4-site / 5k watts vertical (DIY- UC x MPB)

[ALLegal420]

Haha, nice ghetto blaster! Mad MS paint skillz yo!

Thanks for the update!

-ALLegal420

 

[turboz]

Day 7 flower.
Did a res change to a 24 hour tap water flush, which will be followed with switching to Ionic flower nutes.
The ph/ppm/temp pic is before res change.
Everything looks to be going really well, biggest plant is 38" tall and smallest is 32" tall. Going to have to get a pic with lights off to get a good pic of the whole room.

 

[ALLegal420]

Throwing up some pics I snagged the other day right as the lights were firing up at about day-8 or 9 of flower. Threw a quarter in for reference... Also, 6" square's on the cages. Trunk and root porn!!

Things seem to be going pretty good so far, switched up after the flush and added Ionic Bloom. They are getting pretty big and growing in on the center light pretty good, about time to start zip-tying them in on the cages!

(pic of the room temp was during a room purge after a sulfur burn, usually stays around 73-75 lights off and 80-82 lights on.)


What do you guy's think about trimming in vertical lighting setups? The original plan was to just leave them alone but we didn't really expect them to get so dense...

Have a Merry Christmas everyone!!

-ALLegal420

 

[singlespeed]

Lookin great bro. Nice root. I jealous of your Hanna meter. I should have bought that model but was too cheap and purchased the model without temp. How do you like it?

 

[ALLegal420]

Thanks singlespeed! The water temp option is definitely a nice little feature. We have the hanna temp probe in the main Rez which reads about 59 degrees, the water chiller is on the end of the system circulation and it reads 61 degrees so that tells us we have a 2 degree water temp raise from beginning to end, fact of the day. lol We're staying as far away as possible from the 65 degree and higher water temps that pythium can form in.

For some reason the roots look a little brown in that pic, they're not, have a better pic here soon.

-ALLegal420

 

[turboz]

Day 17 Flower.
Here are some good shots of some root porn. Sorry about all the 'lights on' shots, hopefully these pics still show the progress well. The third pic shows directly above the space between two buckets. EC drifts between 1.2-1.4, and ph between 5.7-6.2. Water temp leaving epicenter is a solid 59f and entering the chiller at 61f. About once a week 3-4oz H2O2, and this is still Ionic Flower nutes with around 50ppm cal/mag.

 

[williamdodgett]

Ahhhh that is so badass!! Those plants look like some ass kickers. Keep it up ALLegal420, your an inspiration. One of these days....

 

[Shady]

Sweet room fellas! Looks like a jungle in there with those trees... :rock

 

[turboz]

A few pics from day 21 flower. The ph/ppm/h2o temp pic is after res change. The Ionic bloom boost (no N) was added as well as the bloom nutes, 3oz h202, and about 50 ppm cal/mag.

 

[istari72]

Vertical Canopy Management

Great thread! Thanks for sharing such valuable information and experience. You're high quality craftsmanship is truly inspirational. I have begun my first vertical grow and and wondering about canopy management for maximized lighting exposure with minimized crowding and minimal small popcorn buds. How do y'all approach maximizing the canopy in vertical garden? I have supercropped my plants into bushes with a myriad of tops but am concerned about excessive plant density which can lead to poor light penetration and contribute to pest/mold issues. Suggestions anyone? Cheers!

 

[ALLegal420]

Thanks for swinging in istari72!

IMO, with vertical lighting, more of a 'tier' style plant is more effective. That way all of the cola's can be exposed to as much light as possible, if they were even then they have a better chance of blocking one another. I suppose you could think of it as when running horizontal you want as many cola's spread out over the light coverage coming down, with vertical think of that flipped sideways, with vertical you want as many cola's spread out over the light coverage coming sideways. Once you drop the top of the lights/sockets even with the top of the plants you have quite a bit of light coverage against the whole side of the plant. This is just my theory on vertical lighting and training... Any one else's thoughts? This is first run so still learning a lot! lol

We haven't done much training at all, we just tucked the branches down under the next rung down to open the plant up and now are zip tying branches back to keep them from the light. We haven't touched them other than a few days ago when we did a leaf pluck to get more light exposure. Will try to get some good pics here soon to give a better idea!

-ALLegal420

 

[ALLegal420]

Day 28 **Trunk porn pics**

Update: Day 28 of flower (Trunk porn pics *quarter for reference*)

Moved the fans, crawled in the center and sat in the middle of all the plants with a flashlight and intended to clean some dead leaves out and this happened. lol I think it was a good thing to do, really opened up the inside of the plant and took a lot of useless energy consuming branches off (left 1 plant alone pretty much). These girls are still thick as hell though on the outside and cola's are everywhere!! We've had to raise the center light up a little further than I'd like at the moment, gotta get in and tie branches back a little more. Need a big bag of zip tie's!!

-Running a max of 1.4-1.5 EC... H202, Ionic Bloom, Ionic Boost, Cal-Mag (.1 EC)
-1100ppm CO2 (gonna bump to 1400 or 1500ppm here soon)
-58 degree water temps main rez (61 degree's return)
-Roots are still pearly white! (knock on wood)

Pretty happy with how things are looking and going so far. I don't believe we've pushed them to hard or done/added anything crazy so far, been following the KISS method.

TurboZ will be throwing up some better pics later tonight that were taken before the trim of the outside.

-ALLegal420

 

[crossouttheiis]

everything is looking good, keep up the awesome work

 

[turboz]

Here are a few more pics from day 28.
The first two pics are about 30 hours apart. I almost think I can see a difference between them. The fourth pic is the big dirt lady. It is almost 7 feet tall.

 

[turboz]

Great thread! Thanks for sharing such valuable information and experience. You're high quality craftsmanship is truly inspirational. I have begun my first vertical grow and and wondering about canopy management for maximized lighting exposure with minimized crowding and minimal small popcorn buds. How do y'all approach maximizing the canopy in vertical garden? I have supercropped my plants into bushes with a myriad of tops but am concerned about excessive plant density which can lead to poor light penetration and contribute to pest/mold issues. Suggestions anyone? Cheers!

I try to think of it as light management instead of canopy management. I would train/manage/grow the canopy to completely envelop the lights if possible ( ex. see Heaths 600w vert grow with like 80 or so plants surrounding the light). If you are able to use all the light put out by your lights you will have the highest yielding and most efficient grow, all other factors being equal. This includes factoring in plant spacing from the light (light intensity/lumen drop off). I personally think that some vert growers have excessive plant spacing and are not getting enough light from the bulbs.
A plant that is too dense is a good problem to have, it will not waste any light and you can trim a little if you need some better ventilation. It is my understanding that it doesn't matter where a plant gets its light (energy) whether it is at the outermost leaves or some on the outside and some on the inner leaves, it still will absorb the same amount of energy. On this grow, the plants could have been flipped a little earlier or spaced a little farther and then the lights could have been dropped a little farther.

As with most everyone I am still learning as I go. It is interesting to put to use my theories and see what works and what doesn't. If anyone else has any info on these subjects please post up, I'm always interested to see what others are thinking!

 

[mrdizzle]

things look nice and healthy bro, its packed in there
are you liking the 40in centers? they are looking like 1.25-1.5lbers.

 

[ALLegal420]

things look nice and healthy bro, its packed in there
are you liking the 40in centers? they are looking like 1.25-1.5lbers.

Hey mrdizzle! The 40" centers sure are getting tight now, I think it was a great choice for a first run. Upping the center's or flipping at a slightly smaller height will be necessary for next run. Based on other grow's on this board I would say that 1.25-1.5 sounds about right, which we would be ecstatic to hit with a Kush strain. Plus you having the experience and saying that they look like it puts my mind at ease... although 2lbers would be even cooler! lol So far very happy with how this run has been going.

We're going to switch up and run a different strain next run, maybe something with a G13 cross in it or something just higher yeilding. Also either run a flip/flop and/or add a couple buckets to the system and a few more lights. Have also been talking about running 600's on the outside and 1000's in the middle and flipping them at a smaller height.

Roughly 6000W is total we'd want to run

(2)-1000W......... 2,000W
(7)-600W........... 4,200W

Total.................. 6,200W

We could get a lot of plant coverage with 9 lights available... Still in the planning phase though and that would be a decent chunk of change to drop. Argument now is light to plant coverage vs. plant to light coverage, is it better to run the plants fully surrounded by light or having the lights fully surrounded by plants. Ex: 4plant/5light vs 5plant/4light....

Ahh the fun stuff!

-ALLegal420

 

[mrdizzle]

I think thats a good idea, I do believe that two close 600's will do better than a 1000w far away, the whole penetration debate makes no sense to me because anything left inside a big tree ends up being hash from my experience

think about trees as 4 sides of wall-o-buds- I would get them bigger next round, spread them out a foot, gut them nice like you did, and apply the extra bulbs for 2lbers.

 

[Papa]

I think thats a good idea, I do believe that two close 600's will do better than a 1000w far away, the whole penetration debate makes no sense to me because anything left inside a big tree ends up being hash from my experience

think about trees as 4 sides of wall-o-buds-

+1

and lower those lights!

 

[Shady]

Sick work fellas! :sign0005: