20x20 Garage 12x12 Room 18x315w flowering 945w vegging Perpetual

Most efficient lighting for 4x8 grow tent for 3lb per tray with 4week veg

  • 2 x 315w lec

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 3 x 315w lec

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 2 x 630w lec

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    3

aldeeznutz

Well-Known Member
First Large grow/set-up. Previous runs i've been practicing in a 2.5x5 tent. This setup will be a perpetual harvest from clone. Also debating if i want to go 4k bloom or 3k for bloom. Just by looking at my variables what would I need? Co2? Higher ceiling? 630w lights ? All same strain?

I will be posting pictures once I start it within the next few weeks/months.

Strain Inventory Reg/Fem
Black Cherry Punch (blackcherrypie x purplepunch)
Mimosa (clementine x purplepunch)
Light Pink (the white x pink2.0)
Emerald City Kush (triangl kush x ozkushbx2)
Motown Lockdown (secondgenerationgenetics)
GG#4
Strawberry Banana (BananaOG x Bubblegumstrawberrypheno)
Bruce Banner (strawberrydiesel x ogkush)
White Rolex Og (thewhite x rolexog)
Purple Critical Kush (peyotepurple x criticalkush)
Cookie OG (cookie kush x ogkush x badazz)
HeadCheese (headband x ukcheese)
Jetfuel OG


Each 4x8 flowering tray will get 8 clones vegged 4weeks in a 2g coco-dtw or 5g soil.
Each 4x4 veg tray will get 6 Clones vegged 4 weeks (topped once rooted).
Every 4 weeks i will harvest 2 trays in the garage, and 1 tray in the spare room.
That means i will be harvesting 3 trays per month or 24 plants every month.
1.5lb per 4x8 = 4.5lb per month
2lb per 4x8 = 6lb per month
3lb per 4x8= 9lb per month

Clones will be cut every 4 weeks. Best 24/36.



Garage set up
(4) 4x8 grow tents with 3x315w cmh(flowering) @12hrs
(1) 4x8 grow tent with 2x315w cmh (veg) @18hrs
12000BTU A/C @12hrs
(2/4) 8" inline fan @24hrs
(5) 50w fans @24hrs
(Optional) 70pint dehumidfier @12-24hrs
(Optional) Co2



Room set up
(2) 4x8 tents with 3x315w cmh @12hrs
(1) 4x4 with 315w cmh or 4x8 2x315w cmh @18hrs
(1) 6" inline fan @24hrs
(2) 50w fan @24hrs
 
If youre running extraction the CO2 is a bit wastefull. The AC looks a little on the low side if your running that many watts, maybe considering running youre flower tents flipflop?
The room setup: looks like too little extraction.
Depending on your climate you may need humidifiers aswell.
Coco drain to waste is normally done with RO water. If you opt for RO thats also a big setup, storage and hoses for transporting the water. A setup this big handwatering gets old very quickly.
Id suggest you start your perpetual tent by tent and see how you manage keeping enviroment in line, if it gets hard then just dont have them all running. Or starting 2 but with flipflop: one lit, dark at all times.
Growing this big is quite different from a small tent. You either need an incredibly forgiving climate or reliable machines in order to keep environment constant.
 
If youre running extraction the CO2 is a bit wastefull. The AC looks a little on the low side if your running that many watts, maybe considering running youre flower tents flipflop?
The room setup: looks like too little extraction.
Depending on your climate you may need humidifiers aswell.
Coco drain to waste is normally done with RO water. If you opt for RO thats also a big setup, storage and hoses for transporting the water. A setup this big handwatering gets old very quickly.
Id suggest you start your perpetual tent by tent and see how you manage keeping enviroment in line, if it gets hard then just dont have them all running. Or starting 2 but with flipflop: one lit, dark at all times.
Growing this big is quite different from a small tent. You either need an incredibly forgiving climate or reliable machines in order to keep environment constant.


Thanks for your input Rocket Soul. I'm not sure if this is true, but I was looking around forums and i believe the bare minimum is 3.4k-4k btu per 1k light of hps. Im running about 4(945wcmh) lights in the garage for Bloom and (2) 315w cmh for veg. The 8" fan will take care of veg tent. Plus I am still debating whether just to do an open room or just stick to grow tents. 945watts of CMH will produce less heat than 1k hps due to specific IR rays. I also know that 4k bulbs run cooler than 3k bulbs for cmh/lec. So i might be able to get away with extraction, if not i will add more.
From my calculations I would use 12k BTU for (4) 945w CMH. I just might be able to keep the temps just optimal.
The Bloom set-up in the room will get a portable a/c unit of 6k BTU for (6)315w CMH lights.

I've done some research where you can keep humidity high (60%-80%) during flower and not have any pm/mold problems.I believe plants strive more in 70%-80%RH during flower, overall look more healthy. All of the air in the room has to be moving, no dead spots, air circulation in every direction. Pretty much no stagnant air.
I will add a dehumidifier if i really need it.
I'm doing the bare minimum to see how this run turns out. After, I will decide to have more extractions, a/c, or add co2 depending on results.

Yes, i've done about 5 runs with my tents. I am already doing a perpetual with 3 tents. 2.5ft x 5ft bloom, 2ftx3ft bloom, 18"x30" clone tent. It shouldn't be too hard to handle. I only spend about 10-15 minutes a day with my garden. That includes daily feeding by hand, premix nutrients with air bubbler, lollipop, defoliate, double net scrogging, and training. I first started hand watering and now i just use the irrigation setup.


So far i tried many different methods of growing. I think i will stick with coco-dtw. I'd only hand water if i grow in soil, but coco-dtw i already have a irrigation set-up for 36 plants, but i use tap water.
Each 2 gallon coco will get fed up to 3 times daily by week 2 of flower. 32oz @ 8am, 16oz @12pm, 16oz@4pm.
By week 4 they will get either 4-5 feeds. (32oz 16oz 8oz 8oz) or (16oz 16oz 16oz 8oz 8oz).
 
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Just looked around forums and saw a baseline of 1k BTU per 315w CMH unit.

Each 630W will generate about 1800 BTU.
 
Just looked around forums and saw a baseline of 1k BTU per 315w CMH unit.

Each 630W will generate about 1800 BTU.
Yeah, im familiar with those calculations and they all seem correct. However reality has its own ideas; we found that 30000btu wouldnt cool 14 CMH (+fans etc, remote ballast outside the room) in an open room style grow. At least not when ypu get a heatwave. Remember the numbers youre working with does not take into account your outside climate.
It seems like you got everything right on paper. All im saying is when you want to apply this plan to reality you wanna do it in a way so that you can adapt to any problems that come along. No matter how hard you calculate these things no system is "turnkey" until youve run it a few times, in both summer and winter.
On humidity, youre right, they do like quite a bit of humidity but its a good idea to bring it down a bit in the last couple of weeks. High humidity the last weeks is not good for tricome production and theres the risk for budrot etc if your airmovement is in sufficient but above all if your temprature fluctuate. This becomes a bit of a problem in a perpetual system: how do you lower humidity in one tent but not the others.
All in all i think youve done some really good prep for your grow. just make sure that when you put your plant to action that every step you take is based on what you see infront of your own eyes, not just based on whats the next step in your plan. Id start up the tents one by one, and see how many tents you can have online while maintaining environment. And remember that the number of tents you can run will change over the year. Good luck :)
 
Yeah that's what i figured i was missing. I didn't take account of the ambient temperature of the room/house.
If that happens I would just either return my a/c and upgrade to a larger BTU until its at the optimal temps.
In the summer the ambient temps during the day is about 80-90 and on a hot day it would be 100+ in SoCal. Summer nights get anywhere from 68-80s.
In the winter, the temps average around 60-70 during the day and about 40-65 during the night.

Everything doesn't always go as planned in the real world, so you just gotta go with the flow then improvise.
Just like how u can't expect 3lb per light every harvest, you can get near but never the exactly the same. Too many variables take into account and even if you do get those variables. There could be others like light, spacing, nutrient feed, feed time, optimal temps for feed, etc, and list goes on and on.

You reminded me of the only thing i was worried about and forgetting. The humidity for all tents. Since i will be having 6 flower tents it might be a waste to have 6 different dehumidifiers. So that made me think about open room grow, but that means i would have to bang out the garage which i'm not trying to do. Would you know any alternatives?

Thank you brother! I will be posting pics by september!
 
Thank you! That was my only concern the humidity of 6 separate bloom tents. I think I might convert my garage and build a smaller room in it.
So now i think i will build a 12x13x7.5 room made out of 2x4 and dry wall. Cut out holes for ventilation intake and exhaust.
I will use 10x10 of the room and leave the rest for walkway and etc.
I will also fit a 4x8 tent in the garage.

Then i just have to dial in my setup! :bigjoint:
 
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