Fully Automated Grow Room Assistance

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fuzzy123

Active Member
Hey Everyone,

So after about a couple years off, i'm looking to make a new setup.

My goal is to have a perpetual setup that is also FULLY automated. I've started researching the grobot evolution as well as Harvestbot, but I didn't get too deep. Any advice would be wonderful

Automated Climate Control, Nurtient Delivery, Light Cycles, Raising and lowering of lights, etc.


Info I have so far:

Flower Room - 10x10




VEG ROOM - What size is necessary for 24 plants

  • Tent - I was thinking a 4x6 tent
  • What would be a good nutrient delivery system for these so that they can be transplanted easily into the buckets for flower, and also be automated as well
  • Lighting - I currently have a Sunleaves Pioneer Viii from my last setup, but is this sufficient for 24 plants
  • Mothers - Should I fit the mothers into this room as well? would I need additional lighting? any suggestions?


    Thanks in advance!
 
S

smokeymcpot.

New Member
I have many answers to your questions but have one of my own first. How are you aiming to be perpetual? You mean the entire veg/flower set up or just flower. I ask because a perpetual flower room is almost impossible with a bucket system. All the plants are fed the same nutes at the same time. Therefore you can not harvest once every two weeks. You can only harvest once every 8 weeks . This is unless you have 4 separate controller buckets and 4 separate reservoir. Its a lot more work than you ever anticipate trust me. Managing one harvest is alot easier than 4.
 
D

dylan843

Well-Known Member
4000W equivilent in led is going to be expensive as fuck if your going with quality leds. The solarstorm 800w one of the best leds cost 1799, x5 to equal 4000w is gunna be like 9 grand. I'd go with hps with a air cooled hood. With combination with good room temp (ac unit or wyatever) should get rid of any heat issues that I'm assuming is makin u wanna go led.

I would say just get 2 of the same size rooms and I would def go with a gorillia grow tent vs the cheaper ones on ebay.

Imo those bucket systems are overrated for the power and cost of them doesn't get you that much better results I'd just use some good soil mix.
As for the automated nutes, it depends what u considered autpmated. You change the water with the nutes in it from the main reservior once a week. I don't consider that auto but u might.

That's all the input I got. Good luck that's a big op u got workin.
 
F

fuzzy123

Active Member
smokeymcpot. said:
I have many answers to your questions but have one of my own first. How are you aiming to be perpetual? You mean the entire veg/flower set up or just flower. I ask because a perpetual flower room is almost impossible with a bucket system. All the plants are fed the same nutes at the same time. Therefore you can not harvest once every two weeks. You can only harvest once every 8 weeks . This is unless you have 4 separate controller buckets and 4 separate reservoir. Its a lot more work than you ever anticipate trust me. Managing one harvest is alot easier than 4.
Click to expand...


dylan843 said:
4000W equivilent in led is going to be expensive as fuck if your going with quality leds. The solarstorm 800w one of the best leds cost 1799, x5 to equal 4000w is gunna be like 9 grand. I'd go with hps with a air cooled hood. With combination with good room temp (ac unit or wyatever) should get rid of any heat issues that I'm assuming is makin u wanna go led.

I would say just get 2 of the same size rooms and I would def go with a gorillia grow tent vs the cheaper ones on ebay.

Imo those bucket systems are overrated for the power and cost of them doesn't get you that much better results I'd just use some good soil mix.
As for the automated nutes, it depends what u considered autpmated. You change the water with the nutes in it from the main reservior once a week. I don't consider that auto but u might.

That's all the input I got. Good luck that's a big op u got workin.
Click to expand...


Thanks for the responses guys, here's some further clarification based on your question and some updates to my plan based on your thoughts and further research.



- What I meant by Perpetual grow, is just 1 tent for vegging and 1 tent for flowering. Harvesting every 6-8 weeks.

- The reason I want to use buckets, is because of my familiarity with hydro also the ability for full automation

- What I mean by automation is set it and forget it (for several weeks at at time) ..

- Regarding lighting, I have decided to stick with HPS due to the cost of LEDs.

From my research I've found a few options

NUTRIENT DELIVERY AUTOMATION
- https://www.etherdose.com/ (Ability to manage both veg & flower rooms, lower price, but smaller company)
- Grobot - 3000$ and would only be able to manage 1 room.. seems like the best overall system, but it's a bit to expensive
- intellidose seems like a more professional solution, but no online access & it seems that i'd need 2 of these as well which is quite expensive
- Another option would be a Dosatron setup, but it seems complicated and would require a lot of setup & a drain to waste system

AC/FAN/Humidity Automation
- Will use the onboard automation from the AC unit

Light Lowering
- Either manually lower it one a week when im available
- Setup something that detects the plants reaching a cetain height which actuates a motor
- Setup something that slowly raises at a rate of 2-3 inches per day






Any feedback, suggestions or experience would be wonderful
 
DeeTee

DeeTee

Well-Known Member
Personally I don't think it's possible to have an automatic grow, there are too many unforseen factors at play, jmo, you want automatic grow? plant outside, let nature do it for you, she's had millions of yrs to perfect it.
 
F

fuzzy123

Active Member
DeeTee said:
Personally I don't think it's possible to have an automatic grow, there are too many unforseen factors at play, jmo, you want automatic grow? plant outside, let nature do it for you, she's had millions of yrs to perfect it.
Click to expand...

What's not possible about it?

The only major thing that I want automated is nutrient delivery since that's one of the more annoying things to do.

The only unforseen thing is the light height adjustment, and if I have to manually adjust that, then that's fine. I'd rather spend more time,money, effort to get things as streamlined as possible, because it's both fun to do and hopefully increases my efficiency.

Planting outside is not a possibility.
 
ASMALLVOICE

ASMALLVOICE

Well-Known Member
fuzzy123 said:
What's not possible about it?

The only major thing that I want automated is nutrient delivery since that's one of the more annoying things to do.

The only unforseen thing is the light height adjustment, and if I have to manually adjust that, then that's fine. I'd rather spend more time,money, effort to get things as streamlined as possible, because it's both fun to do and hopefully increases my efficiency.

Planting outside is not a possibility.
Click to expand...
My room is automated with the exception of nute mixing. I do that manually once a week. Everything else is automated. (It is what I do for a living) Plants themselves require human intervention in an indoor grow environment. Yes, you can get them to grow, but there are many other facets to plant care besides automatic feeding/lighting and environment controls. Plants need trimming, pruning, training, cleaning up dropped foliage and the likes, all of which have an effect on the final product.
You have yet to mention redundancy, which is the bane for all automation systems. One part fails, and the crop is gone, even more so if you plan to only attend it every other week or so, I would not place a bet against those odds. Automating it to that extent is kewl, and I am totally into it, but it will not alleviate the need for you to be there to monitor and maintain the growth, as there is no automation for that.

I control as many aspects of the grow room as I see practical. I have all environmental variables covered, cooling, heating, humidification, dehumidification. CO2, lighting control. I have another system that maintains the res temperatures and air pumps and another that does feeding ( the feeding system is setup on 2 pumps, so if 1 fails, all the plants still get watered. All points are trended so I can view what has happened during the last hour or back several days if needed.

It switches from cooling to heating based on the outside air temp. All points have the capability to generate an audible alarm on my pc. If I lose a fan or pump ( monitored through current switches) or a temperature gets out of range. I find out as soon as it happens. I have it set it up to send a text of the alarm to my phone. It is all codes, so only I know what each code means, incase I lose my phone, all they will see is a string of numbers.

Looking forward to seeing the setup in action.

Peace and Great Grows

Asmallvoice
 
F

fuzzy123

Active Member
ASMALLVOICE said:
My room is automated with the exception of nute mixing. I do that manually once a week. Everything else is automated. (It is what I do for a living) Plants themselves require human intervention in an indoor grow environment. Yes, you can get them to grow, but there are many other facets to plant care besides automatic feeding/lighting and environment controls. Plants need trimming, pruning, training, cleaning up dropped foliage and the likes, all of which have an effect on the final product.
You have yet to mention redundancy, which is the bane for all automation systems. One part fails, and the crop is gone, even more so if you plan to only attend it every other week or so, I would not place a bet against those odds. Automating it to that extent is kewl, and I am totally into it, but it will not alleviate the need for you to be there to monitor and maintain the growth, as there is no automation for that.

I control as many aspects of the grow room as I see practical. I have all environmental variables covered, cooling, heating, humidification, dehumidification. CO2, lighting control. I have another system that maintains the res temperatures and air pumps and another that does feeding ( the feeding system is setup on 2 pumps, so if 1 fails, all the plants still get watered. All points are trended so I can view what has happened during the last hour or back several days if needed.

It switches from cooling to heating based on the outside air temp. All points have the capability to generate an audible alarm on my pc. If I lose a fan or pump ( monitored through current switches) or a temperature gets out of range. I find out as soon as it happens. I have it set it up to send a text of the alarm to my phone. It is all codes, so only I know what each code means, incase I lose my phone, all they will see is a string of numbers.

Looking forward to seeing the setup in action.

Peace and Great Grows

Asmallvoice
Click to expand...

Thanks for the response!

I have had several setups for years and definitely understand that it's not going to be a hand-off process. But with my previous rooms, nutrient management was the least enjoyable portion of it. In reality, I'll actually be available every day/multiple times per week to manage the crop (Trim/prune /adjust light height/pest control/etc) But my goal is to automate what I can to minimize the less enjoyable portions of the grow for me, also because automation is fun to me.

I do plan to setup alarms in a similar fashion. (grobot comes with full environmental control & notifications)...

I'm just hoping someone has some familiarity with the subject or ideas for me.
 
D

dylan843

Well-Known Member
fuzzy123 said:
Thanks for the responses guys, here's some further clarification based on your question and some updates to my plan based on your thoughts and further research.



- What I meant by Perpetual grow, is just 1 tent for vegging and 1 tent for flowering. Harvesting every 6-8 weeks.

- The reason I want to use buckets, is because of my familiarity with hydro also the ability for full automation

- What I mean by automation is set it and forget it (for several weeks at at time) ..

- Regarding lighting, I have decided to stick with HPS due to the cost of LEDs.

From my research I've found a few options

NUTRIENT DELIVERY AUTOMATION
- https://www.etherdose.com/ (Ability to manage both veg & flower rooms, lower price, but smaller company)
- Grobot - 3000$ and would only be able to manage 1 room.. seems like the best overall system, but it's a bit to expensive
- intellidose seems like a more professional solution, but no online access & it seems that i'd need 2 of these as well which is quite expensive
- Another option would be a Dosatron setup, but it seems complicated and would require a lot of setup & a drain to waste system

AC/FAN/Humidity Automation
- Will use the onboard automation from the AC unit

Light Lowering
- Either manually lower it one a week when im available
- Setup something that detects the plants reaching a cetain height which actuates a motor
- Setup something that slowly raises at a rate of 2-3 inches per day






Any feedback, suggestions or experience would be wonderful
Click to expand...
Your doin the same thing as me with the separate flower rooms, harvest in half the time,

But, have you considered using autoflowers? Under 1000watters higher yeild strains could give you half pound per plant. Maybe even more. And some finish from seed mad soon, the strain I plan on growin, verigo, finishes in 60 days wih the rotation that's a crop a month.

What also grwat about doin this they stay on 20-4 lighting all the time, so you can use just one room, half lights veg half bloom then just move when there ready.
 
D

dylan843

Well-Known Member
Nature fucked up my last few outdoor crop. Way to much humidity and rain during flower, 9/10s of the bud rotted. If you live in certian areas nature is cold blooded so your forced into indoors
 
JohnnySocko

JohnnySocko

Active Member
Neptune Apex: will dose nutrients, run lights, email you on alert conditions, monitor pH & temp, run pumps, heaters, chillers all argument/conditionally based and for under $300 (just helping; posted this like 10X already)
 
S

smokeymcpot.

New Member
I agree with y'all ideas in many ways. Good advice ASMALLVOICE. I run a 36 bucket system under 4k fully automated besides the feeding (which I do once a week), refilling and ph ing(done daily). Its fully automated in the sense I can comfortably leave the garden untouched for a week. With that said tho, I agree fully that with ASMALLVOICE that the lack of physical presence in the garden will reflect on the final outcome. I know I can get pH adjusting controllers and attach an auto fill float valve to the rezs for refilling daily throughout the weeks but those types of things affect a grow too much to fully rely on a robot controller for great success.

I have a similar set up to the one you have in mind.

8x8 4k flower room
4x4 veg tent
2x4 mother tent

Clone [~50] into 1inch rw cubes or plugs.
Veg [42] in 3inch rw on flood table
Transplant [36] into buckets and veg with half wattage for 1 week before flipping to 12/12 with full wattage.
Flood only once a day for first week to get roots to drop without over watering.
Best way to encourage this also is to raise the feed brain bucket so that the cubes get wet just a little when they flood just like they're still on the table.

Lower brain bucket to the floor when roots drop so that only the hydroton gets wet now.
Switch to feeding twice a day for the first/second week of flower depending on growth. Then once fully alclemated in the system switch to water 3/4 times a day throw a trellis up before its too late and watch the show.

8/9 week turn around if executed properly
 
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