New Grower, Looking for advice on setup

[Casual]

Hi all. I've been over at ICM for the last several months and have put together a 12-station Biobucket system in a 5x10 room... Everything fits, but will be tight to move around when the girls are larger.
Clones are in the aerocloner, I'm getting close to starting the bucket system up. Going to be popping in White Widow and Arjen's Haze #3.
In reading around over on ICM, I discovered UC and wound up over here. I'm VERY impressed with the UC system and the possible yields. When I have a much larger space, UC has my vote!
A very good friend of mine wants to setup a system at his house. We'd originally thought about doing 18 buckets under a pair of 1K lamps. The room at his house is 9x12.
Major disadvantage of the Biobuckets is (1) the height required for the buckets for the system to drainback into the Rez, and (2) a HUGE amount of plumbing.
I'm leaning towards an 18 or 24 site Ebb & Gro setup, but would like some opinions from the veteran growers here. Have about $1000 to spend on lighting. Was leaning towards 3 1K setups, but am wondering if 4-5 600W setup would be better.
Any opinions are welcome!!

Thanks all!!
:fighting0085:

Caz

 

[Boylobster]

Y'know, for the work you're going to have to do to build a biobucket system of that size, you could just as easily (or perhaps *more* easily) build a DIY Under Current system as well. Is your question just about lighting, or are soliciting more general commentary?

Cheers,
BL

 

[Casual]

Thanks for the reply BL!
I've already built the BioBucket system, 12 stations. Only thing I have left to do on it is to redo the inlets to the buckets. I just don't like the 90 degree elbows being glued/siliconed through the side of the bucket. I'm going to use uniseals with a short piece of 3/4" pvc going through the bucket with a 90 degree elbow on each side. It'll also eliminate the big 'bow' of the inlet hose which was eating up some room.
When I built this bucket setup, I'd never seen or heard about the UC setup. I'd been pretty much exclusively hanging out at ICM so missed a lot of what's available here.
After looking at pretty much every thread I could find on UC setups, I've concluded that I just don't have the room/money right now to set one of them up. The spacing and massive lighting requirements are more than what's available now. I think I'd be able to get the yield from the fewer stations of UC, but the lighting requirements are just beyond my financial means right now. After a harvest, I'll dump whatever I can make back into lights/ballasts and step it up.
I have one 1K setup on a lightmover for my 12 buckets... I'm thinking I'd have been better off with 2-600's stationary, but it is what it is. Next go around will be more refined.
This is my first grow. I'm VERY hands on, LOVE to read and LOVE to learn new things. I think Forums are the most awesome invention of our age.
For my buddy's setup, I'm kind of up in the air... I want something as low maintenance as possible, that will produce the best yield in the space available.
Space available is 9x12. I'm thinking I could run a pair of 4x8 tents with alternating schedules. Otherwise, I'll run whatever I can fit in the one space. I have about $1000 to spend on lighting. I've looked at the Ebb & Gro setup, UC, BioBuckets, etc.
Sorry for writing books... I tend to type out a LOT of info when I'm commenting.
I'm leaning towards 1 larger setup instead of the two tents with 3 1K lamps.
If anyone has better ideas, or can point me in a better direction, I'm all ears (eyes!).

Thanks!

Caz

 

[foolsgold]

i just started an arjan's haze #3 grow, which i will be creating a grow journal later today. 2 bubba kush x deep chunk and 1 arjan's #3. i'm doing all soil tho.

 

[Casual]

Hi Foolsgold... Wife and I have a AH#3 and White Widow we brought up from seeds. The White Widow is amazing to me. Seems very tolerant of watering, loves the Humboldt Oneness nutes. When we took clones off of her, she took it in stride and kept right on growing. The AH#3 on the other hand doesn't seem to like the Oneness, doesn't require as much water and just overall seems temperamental. I'm going to try some GH Micro with her and see if she comes around... The AH#3 is much thinner and more anorexic looking than the WW, although she is a Sativa, so from what I understand, that's a normal. We're very anxious to try both strains, as we've never had either. Chronic is the big Dro weed around these parts, and other than that, it's a hit or miss as to what strain you can find at any given time.
Please post a link to your grow journal... I'll be following it! ;)

Thanks!

Caz

 

[Boylobster]

The spacing and massive lighting requirements are more than what's available now. I think I'd be able to get the yield from the fewer stations of UC, but the lighting requirements are just beyond my financial means right now.

Y'know, the Under Current (or a home-made system just like it) isn't just for people who have dedicated, sealed buildings, vertical lighting, and 50,000 tons of AC. I'm just finishing my first run with an UC 10 in a Homebox tent that's about 8x8', under 4x600W horizontal bulbs, and no AC. I'm still a week or two away from harvest, but I've been *very* pleased with the performance after having grown for a fair while in Soil, Coco, and ghetto DWC. :D

My point is that I'm probably running $1500 in lighting in a space smaller than yours, and I'm lovin' it. If you want to see the whole thing in detail, it's pretty meticulously documented in my Monolith thread. I'm not trying to pimp my grow, but it might be useful for you to have a look.

Cheers,
BL

 

[chrometrichs]

check out the mpb forum..

 

[foolsgold]

i will be delayed in starting my journal, but thanks for the tip on the arjan's. this is my second go at this strain, and like you i found my first go at it to be fairly tough. although it ended up male i found it to be very sensitive to nutes of any kind. i really liked the plant structure. very tight nodes, and very stout even for a male. i'll keep you posted on my progress...as soon as i figure out how to upload pics.

 

[Casual]

Fools, I'll keep an eye out for it!

BL... Just finished reading your thread... all I can say is WOW! Those ladies are big!
Lot of respect for you with all the trials & tribulations you had with redoing your setup with girls growing wild in them! Craziness!

Chrome, thanks! I've been reading about them too.

I'm pretty much committed at this point to the 12-site Biobucket setup and my location. Everything's built, just going to replace the inlets on the bucket... don't like the glue/silcone method, going 3/4" uniseals. They should be here anytime.

The setup at my buddy's has been pretty locked in now. Since I'm new to growing, we decided to try to keep it simple as far as the system we were going to use. With that said, I picked up a 12-site Ebb & Gro setup with 3x6-bucket expansions. The plan is to run three 4x4x6.5 tents, each with 9 buckets, and one lamp per tent.
I'll have a 10K BTU AC unit on hand. Room is in a house, which is kept at about a constant 82f.
What I'd like some opinions on are my choices of cooling the tents, and the lights.
Trying to decide between 600W and 1000W systems, and the style of relector, whether it's open, or a sealed hood/cooltube.

I'm leaning towards the following...
1000W Digital Ballast system with open reflectors. Build a tri-manifold for the AC, ducted into each tent. A 650cfm fan pulling the AC'd air through the tents, and out through a carbon filter. Has anyone done something similar? My most important question is whether or not I can keep the tents cool enough with open reflectors.
What do ya'all think??

Caz

 

[Casual]

Here's the link to the thread on my Bio-Bucket grow...



Caz