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

[ALLegal420]

Hey guys and gals! I'm very excited to finally start my own thread about a grow that I have helped design and setup for a couple of friends that are med patients. It's been a while since I've posted because... Well life happens, I have been lurking a lot though the last few months and soaking up as much info as possible. Thank you to everyone on here for posting up so much information and sharing their grows, both good and bad ones, I've learned a lot from you all and am more confident that we can actually pull this off! lol

Backstory:

-This is a completely legal grow (2 medical marijuana card holders - 30 plant limit)

-1 of us has some hydro experience, the other has soil experience and I've done a lot of research but no actual experience. So please feel free to throw your thoughts up, good or bad! Any and all information/comments/help will be much appreciated! I'm sure we will have numerous stupid questions (for you people with experience).

-My card holder buddy used to grow back in the day, in soil. Well he tried to again a few months ago and didn't get anywhere near the yield he was looking for... I've been talking with him about 'Doubled's MPB setups' for a while now and after a less than stellar soil run, he said screw it "let's try your hydro setup".

-I spent a lot of time in Doubled's MPB section in the past and thought I wanted to run that setup if the opportunity ever arose. Well after another buddy of mine that is helping set this up told me to check out the Undercurrent setups, we decided to combine the 2 systems. We both really like the simplicity of UC with how everything is fed and setup compared to the MPB's (cost was another factor). I've read through a lot of the grows and stickies in this forums and it is very inspirational and frightening at the same time!*

Setup:

-18ft x 18ft x 9ft tall sealed room (room within a room)
-5 - 1000w lights hung vertical (240v magnetic ballast; 4hps and 1mh)
-4 - 27 gallon totes for plants from home depot
-1 - 70 gallon main Rez from home depot
-3" PVC to connect everything
-1 - Ecoplus 1/4hp water chiller
-1 - Ecoplus 1056 Pump (have another for backup and a 633 pump as well)
-2 - 15,000btu wall banger A/C units
-CO2 (20lb tank with controller)
-Blue stone air pump 320gph
-10 - 4" Ecoplus air discs (2 for each tote and 2 in main Rez)

X = plant
0 = light (1000w vertical)

OXO
XOX
OXO


The room and setup is almost finished, hopefully we will be doing the first dry run of the setup mid next week to check for leaks and make sure temperatures stay within range. This took far more time and effort than I previously expected, but we did take our time though and built everything right and have insulated the hell out of everything!*

The cuttings have been in the cloner for about 5 days now. We will also be rocking 8 plants in soil around the outside 4 lights of the hydro setup for backup.

**Lemon Kush will be ran in the Hydro setup**

Other strains we have available (picked up from a Seattle dispensary):
God bud
Moonwreck
Bubble gum
Cali orange
Tangerine dream
Elephant
Purple pinecone
Goo
Purple Kush (5th generation)
Ghost (unknown strain we named)

We picked Lemon Kush because we don't have much info on any of the strains and haven't seen any flowered in person. If anyone has more info or experience with any of these please let me know. Or if you think something might be better suited in the system... We know anything more indica dominant will rock in the system and the lemon Kush looks pretty good.

Looking forward to your feedback!

Pictures coming soon!

-ALLegal420

 

[ALLegal420]

Picture time!!

 

[ALLegal420]

Picture time 2!!

 

[Devlove]

Very Nice! Will be following closely as I am in the process of doing a 4 site uc using the same tubs with 1 1000 and 4 6's with 2 flipflopped like heath. Are you going to leave all bulbs on at all times? should get huge. More pics as you set the system up please!

 

[aSilvrHaze]

hell yea, lookin sick bro, cant wait to see that in action

 

[crossouttheiis]

good luck looking good man. Just keep on looking and doing some research and you will be good to go.

How many inch centers are you going to be rocking? Make sure to watch water temperatures. A 1/4 hp for that much water might make it run more often.

 

[ALLegal420]

Devlove -- Very Nice! Will be following closely as I am in the process of doing a 4 site uc using the same tubs with 1 1000 and 4 6's with 2 flipflopped like heath. Are you going to leave all bulbs on at all times? should get huge. More pics as you set the system up please!

Yes, we will definitely be posting pics up as we set things up and finally get rolling. Yea we will be leaving all 5 lights on when they're used to 5k burning at once (don't wanna lumen shock them). Looking forward to checking out your setup when you get it going.

aSilvrHaze -- hell yea, lookin sick bro, cant wait to see that in action

Thanks aSilvrHaze!

crossouttheiis -- good luck looking good man. Just keep on looking and doing some research and you will be good to go.

How many inch centers are you going to be rocking? Make sure to watch water temperatures. A 1/4 hp for that much water might make it run more often.

Thanks crossouttheiis, your UC PRO run should be epic with 15k watts, will definitely be following along! Hopefully you've got the girls issue figured out :-(

Yea I spent 4 hours the other night reading through JackMayOffer's (sp?) thread... going to have to go through it about 2 or 3 more times at least. There is so much information on this site it's hard for me to put down the ipad at night, which will pay off in the long run hopefully.

We will be running 54 inch centers on this run (what's your thoughts on this, if any?). Yes we will definitely be watching the water temps since that's the main issue with root rot, thanks for looking out. We will also be insulating the totes, main rez, piping and also have the chiller in another room that will be kept in the 60 degree range. Hopefully we won't have issue's...



-ALLegal420

 

[ALLegal420]

Getting there

Picture Time 3!

We need to elevate the totes roughly 6" still to hit the main rez correctly... Also need to find a good filter for just before the pump like CCH20 has but maybe a little bigger at Home Depot or Lowe's.

 

[aSilvrHaze]

that looks bitchin!

 

[ALLegal420]

So we've made a couple changes...

#1 - Ditched the Lemon Kush and are going with the Purple Kush (Wasn't impressed with how the Lemon was doing in soil, purple is doing much better)

#2 - Switched from 54" centers to 40" centers.

We realized that we had strayed to far from Doubleds setup and we want to duplicate his setup as closely as possible. With the 54" centers we wouldn't be utilizing the 1000w lights penetration ability into the plant to it's fullest. Just because we could grow a huge plant doesn't mean it would yield as good as a smaller plant getting far more light penetration/intensity. If they get huge we can always tie the plant up and move the lights out a little bit if needed. We also want to be sure to have room for the soil plants on the outside of the system and the 54" centers were going to take up far to much room.

That looks bitchin!

aSilvrHaze, thanks once again! :) Man this is time consuming setting this up, as well as nerve racking trying to make sure we have all of our bases covered.

-ALLegal420

 

[singlespeed]

Bro that is so clean. Well done. And I'm glad to see you rockin that old school getto blaster too! :party0023:

 

[Devlove]

Drilling your holes a cinch or what? Leaks? Whats your main rez looking like?

Also looking good, dig the top buckets, you can veg in 5 gals then through the tops in the 27 it looks like.

 

[hiboy]

Yes rock that boom box......... yeahhhhaaaaaaaaaaa
Kewl garage grow... lets get them babies in there
h

 

[ShutUpDonny]

Subbed on this for sure! Very much looking forward to watching this operation roll out. Good luck!

 

[mrdizzle]

I liked the 54in centers, easy change after your first run once you figure out how your strain grows in rdwc

 

[desertmedgrower]

Great start, lets see more ;D Love how clean the DIY is lookin

 

[ALLegal420]

Singlespeed - Haha, the ghetto blaster is definitely a must and there is a sentimental factor in there as well, my buddy will appreciate the props!

Devlove- The holes were somewhat of a cinch, we did a quick water test but not a full bucket test yet, we'll see if they leak or not. lol We had a 3-1/8" hole saw but the male end of our fittings wouldn't screw in right, so we snagged a 3-1/2" hole saw and they go together so nicely. We're using the sink drain gaskets both the inside and outside of the tote as well as tape on the threads.

Hiboy - Don't worry, we can't wait either and pics will come! Thanks!

Shutupdonny - Happy to have you following along :D

mrdizzle - Thanks for swinging through my thread, you were definitely an inspiration back when I first found the Doubled's MPB section! Lots of useful information and it was great that you answered some of my stupid questions. lol
We figured since it was a new setup and we dont know what to expect, it was better to follow someone's design that had great success. Next run we will replace almost all the parts so we don't have to worry about any contamination issues so change will be easy...

Desertmedgrower - Thanks for the props!

-ALLegal420

 

[Donkdbz]

Have at least 48" on centers. 54" would be even better

my pics of 48" centers that were barely enough

 

[ALLegal420]

Donkdbz,

Thanks for the pictures and information, very nice grow, read through your thread and very awesome numbers off of those girls! I think we're going to keep the 40" centers for this run to get a baseline and see what happens... Again, thanks for the info and pics!!


Made some progress and more pics!!

The main rez looks hella tilted in the photo's but it isn't...

 

[hiboy]

The white room looking sweetoooooooo
Like the cages around those verts. Great idea.
Are your fans that sit below for blowing straight up on the verts.?
Whens the move in date?
h