New build, just getting started.....

Hi guys.....

I just got my license, its good for 74 plants. I started a thread in the newbie area a week or so ago, showing a buddy's setup, and stated i would show mine as I went along. Well, I finally got some pics today to start this thread off.... I will be growing in a room 17'x8', in a bed 15'x6', with 3 -1000x HPS. Plants will be in 5" net pots, sunk into sunshine mix in the bed. Anyways, I got the walls done, and the bed, and got it mostly poly'd up today. Next week i'll do the wiring, and add the ventilation, which will be 500 cfm in, and 650 out, on a temperature control. I went with these numbers to hopefully have a slight negative pressure in the room. The 650 cfm is 10" and the 500 is 8". I need to finish up the poly on the ceiling, and hang the door, prolly tomorrow. I will be using my old trusty magnetic ballasts for the first rotation with the vertical large shields, as temp isnt an issue here as its full on winter, but I plan on buying new digital ballasts and vented horizontal shields for summer.

here are a couple pics of the build so far.....

walls up, bed built...


Walls and bed poly'd up.


I'll add more pics as I go along. clones will be taken from mothers tomorrow night, and I figure they will be planted in approx 10-14 days from then. Here are the mothers....

Looks like a helluva start.

Pretty momma plants as well.

Peace and Great Grows

Asmallvoice

very nice!
cant wait to see how this progresses

First off you will need to almost triple that exhaust cfm, therefore maybe doubling the intake. A 17x8x8 room needs at least 1,000 cfm exhausting. Even more when calculating three 1,000 watts lights, I'd guess around 1,500 would be needed to maintain optimum environment.

Question:What are your legal dry weight maximums? What are you legal space maximums?

no legal space maximums.... dry weight is 3400g in storage, and 30g on my person. the Doctor cleared me for 15g a day. Ill see how the fans work out for me. If i need more, ill get more. more pics to come. It looks pretty mundane as is, but i'tll come together pretty quick.

God damn I wish i had that much space.

Little update. I got all the poly done tonight, and sealed up. I picked up the lights, three 1000w HPS with old school 48" hoods, and the timers, and 80 net pots.....Tomorrow I will start plumbing in the ventilation, and start wiring..... maybe hang the door.

Hi guys,

I thought id add an update to my project. I got all my ventilation plumbed in, thermostat wired up, and all my timers/lights done. I'm pretty much ready to go. My clones are rooting right now, and I anticipate planting possibly by the end of next week. Things are going well, and I did the whole project way under budget.
here are the latest pics.... I'll add one tomorrow with the lights on, I didnt have the bulbs handy when I took these this afternoon. Tomorrow I will give it all a GOOD cleaning, especially the lights/hoods, as storage wasnt that good to them I will set up my auto watering set-up as well.... more on that later.

crazy setup.. looking good!

WOW super job. Nice to see someone doing it right!

Thanks guys.... I started my auto watering system today, and will have it finished tomorrow, with pics to follow..... Ive never seen anyone do what im building before with a dirt setup. I built it so, say, if im off to the lake for the weekend, and I watered the bed on Wednesday, and I know it will need watering on Sunday, (as these bed systems need watering every 3-4 days) I can set the timer/valve to open for 30 minutes in 72 hrs, and it will water the table on the Sunday, while i'm away. Its gravity fed, and will simply open the valve and drain the (pre-mixed) tank. The pictures will explain everything.... At this point, all i need to do is a bunch of cleaning, put up some shelves, install my oscillating fans, and i'm 100% ready. My clones are 7 days old and are beginning to show signs of rooting, I expect to plant Sunday, or Monday. Things are going well.

EDIT------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here are some pics of my watering setup. The barrel is raised on a stand above my bed, on the bottom is a spigot, and attached to that is a battery operated timer/valve which has a "Y" fitting on it, and a 3/4" line runs from it through the wall to my "water distribution" set-up. I will water the little ones twice with a wand direct into the pots, until the roots are developed, and I'll switch over to the watering set-up from there on in. I will have a net, or screen above the whole bed as well, and will add that once the plants are 20+" tall, so i won't need to stake them, the watering set-up will make watering a breeze at that point, as I wont need to get in there with a wand then.....









There will be a little break in the thread now, as my next pics will be of the whole bed planted...... I may need to re-clone, as it appears my clones may not make it (there was an issue beyond my control, as they are not here) ;-( So it could be a little while.......

I may add a few more, as it looks like another set of fans for ventilation may be required! I'm thinking of having the ones installed run full time on the same circuit as one of the lights, so the room gets a constant flow of fresh air. And I will install a set of hight input/output on the thermostat to control temperature, I'm not sure. Seeing how its winter now, I really don't need alot of temp control, so I may just buy three large vented hoods, and run them inline in time for summer, I'm thinking that may be exactly what i'll need to handle the potential summer time temperature issue....

Let me know what you guys think!?

Hi guys..... Just an update. I will be planting tomorrow! All my clones are rooted, and ready. I got all the dirt in the beds today, and all the barrels filled. Lights are on for 24 hrs to warm everything up. I ended up buying new ballasts, and returning the old school ones that I had.... I tweaked my ventilation, and ordered a R.O water system today. (The water there tests at 550 ppm). I will post pictures tomorrow after i'm done planting! (75 white widow) Here we go!

Here's an update guys, I've done alot of work, All with the help of a close friend, he is also doing a small grow, and his plumbing expertise and the fact he's doing the same strain is really working out great! I couldnt have done alot of this without him! I (we) installed a zero water system, as our water was testing around 700 ppm out of the tap! And it seems to slowly climb to around 800 after a couple hours. Now my water is at...... 1, thats, ONE. LOL, and that could be that my PPM pen is out by one. So now I have something I can work with. I also modified my auto water system, as it wasn't metering the water out equally. I also installed a camera that over looks the driveway and front walk, Its handy, and nice to know whats happening when you hear those noises out there! !

The girls are 11 days old, and I will prolly flip 'em over to 12/12 on sat or sunday (4 days), we'll see. I may go a couple days longer. The leaves are still showing some curl, as i had the lights a little too low, and the got a wee bit stressed, as the stomata's closed up (in defense!), I also had a mite issue, and was daily spraying, and can say I havn't seen a live spider mite for 5 days now, I believe ive got em all, but will now spray every second day, just to make sure!

I started them off with a very weak solution of Miracle Grow Veg food initially, then a little stronger, and now i've given them straight PH'd zero water, which i'll let dry up till I flip em. Then 'I'll start them out on the Hydro food. I have one question regarding feeding them Molasses, Ive been reading about this, and am hoping someone can shed some light on this for me? Do I give them one feeding of Molasses early on in the flower stage, them another when i'm flushing them out (in approx 8 weeks)? Or how does this work? One now, one in the middle of flower, then at flush? any info on this is greatly appreciated, as I've never used it before.

anyways, here are the updates I promised, please let me know what you guys think!

Here's a Pic of the girls at 11 days, with a good view of the watering system.....



Another view with the thermostat and fan in view....



Top view of the same old...





Watering Station and security monitor.....



Work bench area...



Ballasts and timers setup.



Wireless 2.4 ghz security camera upstairs in the window, overlooking the drive. (Awesome)!



Well guys, there are my latest updates. I'm planning on a few more changes/upgrades, but basically its just time to grow! I will prolly clean the place up a bit more, and add a cloning table. I may also put in a "drying cabinet", which im thinking of getting a large stand up double door "closet", and putting screen shelves in. I would have an air vent/fan at the bottom, and one at the top, going through a "can".... think large food dehydrator! Anyways, that's all for now, and i'll be back in a week with some new plant pics to show the growth! -Grow On!

Man... I am so green with jealousy. We're out here hiding in attics and dark closets while you're building an empire, and completely legal as far as local authorities are concerned. Great job man, looks amazing.

Wow your set up looks awesome! I hope to build something nice like that one of these days, great job man!

If you like security cameras you should look into some DVR set ups on Newegg. I got my 4 channel system for $120 and saved myself from two greenhouse break in attempts because I had them and watch them like a hawk. You'll need to buy a hard drive to record, however if you get an ethernet cable and connect it to your router you can record via the internet onto your computers laptop. I have an 8 channel set up now for my outdoor set up and my house and it's easily the best investment I ever made.

Thanks guys...And Kratos015, I have a 4 channel DVR setup on the property, It overlooks the building, the yard, and the driveway leading onto the property. Its installed in another building on the property... The one i showed here is just a cheap camera I used to use when my Son was little, it overlooked his crib, and does the job. I may get another "Defender" 4 channel, or I was thinking of building my own with a DVR card, and maybe some I.P cam's.... not sure which route i'll go yet. The property has no internet service, as its not available there, just dial up, or "WiFi", but it's expensive..... hell, ill prolly break down and get it installed anyways.

I'll post some updated pics once the little girls are turned over to 12/12, and go through their first initial spurt.... I'm still wondering about the use of Molasses though. If i flip them over in a couple days, should I use it in the first feeding with the bloom food? Or is it only used in the last weeks of flower?

Looking good man. As someone else here mentioned I wish I had that much space to work with, not only for the girls but to move around in, and it looks like you have a few open areas of work space.

Are those cone reflectors? If so you should be using parabolic, would still get spread you need but less light would be wasted. I just can't tell if those are traditional cones or not.

Hope you don't have too many issue with bugs and other pests. Grow on!

I havent read thru this but I can let u know what is working for me (22' x 18' rooms)

Each room gets a 24k mini split, 8 x 1000 air cooled lights and the whole thing is vented with 2 x 420 cfm fans, thats it. 1 fan per 4 lights. I'm in a basement in New England and temps are easily controlled at 75-78 in winter and remain there with the mini split pumping in the summer. FWIW

Good Luck and Grow 'Em Up!!

Rancho Cucamonga said:

Looking good man. As someone else here mentioned I wish I had that much space to work with, not only for the girls but to move around in, and it looks like you have a few open areas of work space.

Are those cone reflectors? If so you should be using parabolic, would still get spread you need but less light would be wasted. I just can't tell if those are traditional cones or not.

Hope you don't have too many issue with bugs and other pests. Grow on!

Click to expand...

Yeah, their old reflectors i used back in the day, and had left over.....I replaced all the old ballasts with brand new ones, and decided to use these shades for now. Im in the winter months now, so heat isnt an issue at all, as a matter of fact, lack of heat is the issue, when the lights are off. I am considering buying new enclosed vented shades for the summer. I want to get the bigger shades that cover the maximum area, and offer the larger area. I'm not going with the "cool tubes".

As far as bugs go, we did a thorough inspection today, and we did not find one bug, and no new eggs at all, so they appear to be all gone. I will continue spraying for another week at least though. I will be flipping them over to 12/12 this week. I think i'll wait till the bed dries out and needs its next watering, thats when they'll go to 12 hours. They sure are looking good! I plan on getting some (unsulphured) molasses this week, and the first watering they get for the 12/12 flip, i'll add 1 tbsp per gallon of water. I read that i should only use them at the beginning of the flower cycle, once in the middle and when i flush them. I dunno, does this sound correct?

more updates later this week!

ginnzy said:

Yeah, their old reflectors i used back in the day, and had left over.....I replaced all the old ballasts with brand new ones, and decided to use these shades for now. Im in the winter months now, so heat isnt an issue at all, as a matter of fact, lack of heat is the issue, when the lights are off. I am considering buying new enclosed vented shades for the summer. I want to get the bigger shades that cover the maximum area, and offer the larger area. I'm not going with the "cool tubes".

As far as bugs go, we did a thorough inspection today, and we did not find one bug, and no new eggs at all, so they appear to be all gone. I will continue spraying for another week at least though. I will be flipping them over to 12/12 this week. I think i'll wait till the bed dries out and needs its next watering, thats when they'll go to 12 hours. They sure are looking good! I plan on getting some (unsulphured) molasses this week, and the first watering they get for the 12/12 flip, i'll add 1 tbsp per gallon of water. I read that i should only use them at the beginning of the flower cycle, once in the middle and when i flush them. I dunno, does this sound correct?

more updates later this week!

Click to expand...

Using the molasses is more about running true organic or not. If you are adding chelated nutrients, you are just throwing money away by adding molasses too. (I know the stuff is cheap, just saying) If you dont have soil webbing, it's useless.