Light+plant placement / layout / what would you do...

[Funkadelic]

Hey all, thanks in advance for all feedback, advice, questions. Love this site/community.

Need to know light/plant/layout/gear placement suggestions for this new grow....
Planning on:
* 2 story, flower on main floor and veg in attic to grow **trees**
* vertical, double stacked 1000w magnetic ballasts - EYE Hortilux HPS (considering supplemental light in different spectrums, on tops or on walls; likely later when $ allows)
* chowmix, though mostly coco coir with growstones... seems like this can go in my backyard without screaming GROWER LIVES HERE like perlite does oh so much
* mini split a/c, a pair of them with one a dual-zone maybe for veg attic / some summer days get to 100f
* starting with organic regimen - Harvest Moon/Nectar of the Gods, super dilute and constantly mixed for regular small daily (at least 1x) feedings via irrigation tubing, trying to NOT drain - just enough to balance moisture and food; I'm experienced with this regimen, its complete, and I'm optimistic

Where would you place lights/plants/gear in the flower room, and any thoughts or advice, suggestions, comments...?
Flower room is approx 500 sq ft but ladder to large attic is in ceiling....

 

[HookedonPonics]

Honestly I'd be more suspect of a spot with grow stones and coco then a bag of perlite. Best to get a few sealable 27g tubs from wallie world and just keep your bags of medium in it inside somewhere. Less of a chance of pests too being indoors too!! Anyways your room is seriously a perfect size for a nice sized vert setup. Before I know how id set it up, I have a few questions? How many amps is your main panel and how many watts/plants are you permitted or trying to run?

 

[HookedonPonics]

Also are you trying to gut the shelves and workbenches and make it an open floor wall to wall? Or are you trying to work around everything already existing in the space?

 

[HookedonPonics]

Also DO NOT put the veg room up that ladder for your own sake please. Lugging water, equipment, medium, nice sized plants/treys of clones up and down that ladder will be a absolute pain and a safety hazard. Not to mention heat and other elements will be twice as hard to handle due to more radiant heat entering the space above the garage. With 500 sq feet and 10' ceilings you have way more than enough room to frame up to a 20kw or more flower room and be able to frame a roomy veg/mother space. And still have enough left to leave you with a decent sized work space. Maybe think about sealing off that small space in that attic and adding a small dehuey and portable AC and using as a dry/cure room possibly?? Let me know the details and ill hook u up a drawing. Happy to help especially because I'm stuck in an airport for the next 6 hours. Yuck!

 

[Funkadelic]

Thanks funky pimp!

Okay, I've flowered in an attic. It sucks.

That said, this attic is massive. I'm committed to the full garage main floor for floor and attic as a veg as well as cure. It's huge. So bug I could do another couple lights flower. That big.

But I'm with your excellent points. I'm thinking of using pumps and tubing up to attic. Also room controller. Plus dirt for X planted clones. I use a Rapidcloner or my own day to get clones. The upshot? No maintenance. Just 1 water change at a week. 100% success, always.

Pumps and misters.... max flower space.... not trying to be stubborn, just maximizing. Make sense?

 

[HookedonPonics]

If your really trying to completely maximize the whole room wall to wall and the 10' height in a vert setup I hope you have a 400 amp panel. I'd run 28,000 watts, 12 trees, Three 3 ton mini splits (12 tons AC). 30g or more smart pot. Hybrid lighting. One air cooled 1000w over each tree and 16 kw bare bulb verts on 70" centers on this layout

X X X
O O O O
X X X X X
O O O O
X X X X X
O O O O
X X X

Aim for three pounds a plant, also add chicken wire to the ceilings so vert bulbs can be moved with ease. That's a huge space for a vert setup, if you've never ran trees before id def start a lot smaller.

 

[HookedonPonics]

If your planning on running lines to the attic I wouldn't use tubing either. Hard line PVC up there with a sump pump unless you want your flower room to rain from the ceiling... Lol

 

[Funkadelic]

Awesome plan, HookedOP.

Limiting factor = 125 amp panel on building, 200 amp box it comes through from the main building.

125 amp limit, including A/Cs.
=(

That said, I'm 100% in agreement with literally everything else you've said. Was thinking more like 10k in stacked verts to start? Tall ceilings = perfect for this, and the chickenwire idea is grand.

 

[Funkadelic]

I'm good with pvc. Saltwater aquariums teach you to be good, quick.
Excellent suggestion.

Was thinking more of doing external pumps and valves to move liquids where I want them, with john guest fittings so I can repair wherever I need to or clean lines out. Definitely looking at irrigating from both a feeding barrel and a tea reactor, automated.
Then dialing in with timers. Regular, small waterings with dilute organic food, with 1x week soaking in aact (microbe tea)

 

[HookedonPonics]

I feel it, I just started a new 350 gallon reef tank, nothing in it yet though!! Your not going to need that much space for 125 amps ( keep in mind you can only pull 75% of this, so you have 93 available amps). You could set up a double stacked vert flower room, a veg/mother. And have a ton of work/ dry space in a little more than half of that 500sq ft space. You don't need that attic for this sized setup, but it's up to you. And honestly, with 10kw, 5 tons of AC, commercial dehuey, fans, pumps, veg room, etc I think your going to be cutting it way too close to your breakers capacity. And yes I know what an Actively aerated compost tea is... I've been reproducing bennies and getting Protozoa and hyphae strains in both fungal and bacterial compost teas from my own homemade compost/EWC for 2 decades now. No offense, but you should start a smaller vert grow and get it dialed before you jump in head first, if you knew enough to get through this, you wouldn't need to ask these kinds of entry level questions. Like I said nothing towards you, I just feel by the types of questions your asking maybe it'd be wise to get some smaller vert grows and ALOT more research under your belt before you do a double stack room.

 

[fishwhistle]

^^^wise man...

 

[Jalisco Kid]

Get lots of money and a new service panel. I have problems rolling in a vegged plant to the flower room and they are right next door. I would grow a small tree and just try moving it 5'. I would plant on 7000 btu/1000w min. for the insulated attic. JK

 

[Funkadelic]

Agreed JK. It'll be pretty straight forward for an electrician. A 200 amp panel is exactly where I decided to start.

Eliminating bottlenecks. One at a time. Power won't be a limiting factor. Ain't havin' that.

 

[Funkadelic]

HoP - good luck with your tank. I'm doing massive new reef systems when I'm all set up at the new place. Separate, dedicated tanks for softies, stonies, and seahorses. The stony tank will have top down viewing on an open top, eurobraced custom coral grow out tank I've been holding on to for a while.
Here's hoping I can get the angle right for the clams.

 

[Funkadelic]

Also HoP, no offense taken. I'm vastly more experienced than my questions would belie.

Fwiw, I figured you'd know what aact is. I've had messages and questions about teas from other users, and I'm absolutely no kind of expert on them. Since many many users here are learning about teas (aren't we all, all the time?)... I included the acronym for you and the word tea for the unfamiliar.

And you, JK, fish whistle and I are in agreement on 200 amps.

I've worked in gardens with stacked verts. If I have the amps, space, and cooling then I'm good. Mostly.

As much as I love the most complex nutes line I've ever seen (Nectar of the Gods, hate that name)... it's definitely not for irrigation. Not even dilute. I'm strongly experienced with it but am looking to make many changes with this new garden.

Narrowing down options. I read and consider countless methods here all the time, and my results are truly world class. I'm not better than others, I am aware of the giants and true scientists here, but I'm not a rookie.

Your advice is appreciated. Even the advice to start small, but I'm not looking to go entry level. Verts are easier than horizontal in a lot of ways.

Since I'm switching. I need to know approx best practice distances between lights.

Sorry if these questions aren't phrased properly to convey my skill and experiences. And I do read constantly.

How far should verts be spaced approx? That's the core question.

 

[ttystikk]

First, I would do two flower rooms on the flip. This will spread out the work especially at harvest time, and it will drastically reduce your total amp draw. AND, it helps slow down the rate of spread of any outbreak, bug or fungal.

The guy who told you to run 80% of your main breaker was incorrect. The main is the only breaker you can pull 100% of its rated power through continuously. Between these two tips you will have much more headroom for power usage.

I'm the resident water chilling fanatic, so I will stick yet another shameless plug in here for the tech. It works even better with flip style grows. You WILL reconfigure your rooms at some point. Would you rather fuck with refrigerant lines to minisplits- or run water lines yourself, no outside contractor required? And yes, water chilling will save you money on operating costs. Some power usage statistics I've seen on the Farm here suggest that people can spend more power on their hvac/dehuey than on their lighting! This is why I push chilling so much, as it works to do both hvac and dehuey in a seamless and unified way that saves energy. If you're running RDWC, you'll need a chiller for the water anyway, so why not just scale it up and use it to cool the whole op?

Carrying a bloom ready TREE down a ladder?! WTF, you gonna bellyflop into your 12" deep reservoir from 30 feet up for an encore, too?! I can see it now... 'drumroll? No, that was the sound of him falling down a ladder backwards and having his plant land on his head!' Yeah, gotta rethink this one a bit. Here's an idea; install a dumbwaiter lift to raise and lower big bulky stuff like plants and nutes.

Can you tell me why you plan to throw away reusable substrate? Rinse that stuff and reuse it! No neighbors will see it if it's reused under the same plants you bought it for. I run my chowmix over and over and over and over... energizer bunny style. It never fails, because it gets flushed every cycle and gets fresh nutes every time it gets watered. I mean, it's supposed to be inactive anyway, chosen specifically because it won't break down... so why toss it?

Back to your veg. I did not see where you discussed how big it will be, only three size of the attic it's going in. I suggest at least three veg spaces. Working backwards from bloom; your final pre bloom veg should be about half the square footage of your bloom room if you plan to reload with bloom ready plants every cycle. This veg room in turn needs a room half its size to supply it properly. I would do a total of one plus the number of bloom rooms you have as a total number of veg stages to properly supply your flower rooms. Do not include your clone zone in your count as one of these stages.

Hope this helps- I'm not going to question your skills... just judge your results, lol

 

[GR33NL3AF]

^^ tty for the win...
frame off 2 flower rooms - check out getto's style
https://www.thcfarmer.com/community/threads/uc-pros-dream-house-8-site-20kw.58476/

 

[Funkadelic]

Stick - one area I believe we are already in agreement on is water Cooled co2. I'm just not happy battling with a straight co2 heater VS mini splits all the time.

My actual results are world class. I really stand tall. That said, my current system isn't as efficient as I want my new space to be.

You're recommending swamp coolers? Just want to be sure of your thoughts here.
Water Cooled co2 seems to be an excellent way to control heat, and you and I have discussed it. But you also recommend swamp cooling over mini splits?

Currently thinking a 3 ton to start to get me through winter. Or if cash is super tight, leaving attic windows and it's drop down ladder door open, running a box fan pointing up or even just my carbon can fan with silencer to help push heat up into cold attic.

Juggling act with $, building for SCALE, etc. Going as big as I can. Am used to this size of garden, just new to verts...

 

[Funkadelic]

Dumb waiter or a buddy... definitely.
Also, agreed on reusing soil / chow mix. I'm an organic guy. I'm a huge fan of teas.

Reading a lot about reusing soil successfully on the farm. Am used to new soils with labor intensive mixing, but I'm ready to be done with all that forever. Plus, trees require far far far less soil than I'm used to mixing.

 

[Funkadelic]

What chilling units do you use, Stick? Sorry I don't readily recognize your acronym, so I always think of you as Stick or Yoda.
xD