Designing New Undercurrent System And Room Design.

[Shawnery]

I'm in the process of working out the layout of my next grow and wanted some advice on a few things.

Room is 10x5x7.5
Growing space in room is 8x5x7

I'll be building an undercurrent with 8 12 gallon totes. I'm considering growing two plants per tote or one plant per tote. Less plants more veg to fill canopy. More plants less veg to fill canopy. Which would you pick and why?

I'll be running a 17 gallon epi center, 20 gallon reservoir and a water cooler. Would you run these outside of the grow room or inside and why?

I'm also considering building a separate room to house the heater and air conditioner. By building a separate room to house these I supply better spacing in the grow room. I was thinking that this would cause fewer cold or warm spots in the room. The way it would work is connecting the two rooms by ducting. Keep the outside room at either warm or cold temps depending on desired outcome in grow room. When the room reaches the chosen temp the exhaust fan will turn on and pull the cool or warm air from the temp room. Does this seem like a good design or not? In my mind it makes great sense but most things do in retrospect.

Lastly I am considering getting some c02 for this run but not sure if I'm ready yet. I'm still figuring out the ins and outs of growing to start with. This will be my third grow and in my second I did .85g per watt. Do you think I should hold off till I get up to 1g per watt or just go for c02 now and have you found the cost benefit to be beneficial?

Thanks and if theres anything I'm missing please inform me because I really want to take this grow to the next level.

I'd also like to grow a non-sleepy large cola strain this go if anyone has suggestions?

 

[Aqua Man]

I am designing a grow space myself so I will be watching this. 1 thing I thought of incorporating in my design was the use of spout pointing up to change the direction of flow on the inside of the intake of each container. I'm thinking this will proving much more efficient mixing of the solution and possibly oxygenation by creating a more turbulent surface.

My 2 cents:

Co2 will depend mostly on your lighting, you will generally want close to about 1000 ppfd before you add Co2 if you are looking for significant increase in growth. If you are or can exceed that then I would go for it. (Based on research only) Also Co2 can be used in a sealed grow room to maintain adequate Co2 levels so depending what you want to use it for you may or may not need it.

Personally I would stay away from a 2 room setup using air exchange to regulate temps. When you change air you also mess with the humidity and would have to control it in both rooms to be stable (which is feasible). Also if using Co2 that's a lot more air to supplement and both rooms would probably need to be sealed or Co2 would be wasted.

My thinking is throw a humidifier, dehumidifier, AC/heat unit, Co2 in a sealed room and you have complete control and will prob cost a lot less then building a new room.

 

[Shawnery]

I was thinking of making it out of cardboard or even using a very large box for a fridge or the like. I didn't even consider the c02 perspective at all which makes sense. Humidity might be an issue or most likely will but having the dehumidifier in the main room would combat it for the most part.

I think all in all your argument makes total sense though. Even when I attempt to force a reason which would make it more beneficial than detrimental I have a hard time justifying it and I can almost always do that.

As for the light I'm running diy Samsung f564b fixtures which are on a similar level to quantum boards. Each one with a light meter was equal to around a 600w hps and I'm running four of them. Their true wattage is around 1500 at the wall though.

Thanks!