Designing 10kw grow, help needed, map included :)

[MID TOWN]

If I were you I'd either build your own ebb n flow bucket system with 5gallon buckets like BUDBUNKER or a BLAZEONEUP style recirc DWC. The only draw back with ebb n flow buckets is that you might end up spending thousands of dollars on medium.

Don't invest all your space in BIO BUCKETS before you know they work, I had 2 faild runs with them and I feel the system has a few flaws. As far as plant #'s go, if you go with 5 gallon buckets I'd put 30-35 plants max in a 13x10. and as long as you air cool your lights you should be fine with your AC.

good luck

 

[Ray of Light]

Thanks fuzygrowth for pointig this things out! Very informative!

MID TOWN: Thank you for your imput. But less plants in the same space means more veg. Ulimatley I could have one giant plant a veg for half a year , than flower.... less plants means more veg. Other problems are providing enough plants + making a system that takes care for every plant.

EDIT:
13 gallons of hydroton RHP certified costs about 12$. Not that expencive.

 

[Guest]

FWIW, I have been doing Ebb and grow for a while now. IMHO its the best, I use 5 gal with a 3 gal inside. I started out using Silica rocks. 40 bucks a bag, very nice because they are light However I recently added another couple of buckets and used lava rock from a local nursery only 3.40 for a bag the same size! I see NO differance. Yes lava is heavier then grow rocks but I guess I can deal with that for the price. Think about it, Hydro was started years ago using plain old gravel. As loog as you clean it it works the same, Not to mention I am not falling on all those little balls anymore. I HATE Hydro balls!

 

[soquick]

WoW!!! If I only had that space!!! I could snap back in no time!!!

I'm really on limited time here, but I'm gonna copy your pics and try to meditate on this one and give you my thoughts!!!

SQ

 

[hazeywonder]

What about something like this..? It would be easy and you could control all your stuff from the main room with the sink?

What I see is a drip to waste system that uses 3x6 tables and 600's. That way you can dictate what size you want to put them in since it isn't dependent on the system. or size of buckets. So im thinking 12 per table in 3 gallons with a soilless or something on a drip system. If you use valves in the main feed room you could run it all of a few 50gallon drums and pumps. But you can use coco/rockwool/soilless/hydrotron whatever but it also give you a decent walk way and about 10000w.

so if your trying to take clips and keep it rolling your going to need to stager the first run 4 weeks. And if you take 50 clips every 4weeks you should be able to keep to your plan, and accomplish it with 4 moms? filling a clone tray every 4 weeks.

 

[MID TOWN]

MID TOWN: Thank you for your imput. But less plants in the same space means more veg. Ulimatley I could have one giant plant a veg for half a year , than flower.... less plants means more veg. Other problems are providing enough plants + making a system that takes care for every plant.

yea but less plants means less jail time, less cloning/mother plants, and less plants to trim. To me it's worth the extra 1 1/2 weeks.

 

[samba]

Heya sabma! Can you tell me a few details about your system. How big are the pots and howmany of them are you using, what's the veg time...stuff like that. )

Thank you!

Hi
You could use pots of 10L size. I was thinking of DWC, you really don't want the hassle of cleaning medium ones a month on a grow of this size,the trimming alone will make you go mad! I was thinking of having them go on a 1 month rotation. 1 month veg then 2 months flowering, This way,with 2 flowrooms you'll be harvesting ones a month. On number of plants, with 1 month veg time you can get big plant if you want,just have good light's veging, or you can go with more plant, I prefer many small ones,but,as sayd, You get more time for more plant. Of course depending on were you live, you could end up getting max time for this,even if your growing trees.
But the good thing with this is the monthly rotation,monthly trimming/planting ,and the monthly money, and so on. If you flip flop the lighting in the rooms and property aircool them,have plenty of AC,you could run both rooms with more lights. Electricity is so cheap,that if there is no other reason not to run more lights(suspicious bill, to hot, maxing amps...) I'd run more lights! It's not grams/watt,is the GRAMS

Oh,and if you go with DWC,please, go CRAZY with the air,you really cant have to much air for thous lovely roots... And they WILL thank you

 

[Ray of Light]

Thanks fredfarts.... you mention 3gallon and 5gallon pots... are radiuses the same? Or how do they fit one on another?

soquick! So nice to see you here, I'm glad you're safe and well!

hazeywonder, thank you for taking time and making a scheme! I have a few questions tho... "drip to waste" this doesnt sound too economical doesn't it? What is the dripping scheme? In other words, howmuch water do I use?

MID TOWN:
"yea but less plants means less jail time, less cloning/mother plants, and less plants to trim. To me it's worth the extra 1 1/2 weeks."
I dont intend to get busted But yeah... number of clones TO MAKE is the thing that worrys me most.

In our country, the number of plants aint the thing that would have to worry most!

samba: I was just thinking about 10L pots. I found two size of containers... here are the measurments.

1st : 10L = 2.64 Gallon -lenght x width x height 29.2cm (11.5inch) x 25cm (9.85inch) x 22.2cm (8.75inch)

2nd : 11L =2.9 Gallon - lenght x width x height 29.2cm (11.5inch) x 25cm (9.85inch) x 24.2cm (9,5inch)

Inner and outer pot... what do you think... the 11L one is just a little higher.
100 of them in each room, 2-3 week veg.

More lights will be added asap I see temps allow it.

Thank you all guys!
ray

edit: Here are another two buckets sizes that are avalible
- 5.5 L 24cm x 20.9cm x 17.4cm > 1.45gallons 9.44i x 8.22i x 6.85inch
- 3L 18 x 14.7 x 18.4 > 0.79 gallon 7.08i x 5.78i x 7.24inch

 

[hazeywonder]

Well I prefer to use a soilless mix but, lose coco works as well. Anyways I water once a day. my take on this is that if plants are using the nutrient in the water then how will feeding it to them again provide any nutrients if they already uptook the nutes? I water mine by pump but I try to minimize the run off so I don't really feel like im wasting to much probably a tad more than add backs and evaporation in a hydro system/

 

[Ray of Light]

So plus of the dripping system is that I am using less water than in flood and drain option. What about salt buildup i've heard some talking about...?

Coco is not reusable or ?

With hydroton I would probably need to water more than once a day? I know when I was a small kiddo I had a tiny ebb&flow system for a couple of months and I was flooding every 2h or something

 

[hazeywonder]

I guess in a way yes since you are only watering what you need and never wasting all the used water in the res. I also just read a post about how watering once a day is better as it allows for air exchange in the roots. I don't know if you can reuse coco, but i know you can reuse the soilless, Im on my 4th run with the same soilless mix i just amend it and sift out the roots no problems yet nor do i see any in the future. I dont know about salt build up but i assume it would be the same as in any system I look at the drip as a controlled easy alternative to hand watering. I have 2 rooms set up this way and have not run in to any problems yet and get good yeilds.

 

[Ray of Light]

What pump are you using for dripping and how many spots does it cover. What is the hose size?

Maybe I would do 50 buckets drip&waste and other 50 flood&drain&not waste.... see what the outcome is.

 

[Ray of Light]

Ahh I found some answers in your thread... Im am still curious about the pump ....

Is it just my wierd thinking or is it true that here on in soil less mix the water spreads more evenly than it would with hydroton... i have a feeling that in hydroton water would just drain straight out..... maybe soquick can enlighten us on that?

 

[Guest]

Hey Ray..........If SoQuick can`t help yas..........yer outta luck........If you`re hell bent for leather on plant numbers then it`s like fredfarts said.....Ebb and Flow buckets...sup fredfarts ..With the area you have ,setting up smaller rooms rotating every 30 days would help in equipment and power costs as well as always having commodities....BUT........I`m reserving my opinion till after soquick`s meditation..lol...I know what works for me .......Peace......DHF.........

 

[Ray of Light]

DEDHEDFRED... i'm glad you dropped in!
Smaller rooms? Than I need a ventilation system for each one of those smaller rooms...

Im so tierd of all this brainstorming.... its time to roll a BIG fatty joint and go to bed....

C'ya in the mornin

 

[hazeywonder]

Yes ill go into a little more detail.

I use a 900gph pump from my bio-bucket runs I pump it up about 9 feet then let it drop down mostly this is done so i dont have stagnet water in the lines and so i can move around my room. In the second room i use some pump from ace 1000gph+. Each room is 24 drip lines. I run main 1/2" lines down the middle then use 1/4" to the pots with a drip line holder. I believe that i could run way more pots with my pump and system just have to water them longer thats all. Yes soilless will wick and retain much more water than hydrotron allowing me to water once a day. In your situation i would just use a huge pump maybe two one for each room and then control it all with valves. you could water the entire room at once or each table? either way i think it would fit your situation if you have a drain in the rooms you could just run the 3gal pots on the floor as well. Have you checked out sonoma's thread on all the rooms he has built you can see all the drip lines that he uses and get an idea on how its set up or how you could do a large room.

 

[Guest]

Hang in there Ray.......It really boils down to what you can be comfortable with ya know?..Pretty good learning curve and it takes a lil time and grows under your belt to fine tune and dial in......All questions welcome and I know you`re stressed out so burn a fatty and go with the flow....it`s all good my buddy ......there`s enough people round here to walk yas through this ok?..........Chill .......Peace.....DHF..........

 

[Ray of Light]

Ok... I have decided what to do for the first, test run but I'm keeping it a surprise for now I would like to thank a million to everyone that has helped me with this!

Pics will follow later.

 

[soquick]

I haven't had a chance to sit down and jot everythin down...I copied all of your images, so that I can study em, but access to the comp has been challengin lately!!! To answer your question up top...and I hope I'm not missin any, cuz I only skimmed it, but...the medium I use is hydroton and I can't remember the name of the pump I use...I'll get those details for you on my next visit!! The pump is strong enough to push about 80 2gal buckets, can do a bit more, but you begin to loose pressure and some plants wont get fed as good...it feeds thru 1/2" tubin, into 1/4" and then sprays out of the feedin stakes. Your correct about the nutes runnin thru...it's sorta like a drip system, just so you can imagine, but it sprays when it feeds and then it drips to the bottom bucket and then returns to your res from the return lines to be recycled...seems complicated, but it's a really simple cycle!!! Feedin occurs every 15-30min because of the rocks not bein able to absorb!!


That's my time ray, but I'll get come back and give you more details on my thoughts when I get more internet time!! Btw, you have a growers dream spot right there!!! Stay safe and grow hard!!

SQ

 

[Ray of Light]

Thanks SQ... i've taken notes.

Now this is someting I cant help not to write...

Anyone HAS A FREAKING CLUE where to get those 7 or 8 inch AirCooled reflectors in Europe??? God'damn... I am searching for those for two weeks now...sending emails to growshops.... wtf is wrong with Europe! If someone knows they got those in Amsterdam... Ill drive there to pick them up! I'm sick of those f**king cooltubes that I cant even stick my d**k in....

Ray