Grow room setup, judge it?

[WillAshland]

Here is a pic to help with the explanation here




I have designed a factory-style setup that I wanted to run by the forum for evaluation. Here's how it works:

In an urban apartment building, there will be two 2'deep x 5'wide x 8'tall closets, both with a shelf at about 5' from the ground that extends halfway the depth of the closet (about 1ft deep.) Both lights will be air cooled and the flowering room has a carbon filter cleaning air at about 200cfm.

The first room is the veg room, which has a 400w MH that is in a air-cooled and glass lens'ed hood exhasted by a 6" 50cfm duct booster connected to as little ducting as possible to save air flow. Also in the first room are 2 clone mothers. Every two weeks we will take a few cuttings (3-4), and try to root them in rockwool w/ Clonex (I forgot this in the pic but it will be on the upper shelf of the veg room.)

After these have rooted they will be vegged for a week, and then put into the flowering room, in groups of 3-4 plants. The flowering room has odor control like I said, and the light is air-cooled with a 6" duct booster and as little 6" ducting as possible, again to save precious air flow. If total flowering time is 8 weeks for the strain(s) I choose, there will be 4 of these groups in the flowering closet at any given time. The system is set up so that every 2 weeks we will harvest 3-4 plants from the SOG flowering room. At 450 g/sq m, yield is about 4 oz per two weeks.

After harvest the buds will be dried in the upper part of the flowering room, which will be lightproof and have one or two 8" box fans circulating air to prevent mold.

I think that's everything. I will post later to answer any questions.

[froggy]

how big is ur flower light?

i find that a ratio of around 1vegwatt = 3 flowerwatt. so if i have 400w of veg, i can support 1200w of flowering area. a 400w bulb can only do about 4 plants, 6 tops. its not about the watts but the law of sq. that 400w bulbs have to deal with. i think that is why most ppl use 600w. it seems to fit with the 4ft tall plant well.

other than that, i think u have to wait until its set up to consider heat and vent issues. these are usually the main growing issues when it comes to indoor. there is also the smell factor and there is the amount of e' u are using.

good job of planning tho.

[WillAshland]

The flowering light is a 400w HPS in an air-cooled hood. In a 2x5 (10 sq ft) area, you don't think 400w will be enough light? That's about 50,000 lumens so about 5,000 per square foot. That seemed sufficient to me, and all the walls will be covered with reflective mylar and lightproofed.

[froggy]

u will get 4-6 plants under a 400w light. i do 4, i suppose u could maybe do 6 if they are of different ages but 6 tops. 6 plants / 8 weeks of veg = .75 plants harvest per week, not ur original # of 3-4. and frankly i think im being generous with that #. ill bet if u ave. over the year, ur under .5 plants/ week or a better gage of less than 1oz per week.

this is from experence. i find that a # of around .5g/watt/harvest is all the better u can do with a 400w light. there is a physics reason for this. its called the inverse square law. http://www.intl-light.com/library/ca...s/inverse_calc

the 600w and higher lights have deeper light saturations. these # work out well for growing indoor because of the hights of the plants vs position of the light. i can get .7g or more/watt/harvest with a 1000w. g/watt/harvest is the true measurement of ur system because all things are equal except the wattage.

by the way, .5g/w/h is when ur system is going well. any mistakes and that # goes down. heat/water/vent/bugs/etc and that # goes down. so lets say u get a 25% lowering of yield because of heat stress. that means the .5 goes to .375g vs my .7g goes to .525. what i mean is that the overall #'s are going up with a larger light also because of that inverse sq #. so i can have a bit more inefficency with my 1000w lights and still have a respectable output, ie its more forgiving.

again, ill repeat myself by saying that i find that if i have 400w of veg lighting, that amount of light can support 1200w or so of flowering light. im not sure what other find but that is what my #'s work out to. so if i have a 400w flowering light, i only need about 150w of veg lighting to support that amount of flowering light. 2 shop lights are 160w, which would be about right for a 400w HPS.

lastly, if the plants get too tall, the inverse sq law factor gets worse and worse. if u are going to keep the 400whps, then get some plants that dont wanna grow tall. certainly a 2.5 tall plant at maturity is about all that light can handle. maybe a nice hashplant or other compact is in order.

[WillAshland]

Thanks for the info, Froggy. I've read several places that a 400w will support a 3 ft by 3 ft area, which is a bit less than a sq meter as you know. Since discovering that the space was about 12 square feet, I've decided to go with a 600w HPS light for flowering, which should cover a 4x4 area, but all the leftover light will go to the plants as the walls are reflective and everything is lightproof. Properly ventilated, and with all other conditions met, I think I could achieve the stated yield from manufacturers, couldn't I? I feel that my setup is pretty legit and am confident that after some initial experimenting, I would be able to get the stated yield or pretty close at least.

[froggy]

600w x .7g/w = 420g/harvest = 15oz.

but again, that .7g/w is when ur system is running well. i think that i would expect more like .5 until a few grows under ur belt. 600w x .5g/w/h = 10.7oz/harvest.

[WillAshland]

Originally Posted by froggy

600w x .7g/w = 420g/harvest = 15oz.

but again, that .7g/w is when ur system is running well. i think that i would expect more like .5 until a few grows under ur belt. 600w x .5g/w/h = 10.7oz/harvest.

15 oz wouldn't be the harvest because the design is setup so that there are numerically more harvests of smaller amounts; it will not all be harvested at once. Now you're telling me that a 600w light will yield 15 oz per 4-cycles in the 12 square foot space, but I've read multiple books that say a 600w would fully cover a 5x5 area, which is more than double what the space is.

Also, are you talking about a high-yielding strain? Or was that based off the 450g/m2 I told you I was aiming for?

And what do you mean I need a few more grows? How do you know how many I've done?

[froggy]

And what do you mean I need a few more grows? How do you know how many I've done?

u have done 0 in this system, that i know for sure and there will be bugs to ring out, always are.

"Also, are you talking about a high-yielding strain? Or was that based off the 450g/m2 I told you I was aiming for?"

yes, a commercial strain. i figure a factory is putting out as much as possiable. i have a rockbud that couldnt do .7g/watt if u gave it steroids. but my kalimist does .8 most of the time now. but that also has a longer flowering time. that is why i use the calculations of g/watt/harvest.

"15 oz wouldn't be the harvest because the design is setup so that there are numerically more harvests of smaller amounts; it will not all be harvested at once. Now you're telling me that a 600w light will yield 15 oz per 4-cycles in the 12 square foot space, but I've read multiple books that say a 600w would fully cover a 5x5 area, which is more than double what the space is."

u can put 1000 plants down or u can SOG one big ass plant but the fact is, u will only get a certain g/w/h. there is only so many photons that will make more plant. more plants wont help that number. i find that # is in the range of .4-.9g/w/h depending on conditions and strains. pushing CO2 and 1000w, decent temps, mylar, u can get on the hi end. crappy soil and conditions, u can easily get on the lowend.

[froggy]

by the way. there is 2 more factors that need to be accounted for.

how close u trim. how many stems and leaves vs pure bud. that can influence ur yield. i have a feeling that some ppl dont trim like i.

u mentioned that u will be putting them in @ different times. that doesnt matter with the g/w/h #.

[Island33]

I've seen methods where they have used Scrog to and a HID with a glass and exhaust cooled that got 1lb from 9 plants by putting the light closer to the plants, in a 3x3 space.

[100WattWarlock]

Originally Posted by WillAshland

Here is a pic to help with the explanation here




I have designed a factory-style setup that I wanted to run by the forum for evaluation. Here's how it works:

In an urban apartment building, there will be two 2'deep x 5'wide x 8'tall closets, both with a shelf at about 5' from the ground that extends halfway the depth of the closet (about 1ft deep.) Both lights will be air cooled and the flowering room has a carbon filter cleaning air at about 200cfm.

The first room is the veg room, which has a 400w MH that is in a air-cooled and glass lens'ed hood exhasted by a 6" 50cfm duct booster connected to as little ducting as possible to save air flow. Also in the first room are 2 clone mothers. Every two weeks we will take a few cuttings (3-4), and try to root them in rockwool w/ Clonex (I forgot this in the pic but it will be on the upper shelf of the veg room.)

After these have rooted they will be vegged for a week, and then put into the flowering room, in groups of 3-4 plants. The flowering room has odor control like I said, and the light is air-cooled with a 6" duct booster and as little 6" ducting as possible, again to save precious air flow. If total flowering time is 8 weeks for the strain(s) I choose, there will be 4 of these groups in the flowering closet at any given time. The system is set up so that every 2 weeks we will harvest 3-4 plants from the SOG flowering room. At 450 g/sq m, yield is about 4 oz per two weeks.

After harvest the buds will be dried in the upper part of the flowering room, which will be lightproof and have one or two 8" box fans circulating air to prevent mold.

I think that's everything. I will post later to answer any questions.

Do you have links to the items your using in your setup? I have a closet about the size of your closet so it might be helpful to know what your using.

[WillAshland]

Warlock, I dont have links per say but you can find out great places to buy things other places on the forum. For lights, insidesun.com. For everything, ebay, google, all the major hydro sites, craigslist, etc.

And Froggy, your formulas for g/w calculation don't take room size into account. Are you trying to tell me a 1000w would produce the same amount of bud in a 10 square-foot space as in a 25-foot one? It seems hard for me to believe, but I do agree that plants should be oriented and set up to recieve as much light as possible.