8 1000w Light Hydroponic Current Culture UnderCurrent grow room, Grow room build, first time grower

[majr]

First time posting, and first time growing, this is my start to current log of a grow room I have constructed.

Gear in use:
(8) 1000w MH&HPS bulbs in magnum xxxl 8 inch reflectors
(1) 10 inch exhaust fan
(2) 6 inch intake fans
(28) 13 gal xl Current Culture Under Current buckets
(1) 2hp King Chiller
(2) 250 gal water res
(1) 55 gal top off water res

-panda plastic cover ceiling/walls/floor

*Using Sensi Grow A+B & CalMag + H2O2 for nutes.
PPM's are sitting near 800 after first water change.
Running RO water in the system, no tap.


Anyways, just wanted to share what I have going, and as I'm a first timer I'm always ears to any issues you may be familiar to watch out for with the UC systems, or hdyro in general.

* initially, i had a grower hired to manage the Op for me, but shortly into it he bailed and told me I was on my own more or less. So, here I am.

Square one:

Cleared out the house and took out the walls/small bathroom:

Progress on cleaning up the place, laying 8mm pond plastic over the hardwood:

Putting up a wall to separate the grow room from front room:

Wall nearly finished:

Insulation wall up:

Panda plastic covering all walls/ceiling, floor next:

All surfaces Panda'd, drilling in light support beams:

Laying out undercurrent buckets before connecting:

Plumbing ran, buckets connected, leaks annihilated:

Light reflectors hung, duct ran, power on:

Mixed bulbs, room staying below 80 w/o AC:

Ballast arrangement:

Blueberry Diesel clones dropped in!

 

[bigdaddyg8]

put it out there . i am sure you will get the help you need . nice set up !

 

[Texas Kid]

Fuck'n A bro..lovin it, looks like one of my setups...great minds..

Passion baby!!

 

[caregiverken]

Very nice set up!! :eek::woot:
looks perrty automatic to a drit farmer like me!

 

[Texas Kid]

Room temps target 75-82

Relative humidity target 50%-60% in flower and up to 70% in veg

Water temp target 66 degrees

Get some nutes

 

[majr]

Room temps target 75-82

Relative humidity target 50%-60% in flower and up to 70% in veg

Water temp target 66 degrees

Get some nutes

Thank you for this, very much. Water temp really that low? Currently I have it at 69-70 and the plants are babies. I was unaware it should be 66, but that's what my innitial grower had it at. Is that temp for UC specific or all hdyro? Sorry if I sound like an idiot, I'm not familiar with this too much.

 

[bigdaddyg8]

Thank you for this, very much. Water temp really that low? Currently I have it at 69-70 and the plants are babies. I was unaware it should be 66, but that's what my innitial grower had it at. Is that temp for UC specific or all hdyro? Sorry if I sound like an idiot, I'm not familiar with this too much.

i believe the specific UC water temp between 63 to 66 deg .

 

[Texas Kid]

Not sure about all hydro but I do not run chillers on other setups only the UC...those temps cut the likely hood of root issues, bug issues, and water condition issues to almost nothing...I never let my temps get above 66 degrees with lights on...ever

High 60's and 70's it is way more likely for fungus, bactieria, and rot to take hold and be a pain in the ass

 

[majr]

Adjusting my chiller accordingly, thank you TK!

 

[ttystikk]

Your set up looks and sounds a great deal like mine, right down to the number and type of hoods, the number of sites, and the 2 ton chillking chiller.

You have enough chiller capacity to cool your room without AC; use 8" Ice boxes and fans to blow room air through them! Set your chiller to run at 52-55 with a rise of 8 degrees to start. The reason to do this is simple; saving about 50% on your overall cooling costs.

You will have problems with the plastic on the floor. You will walk on it and make holes that will inevitably leak and then won't dry up.

Get beneficial bacteria (like Capulator's OG biowar line) and run them in your RDWC; between this and keeping your water temps down, you will have zero problems with root rot. Ignore everyone who tells you to run sterile with bleach, h2o2 (peroxide), or 'zone'; it's a losing battle that is totally unnecessary and a ton of extra work besides.

I run the bennies approach, and I do my between runs cleaning as follows; I flush and fill twice with tap water, using my house to blast out all my pipes between sites. While I flush, I use a toilet brush to clean up any built up gunk. I then fill, add nutes and fresh plants. THAT'S IT-I do NOT disassemble my system, I do NOT sterilize the crap out of anything. I also do NOT have one thing go wrong with my RDWC, lol. It's actually been more reliable for me than soil or soilless mixes!

I built my own RDWC, and built a top feed irrigation system to drizzle RDWC water through my net pots, which are full of 50/50 coco/hydroton chow mix. This solves many, many problems with RDWC systems and should be easy to retrofit onto an Undercurrent. Highly recommend you do this to reduce all sorts of brain damage issues with RDWC type systems.

All of Texas Kid's suggestions should be taken for gospel, including finding better nutes.

 

[majr]

@ ttystikk, *edit,.. I've been doing some reading on how these 8" ice boxes heat exchangers work. All instructions tell me that they must connect to the reflector, leading the cool air to the exhaust.. Problem is, with my room, my exhaust is expelled into the attic - I'm not running a sealed room. Am I able to run the ice boxes to put out cold air into the room, instead of kicking the cold air out with this method? Would they still be efficient?

*p.s, if needed, I have an additional 1/2hp chiller that isn't being used, if I need the extra power.

 

[shadowshell]

majr, good luck.

 

[ttystikk]

Don't hook up ice boxes to the air you're pulling through your hoods, it's just a waste of money. Use the ice boxes to cool the room air. Pull air for the hoods from outside the room, and just as you mentioned, exhaust it outside the room as well. If your house is cold, blow the hood air into the house.

If you do this, then sealing your room and adding CO2 will be a trivially simple add on.

 

[majr]

Got it - I'll be running the Ice boxes in front of my intake fans that pour outside cold air into the room. The ice boxes will drop the temp even further, acting like spot AC's where I place them (2 intake fans, so I'll run 2 ice boxes I presume.)

*just thinking out loud here, making sure I'm not on the wrong page.

Thanks again for the amazing tip, you just saved me a TON of $.

 

[vaporedout]

wowee this is gonna be a fun one to watch..... cant wait to see some stuff growin!!

 

[ttystikk]

Got it - I'll be running the Ice boxes in front of my intake fans that pour outside cold air into the room. The ice boxes will drop the temp even further, acting like spot AC's where I place them (2 intake fans, so I'll run 2 ice boxes I presume.)

*just thinking out loud here, making sure I'm not on the wrong page.

Thanks again for the amazing tip, you just saved me a TON of $.

You're welcome; my consulting bill will be in the mail, lol. I'm going to save you some more money, too: don't cool the air coming into the room, as you will not be able to control how much you bring in. Just put the ice box/fan units in the middle of the room, blowing any direction except directly onto a plant. This way, you can regulate the amount of air coming in, and thus be able to manage your humidity properly. This is the main reason that open rooms can work well. If your humidity is too low, slow down the air passing through your room. If humidity is high, crank it up.

Be sure to set up your icebox units so the fan blows air through them- this helps their efficiency and eliminates the possibility of condensation wrecking your fan motor.

Also, be sure to Suck air through the hood vents. I can go into boring detail about gas law, or you can trust me it will be much more effective, lol.

 

[caregiverken]

wowee this is gonna be a fun one to watch..... cant wait to see some stuff growin!!

A (outdoor)guy like me might learn a couple things on a thread like this too. :)

 

[ttystikk]

More money saving tips; put your chiller inside during the winter. I did that and I ran my furnace for a grand total of 30 minutes last winter!
Cool everything you can with that chiller- it's just more efficient.
If you build a second room you can run it on the flip from your first big room and the same cooler will cool it! It is much more difficult to do this than with AC, let alone more costly to add on.

 

[Texas Kid]

What if you dropped one of those Ice Boxes in your epicenter and used it as a chiller instead of a chiller coil?

 

[fatwaterog]

You mentioned this is your first grow. Im curious what the ticket was start to finish 10 thousand or more? The reason I ask is im looking to do do the same for myself but the start up cost scare me. Tks peace