3000W "Under Current" system

Discussion in 'Indoor Grow Journals' started by Hydro Druid, Feb 3, 2011.

  1. #1 Hydro Druid, Feb 3, 2011
    Last edited by a moderator: Feb 3, 2011
    *Under construction pics*

    Tireless work and months of building. After test run (1) room will be upgraded to 9000 Watts and 3 separate Under Current Systems. Water chillers will be added once day time temperatures increase.

    Control room consist of sub panel and on other side drain and water. 300 GPD RO with 50 psi booster pump, 40 psi pressure switch and solenoid shut off on waste water line prevents system from wasting water. Use 50/5 micron depth sediment filter and KDF-55/GAC filter to remove sediments, toxic metals , scale and destroy organisms in the water before entering the TFC membranes. A 120 gallon food grade UV resistant tank stores water and a 60 PSI pump with pressure switch delivers water anywhere I want.

    ~HD
     

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  2. #2 Hydro Druid, Feb 3, 2011
    Last edited by a moderator: Feb 3, 2011
    *Completed room pics*

    week 1 of veg.

    Lights: (3) 1000 W HPS with Air hoods
    Air: 2 separate air loops
    Temp: 75-77.5
    Humidity: 40-50%
    AC: 2.5 ton Mini Split (not used until summer)
    CO2: YES
    Fresh Water: RO (0-10 TDS)
    Plant sites: 12
    Module size: 8 gallon per
    Veg: 21 days
    Flower: 8 weeks
    Nutes: House and Garden Aqua Flakes
    Additives: Drip Clean, Root excel, Multi-Zen, BudXL, Top Booster, Shooting Powder (applied at different rates at different times)

    Lights are mounted to a worm loop winch (2000lb) and a 14 ft straight stage light truss

    All duct work is done in straight duct work except the ends of the truss to allow for up and down movement. Straight duct work makes ventilation quieter and reduces drag on fan. Insulation on metal duct work helps keep temps down. Left one 8" pipe exposed for illustration purposes.

    Room walls are 12 feet patented vapor/heat mylar barrier covered plywood and green-board moisture resistant dry wall. Water treated base boards are silicone sealed to concrete floor for spills.
     

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  3. #3 Hydro Druid, Feb 3, 2011
    Last edited by a moderator: Feb 5, 2011
    Plants were vegging from clone in aeroponic tray in mother room for 2 weeks before being transplanted to Undercurrent on Feb 2nd.

    Mother room is in process of being converted to a clean room for Tissue Culture micro propagation. NO MOTHERS or CLONING.

    Tissue culture is a more professional/sterile way of storing genetics in-vitro; virtually maintenance free. Desired genetics are muliplied and when ready moved to Grodan cubes (2x2) tray and dome to hardened then moved to aero tray to tone and harden further under 250w MH before moving into the under current flower room.

    Transplants are toning in undercurrent modules under 4 ft T-5 (4 bulb) system. (3) 1000 watt lights turn on and off through out day during toning process until plants are hardened (4-7 days). Once hardened, T-5 will be removed and (3) 1000 Watt's will be on 24/7 until ideal plant size is reached. Then flipped to 12 hour photo period.

    Plants will be subjected to training with tomato square cages to open up plant centers and then bushed out with super-cropping. I have 12 ft ceiling so I have plenty of space to play with but keep the large bushed plant canopy only about 3 ft wide 5 ft tall and 18-20" deep so ensure complete light penetration from lights above while allowing easy access to modules and plants from below the canopy.

    ~HD
     

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  4. #4 janemba, Feb 4, 2011
    Last edited by a moderator: Feb 4, 2011
    oh nice u already put them in the under current system...

    if people only knew how much work was put into this room
     
  5. Are you kidging me Hydro! That's a B.E.A.UTIFUL set up! Extremely professional. Did you get a licensed electrician to do all your wire, it's really clean. Not to mention everything else. Man I'm sorry, but this just looks incredible. I love that your using house and garden nutes too. I've got those in my buckets right now and they run so clean it's almost unbelievable. Not to mention their stability. You mix your nutes, add your PH adjustment and relax! you might see a slight swing within a week or two but whats a couple ml of PH down? haha.
     

  6. Right, like we as growers don't have enough to worry about without our nutes fluctuating on us. Thats why I switch to H&G after a year of side by sides with other nute lines. H&G performs beautifully and consitantly. Product always smells, and taste great. The additive line is the best in the business in my opinion.

    Yeah, electrician ran the wiring, Janemba here on Grass city is my construction project manager on my last two builds. He built the walls to my specs for both flower and veg room. I designed and built the ventilation, lights wench, water system and tracked down all the parts for the undercurrent. Janemba helped me with the final stage of putting the UC together. Those seals are tough to work with when using 3".

    Thanks man, I'm glad you like it. Not done just yet. I'm adding clean white walls all around garden soon. Those brick's aren't very reflective. LOL

    ~HD
     
  7. Dude, I'm jealous, you have tons of space in there. Looks like you need a couple more big T5 lights for veggin. Tuned in man, keep your progress posted please.
     

  8. I rigged up a few more. they will be coming down soon. Toning and hardening is going well so far.
     
  9. Great setup and it actually is professionally done! I'll definitely be along for the ride. :smoke:
     
  10. please share more about your experiences with tissue culture. I've read about this in mags but never seen anyone trying it themselves.

    pictures, updates, progress...anything ya got. thanks

    and I think we're all jealous of your growing space!
     
  11. here check out druids post
     
  12. aww that's just a cock tease! I was hoping for details and experiences learned through trial and error

    stuff like that;)


    but seriously, science rules.
     
  13. haha... i get to spend time in this garden i built most of it, its pretty sick the things were doing in there. were gonna try some cool experiments with the tissue culture. we have these seeds that are 20+ years old from vietnam, that will not sprout, and are gonna try and resurrect them with the TC.
     

  14. Ho Chi Minh seeds!!! now you GOTTA document that for us!
     
  15. #15 Hydro Druid, Feb 10, 2011
    Last edited by a moderator: Feb 10, 2011

    My experience has been a blast. It's great for the mad scientist type. My genetics have never felt safer. Caring for mothers is a bitch. Sure it's simple and easy but it requires energy from your wall socket and person. I look back at great genetics I lost for what ever reason as a newb and it was because of the caring for mothers around life. Thats why I got into TC; Not to mention the much needed vacation time. My genetics are secure and safe in an easy to manage system.

    The pest and viruses & diseases (VD) that inevitably happen (given a long enough time line) stay with the cutting it's whole life. As time goes on desirable traits slowly but surely fad away as the plant combats environment, time and pest. The good news is the DNA is still the same and it can be revived and restored. Lost traits have been known to come back after a healthy or unhealthy clone is TC'd. Hard to germinate seeds or hard to clone plants become very easy to get propagated.

    The virus and diseases that effect cannabis have a hard time keeping up with growth shoots. In cloning you need a decent amount of stem but the VD (viruses and diseases) are in the stem. This is why the clones on the street's are usually so crappy. By utilizing the meristem of the top fastest growing shoot you start with tissue free of VD. Proper sterilization allows the VD free meristem to propagate quickly under low light in a safe little glass home. Also unlike cuttings/clones you have options with TC. I can take that meristem and multiply it in a few weeks. In a 30 day period I could make hundreds of perfect replicas or make just one stem root; it's all in the hormones. Usually a plant is trading off auxins (positively influence cell enlargement, bud formation and root initiation) and cytokinins (influence cell division and shoot formation). In the TC environment you don't need roots to grow shoots. You provide the plant with everything it needs and the right naturally occurring plant hormones for the task you want it to do (rooting or multiplying).

    Auxins can be introduced to grow roots for the many shoots you created. Cytokinins can be used to multiply tissue rapidly. You can graft plants together or work with a callus (generic tissue) to possibly make new strains from A &B stock without breeding and stabilizing. My favorite part is you can make a whole plant from just a piece of leaf if your Hormones are in correct proportions. Also, you can start with tissue from a plant in full flower.

    Feel free to ask anything you like if you're left with questions. If people are interested I could do a step by step with pics of the whole process.

    ~HD
     

  16. Fuck Yeah, this is something I must know.. Local Medical laws make it hard to keep a mother and grow to full potential when you cant have more plants in veg than in flower... taking clones before each flower is nice and all but man it would be easy to wipe out the genetics I acquire..

    How long can you "store" them? I am thinking it may be better to do a full grow of all the same strain but I like variety.. keeping a mom alive for half a year or more between cuttings is going to take up a ton of energy and space.
     
  17. This definitely sounds like something I'd venture into...very interesting

    Any articles or research you could recommend to read up? I'm going to google and wiki all day at work tomorrow...

    I would very much enjoy a detail picture journal of the process.

    My first question is about the hormones...do you just order this stuff online? How did you come about instructions to use and apply this stuff? Until I see it...I have this mental picture of stem cell research in petri dishes haha
     
  18. #18 Hydro Druid, Feb 10, 2011
    Last edited by a moderator: Feb 10, 2011

    The preservatives in the media keep the plants very small and miniature until planting. The media contains everything the plant needs and can become exhausted after several weeks. Storing them is tricky. If your going for just roots then storing them for long period would cause problems as the plant grows. If going for multiplication then 3-5 weeks the shoots would need to be separated from the jar and moved to new jars. One jar could develop into 3-9 plants in 3-5 weeks. Those 3 -9 plants could develop 9-27 more plants in 3-5 weeks. 9-27 plants could develop into 27-81 plants and so on. it's safe to say every 6 weeks they will need your attention. Moving them to new jars is simple and requires only mixing a new batch of food, sanitizing food/jars/equipment and preparing a sanitized work station.

    ~HD


    I use modified basil salts with vitamins, hormones ( Benzyl Aminopurine & Naphthalene Acetic Acid), plant preservatives, table sugar and agar set to a pH of 5.6-5.8.

    I order the modified basil salts with vitamins on-line along with the hormones and preservatives. The sugar from the super market and the agar from a health food store. You could use a favorite hydroponic food in place of the basil salts. I prefer the basil salts because they are highly refined and pure.

    It's the same process used for animal culture and very similar to stem cell. Petri dishes will work but I find they lack the head room needed for cannabis. A slower growing plant might work in petri's. Test tubes work ok but the baby food jars work great. I use a special lid on the baby food jars that allows gases to exchange.

    ~HD
     
  19. #19 bentripin, Feb 10, 2011
    Last edited by a moderator: Feb 10, 2011
    I think that could work pretty well for cycling genetics. after 6 weeks cull the growth back down to a few samples and re-feed, do this twice more but the last time i'll have 9 plants ready to start veg which is my capacity.

    This would give me roughly 5.5 months of "storage", which is enough time to start them a few weeks before I would begin a 4th flowering cycle; assuming back to back 8 weeks apart.. Just as they started taking up room I'd be moving the previous genetics out of veg and into flower... the'd get about 10 weeks of veg, and for 2 weeks I would have twice the plants in my veg cabinet but I think I can handle this. I think it'd be awesome to do full grows of the same strain yet alternate between 5 strains without tending to a bunch of root-bound mothers or sexing seeds all the time... I think it would be worth the effort..

    *edit*
    Wait I just saw your other post about flash freezing the samples, well shit tha'd make long term storage very low maintenance now wouldn't it? Tha'd make timing easier too. I think my laboratory is going to have some crazy experiments going on here soon.
     

  20. LOL

    We need more mad scientist farmers out there.
     

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