with. A recirtulating res that is in the air conditioned adjacent room would be key I think.
 
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p0opstlnksal0t

Active member
I think i should get setup and get a couple harvests under my belt before i try to introduce c02. I plan to veg in a large stealthed wardrobe in the room attached to the closet. i actually think i will veg directly from the aerocloner (inside wardrobe) then transplant into the flower room right after the harvest. i will flower for 8 weeks. it may be a little longer if i decide to veg a week in the closet. i had planned to run a low profile sump in the bottom of the room. but i can see how this would heat up the water to above optimal temps. keeping the res outside the closet is doable as well. i plan on a scrubber, ballasts and cooltube fan to be housed in the attick. even though the air coming from the cooltubes is not contamed, whenever i open the closet door the seal for the makeshift intake below will be broken and the cool tube blower will be sucking up stinky air at that point. I do want to house a scrubber inside the room which will give constatly be circulating and scrubbing the air within the room. basically id really want to see 2lbs every harvest which will be every 8-10 weeks. heres some pics of a basic layout:
++

foaf said:
I have skipped co2 for this grow since Im doing the ventilation different, I couldnt use it successfully now. my older setup in my sig had just what you described. cool tubes with the air for the cooling coming in from an adjacent room and going outside. I had co2 supplimentation and the temps ran in the low 90's, but thats really what you want for maximum growth rate with co2 supplimentation, but you need your res cooler than that, sooo... a chiller becomes a very helpful addition. co2 is great, but to make it work in there will probably add more complications than the moderate growth rate increase is worth. 2 lbs every 2 months? dont you need a seperate veg room to keep that optimistic rate up? and do you have space on the side for all your stuff? for example, my res/rofilter/chiller/ballast is all outside of my grow space. If you put all that in your closet, you are going to have a complicated mess to deal with. A recirtulating res that is in the air conditioned adjacent room would be key I think.
Click to expand...
 
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p0opstlnksal0t

Active member
ok here is the design for a gravity draining, recirculating-Flood system. i will use standard ebb n flow 2.5gallon buckets and mod to my suit. in the pics you can see how it works i guess.... the blue piping is 1/2" flexible tubing and compression fittings. it is the fill line that will fill a bucket at each level. the red lines are the gravity draining lines and equalizing line. the large one at the top of the buckets is 1" flexible tuing and barbed fittings that overflow into a common 2" vertical header. the smaller red line is 1/4" flexible tubing drain line so after the 15 minute flood/recirc is over this will empty the buckets and drain back into the 2" header as well. i will need to find an external pump that will feed all the buckets fast enough to overcome the 1/4" constant drain line but not fast enough to overfill the buckets and overcome the 1" gravity drain at the top of the bucket. i may even up this 1" to 1.5"-2" depending on the maximum flow rate im gonna be able to accomplish on this 1" "equalizing" line....

The reservoir is gonna be 2 basketball goal bases that will be connected to each other to create 1 large flat reservoir in a sense. each one is roughly 27 gallons so that give me about 54gallons total. which will be plenty to feed 21x 2.5 gallon ebb n flow buckets. at each 1" equalizing connection near the top of each bucket i will use a low profile fish tank filter that are used on the intake of powerheads to keep chunks n shit from clogging this line up.
 
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greenthumb2

Member
beautiful poop! i like it but i think you can do without the thick red tubing. you might be able to find a pump that will pump just enough water through the system without over flowing the buckets. If i were you i would first see if you can get away with the standard drain holes already cut in the buckets, if not install your "overflow" tubes
 
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p0opstlnksal0t

Active member
im actually thinking i will need a header for the feed line coming into each tier. in the pic i have it drawn up as 1 1/2" header reducing down to 1/2" into the buckets. but i think i will actually build it as a 1" header and reduce down to 1/4" feeding into the buckets that way each tier will have an equal flow of water at each elevation without having to empty my pockets on a high flow/high pressure pump to feed a massive header.

on this note i will probably change my 1/4" bucket empty drain line to 1/8" silicone tubing that can be found at aquarium shops pretty readily.
 
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p0opstlnksal0t

Active member
thanks bro, guess the biggest issue right now is the buckets themselves.... gonna take some searching to find a 3gal or so bucket that fits the 2.5 ebb flood bucket inside it, and give enough clearance around the upper edge of the bucket for a compression fitting or bulkhead fitting for the main drain/equalizing line... may need to start hitting up lawn lowes and gardening centers tonight.
 
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p0opstlnksal0t

Active member
after much deliberation and contemplation on my design i think i have decided to go the flood table route vs buckets. i plan on actually adding 1 more plant to each tier in the back to give me a total of 24 plant site for this grow. i will be using some cheap storage bins/containers as my flood tables and each table will have 2 pots in each i will make some cad visual graphics later with proper scale tomorrow at work, but for now my paintbrush masterpiece will have to hold you over...
 
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Nokturnl420

New member
^ That is great! You should print it, sign a bunch of copies and mail them out to us ICers for the day when you get famous!! I see a bit of Van Gough in there i think!!
 
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p0opstlnksal0t

Active member
Nokturnl420 said:
^ That is great! You should print it, sign a bunch of copies and mail them out to us ICers for the day when you get famous!! I see a bit of Van Gough in there i think!!
Click to expand...

ha, thanks my man... i put my heart and soul into that drawing! anyways, heres some cad drawings of the new design.... the red line is the feed line from the external pump. the yellow line is connects all the flood bins together. and the blue line is the drain line. as you can see the placement of the yellow line and blue line will regulate the height of all the bins that are tied together on each level. there is also a 3/8" drain line at the bottom of drain side bin to drain all the bins completely after the pump shuts down. i will be using a pretty high flow pump so it will over come the 3/8" drain pretty easily and the drain at the top of the drain bins will be 2" even though i have reducing tees shown in the model. the yellow tie in line is 1".
 
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theweedman.fr

Member
What about the weight of water and plants on these shelves ? will that be a concern ?

I am doing drippers in rockwool cubes on top of rockwool slabs sitting in gulleys atm.
First time doing this style of grow and growth is good and easy to do, have you considered this as you could then just have all the gullys on a slight angle piped into the downflow pipe.
 
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p0opstlnksal0t

Active member
not worried about the weight. will be using 2x4 construction on the shelves anchored to the studs very securely. you got pics of your grow? im open to ideas, and thought about a drip system. i want a system with the fastest turnaround and growth besides rdwc as this is too advanced to build right now for a coliseum.. this is my first grow. i like the simple build and mechanics behind the flood n drain. drip system is simple too, i just dont know too much about it. i have friends with flood & drain so i have their expertise in building the system. i plan to constantly be circulating new plants every 9 weeks. clones will be rooting in a wardrobe cab outside the closet. they will go into the flower room and veg for a week then flipped onto 12/12 for remaining 8 weeks. 4 weeks into the flower i will cut clones off mother and start rooting the next batch. they get 4 weeks to root and veg then they go into the the closet after i chop and clean out the previous batch.
 
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p0opstlnksal0t

Active member
my main concerns with drip are as follows: require a lot of attention. MUST clean drippers frequently- a couple of times per week- or nutrient salts WILL build up n clog drippers

Because they have no small tubes or tiny drip apertures, flood systems don't clog and can be cleaned and sterilised completely in 10 minutes. just can't ge past the simplicity and reliability of a flood system.
 
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greenthumb2

Member
I say you just use " bins" or troufts like you drew up but throw out the buckets. Just put the plants directly into the trays or trofts.

hell you can probably find some plastic planters trofts at home depot for cheap and plum them together. It would be a good size for your application. It would hold just the right amount of roots space and water for your size plants.
 
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p0opstlnksal0t

Active member
ya still tossing around ideas until i actually go out and buy this shit i need. for now im pretty set on the 2 gallon buckets i can get cheap online unless i find some cheaper baby trash cans or something at a dollar store. still gotta be thick enough to block out light, that has been the hard part in the search for buckets. found some cheap 3 gallon plastic pales at walmart, but they were too thin and light bled right through them.
 
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