4K - (2x)UC8XL - CS Nutes - CO2/Sealed Room - Blue Dream - UC Noob

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Solar Deity

Solar Deity

15
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It's been a little slow around here so after lurking in this forum for 3 years, it's time. After reading everything Jack, Squirrel/Q9, UCMENOW, Texas Kid, Shady, Woodsmaneh, UCHQ, tipper, etc ever typed on this forum, I saved my money, bit the bullet and bought twin UC8XL's for a 12' x 16' basement. Since the release of Cultured Solutions nutes, it seemed like a no brainer to run the manufacture of the system's program. After seeing all the success with CS and UC Roots product from all here, I ordered a gallon of each.

I have access to a basement that we converted to a sealed room. Poured wall foundations here in New England keep the lights off temps no colder than 62. Our 12' x 16' flower room has 7 foot ceilings. Went with 2x UC8XL's because of height restrictions. I bought two systems instead of the double barrel to run different strains. I've learned this really isn't an issue as the concentrations are so low, any strain can be run along side another with great success. I wanted some room also between the four rows for maintenance. All my previous rooms were cramped and it's nice to have some space to prune and maintain. I went with 4k lighting and our room is sealed/closed with 6 mil poly. 6" cool tubes with hoods/reflectors, two per 8XL, in a closed loop to maintain CO2 levels. We drilled two holes in the sill of the basement, an intake and exhaust, so cold air comes through the room but never mixes. I have spared no expense building the room. I'm approaching 15K in materials. 100 man hours to get to here so far.

This is a hobby and I'm a bit of an electonics freak so we have 3 layers of environmental controller protection. I chose the Sentinel line of controllers. At lights on, the closed loop cool tubes come on at 72. It's low, but this is to stay ahead of the lamps once they are fully heated up. It's also on a Speedster so we can vary the draw. This time of year, low-med is all that's required to cool the 4 G watts. Next layer of cooling begins at 82. We have four blower fans in the corners that will mix the cooler air from the floor. This works well for the first 6 hours of lights on. Ambient outdoor temps right now are 20 degrees so mother nature is helping keep cool easily. These work in tandem with the final layer. After the room heat soaks, the last 6 hours only (usually), layer three kicks on at 84 degrees. A 6" Vortex pulls outside air through a UV scrubber and in to a Can66 on the floor for intake. The blower fan starts mixing this immediatley. To maintain negative pressure in the sealed room, our exhaust is an 8" Vortex on a Speedster which vents up the to the highest part of the roof through an existing stack. We lucked out with that as it was there already. They turn on at the same time and the speedsters allow us to fine tune the cycles. The CAP Gen2 turns off when the room reaches layer three at 84 so we don't waste CO2/gas. The Gen 2 turns out to be way overkill for a 12' x 16' x 7' room, but it's an advantage. The 8 burners take about 3 minutes to soak the room to 1200 ppm. It helps when the final layer of heat protection removes some of the CO2. We have the exhaust at the highest point of the room to leave the heavier CO2 at the bottom. Tests so far have the generator kicking on only every 1.5 hours or so after initial ramp up. It runs about every 4-5 cycles of exhaust after that.

Two 3 gallon humidifiers for veg and early flower to get the humidity up. Our outdoor RH is only 10-15% this time of year. 100 pint de-huey plumbed to a floor drain for mid to late flower. The entire room is run on (6x) 20 amp circuits. In hindsight, I should have run a 240V 30 amp circuit for the 4 lights, and a couple 20 amp circuits for the peripherals. Each UC8XL has a 1/10 HP chiller and a 55 gal top off res, along with a Danner AP 60 air pump all outside the 12' x 16' flower room. I'm about to start a thread and post pics on the setup for our first run.

I was the fortunate recipient of a Blue Dream clone. Made a mom out of her and have taken about 16 cuttings so far. She's blowing up in a 5 gallon smart pot under a 600w MH. We have our first roots from the first set of cuttings. It won't be long and I'll keep the updates coming. Here's a shot of the room. It's not totally finished. We need to tidy up some wires but it's close.

SD


4k   2xuc8xl   cs nutes   co2sealed room   blue dream   uc noobView attachment 291381 4k   2xuc8xl   cs nutes   co2sealed room   blue dream   uc noob 2
 
ri420patient

ri420patient

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Looking good man I'm new to this and it's been going really good so far I think I vegged to long but will find out the can nutes are really easy to work with and all that reading u did will help that's how I learned the dos and donts of this system keep it up ill be watching along
 
All4freedumb

All4freedumb

874
93
I'm diggin your gig man.. Nice work.. One thing that caught my eye was your meter looks to be a little close to your ballast? I'd hate for you to start getting some bad readings and tweak your system when it didn't really need it. You seem to have a good eye to detail and I look forward to seeing your thread, I'm in...
 
Solar Deity

Solar Deity

15
3
All4, are you saying the Sentinel's are too close or the Guardians for the epicenters? Will the magnetic ballasts mess with the readings? I thought the RF from digital ballasts affected the environmental controllers. I do have a question. Would the silicone lubricant they supply raise the ph of my tap water? Is it like silica, acting like ph up? While testing, I brought the ph to 5.8 with 120 ml of ph down in 45 gallons. The next day it was up to 8.0? Weird. I'm still testing though without plants. I'll have about 2 more weeks before I get 16 litttle ones.

Trying CC's new modular cages. They are nice. You can wrap them around and connect them any time during veg. They were less expensive than the Burpee's too. Shots included.

DSCN0006DSCN0013DSCN0003

SD
 
ri420patient

ri420patient

466
63
How much were them cages I actually just bought fencing and they had 2x3 holes I had to cut out to make bigger what a pain in the ass it was I made 8 cages out of a 50 foot roll which was 50$ then had to buy more to finish the rest there was about 800 cuts on each cage it sucked wish I had seen those how tall are they and u can check out what I did in my thread if u want its new to uc keep up the pics and that seems like alot of ph down to get the water down to where u did no way u can mount the ballasts outside of the room and what are you using for ph up down
 
Solar Deity

Solar Deity

15
3
ri420,

Cages were $15 each shipped. Burpee's were $17 + shipping. They are 48" tall. They are new from CCH20. I can mount the ballasts outside through the wall they are against if needed. Here in New England, my water is excellent. 190 ppm from the tap at ph 7.5. Will not need much Cal Mag, if at all with the CS line. It takes 2.5 ml of GH PH Down per gallon to get it to 5.8 here. Both systems stabilised at 5.8, then they were 8.0 - 8.1 on the guardians, both calibrated from new in box.

SD
 
Solar Deity

Solar Deity

15
3
Off to Costa Rica for a destination wedding and some fun in the sun. 99 degrees there! Too hot. Have to catch a flight at 6 AM. They definitely need help with their genetics down there! It's all brown weed.

Be back on the 25th. Updates to follow then.

SD
 
midwestdensies

midwestdensies

2,886
263
You guys make me want to delve into water culture. Its one of the last methods i havent tried. Maybe a small setup is in my future..
 
All4freedumb

All4freedumb

874
93
All4, are you saying the Sentinel's are too close or the Guardians for the epicenters? Will the magnetic ballasts mess with the readings? I thought the RF from digital ballasts affected the environmental controllers. I do have a question. Would the silicone lubricant they supply raise the ph of my tap water? Is it like silica, acting like ph up? While testing, I brought the ph to 5.8 with 120 ml of ph down in 45 gallons. The next day it was up to 8.0? Weird. I'm still testing though without plants. I'll have about 2 more weeks before I get 16 litttle ones.

Trying CC's new modular cages. They are nice. You can wrap them around and connect them any time during veg. They were less expensive than the Burpee's too. Shots included.

View attachment 291465View attachment 291467View attachment 291468

SD

My bad, It didn't process those were magnetic ballast. I haven't yet had an issue with my rooms that I use my magnetic in, I believe that is a digital issue. Have you tried to raise ph in a glass of water using some of that lube? I'm sure you did with all your reading you've done, but did you give your new system a good cleanout before running? I'm really digging those cages, mine are being ordered today... Enjoy your get away..
 
Shady

Shady

Chillin' in the Shade...
Supporter
3,747
113
Awesome room and build-out SD! Pulling up a seat for the show...
 
Solar Deity

Solar Deity

15
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Back from Tamarindo, Costa Rica. Too hot. Suprisingly, as brown, seedy and stemmy as the weed was, it tasted decent and got you high. Sick time. If you ever get the chance, I recommend it to all. Our second time and we'll be going back for more.

Enough of that. Cuttings seem to be taking a long time. Made an executive decision to move to an aero cloner. I've had success with one in the past. Keeping the moms in 7 gallon Yield Pots. Also going with an aeroponic pre-veg system. A while ago, I followed this guy named Stinkbud and his aeroponic/NFT home built system. I built every phase of his system (cloner, veg and flower) and ran a perpetual garden for nearly three years. The cuttings from his aero cloner design go in to the 15 site pre-veg system made of 2 Rubbermaid 18 gallon totes stacked upon one another. I will feed the girls once their roots pop and grow them to about 12 - 15 inches in the two systems I built. They will hold up to 30 plants in pre-veg and the cloner is a 40 site. They will transfer seamlessly in to the UC when ready. Once rolling, this will gve me no down time between runs. Should be able to be up and running within 48 hours of chopping for cleaning and resetting.

All4, sounds like a test I need to run. I have had the systems set up now for about two weeks running constantly. I initially filled the both reservoirs and systems with 100 gallons each. I added 2ml per gallon of 29% H2O2 (stuff is nasty if you get on hands or anything) and ran that about 10 days ago. I even wasted some of the included CS nutes and brought one system up to 350 ppm and Ph 5.8 just to see how stable it was. It wasn't stable at the time, but seems to be stable now.

Mom, Mom Tent Temps with Sentinel MDT, and the cuttings under a humidity dome. Mom tent is a Grow Lab 145. Clone/Pre veg tent is a GL 120L. Pics to come of the Veg system and the Cloner. I may have to break out the mack daddy camera for a few pics? It will definitely be used for the weekly updates.

SD

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Solar Deity

Solar Deity

15
3
Ok, broke her out. Full framer 5D MKII. This is the kit lens, the 24-105mm f/4L. A little slower than I'd prefer, but gave me the widest shots of my lenses. Kind of a pain to process the RAW images, but being able to set the white balance is key. Can't even tell they are HPS lights. Hope to have EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro by harvest to get some awesome 1:1 macro shots of the dankness!

Here is the veg systems on the outside and the 40 site cloner in the middle.
UC ROOM Bare 26
Built them from these plans 5 years ago.
Stinkbudveg
They are plumbed together.
UC ROOM Bare 30
Here it is in action.
UC ROOM Bare 28
Here is the cloner in action.
UC ROOM Bare 27
Right 55 gal res, air pump, chiller out of flower room.
UC ROOM Bare 07
Left setup.
UC ROOM Bare 08
UVonair 3000 Ozone Generator
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Intake UV Scrubber
UC ROOM Bare 14
Mom looking healthy.
UC ROOM Bare 10
And finally tonight, the UC CC H20 Glamour shot.....
UC ROOM Bare 23 Glam
SD
 
Solar Deity

Solar Deity

15
3
Ok, waiting on these clones to pop. About 45 clones in the home built aero-cloner.
CC Room Enhance 04
4 transplants showing growth for Moms.Added humidifiers to the tents to raise th RH. Reading zero this time of year in New England.
CC Room Enhance 02CC Room Enhance 05
Added plumbing from epicenters to drain the systems quickly. Ecoplus 396 with 3/4" ID Clearflex 60 to the floor drain. Takes about 7 min to start sucking air.
CC Room Enhance 12 Web CC Room Enhance 13
Added a calendar to record PH, EC, solution temp, RH & overnight low outside temp. It's 5' x 5'!
CC Room Enhance 01
I added a fan to the CO2 circuit to disperse the gas/air when the generator ignites. The room would initialy soak for about 7-8 min without the fan, and then climb to 1900 PPM. After adding the fan, at lights on the generator only runs for 2 minutes and doesn't ballon to 800 ppm's above it's setting. The room also takes longer to heat soak. After 2 hours of lights on, we were only at 78 degrees. We will be able to control the temps well in to May/June without need for AC.
CC Room Enhance 10 WebCC Room Enhance 08
Organized and got all the wires off the floor, except the submersible pumps.
CC Room Enhance 07
Lastly, at the recommendation of a fellow member, I moved the ballasts OUTSIDE the room (this turns out to be key, rookie move on my part). From my research, that's about 1400 watts of heat removed from the flower room. Also adds to the longer soak times and heat build up. There's also a ton more space behind the epicenters, a bonus.
CC Room Enhance 15CC Room Enhance 16CC Room Enhance 17
SD
 
Soo Hazee

Soo Hazee

10
3
SD that's really a nice set up you have there. I'm really instristead to see how the BD responds to it... Keep it up...
 
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