NewGrower2011
Well-Known Member
So I'm looking to rearrange things and upgrade/optimize my space. After a few years of this and it being strictly for personal use and no intent of needing 'xtra' to sell to others I now know I don't need some massive square footage and tons of plants. A single 4x4 ran a couple times a year (when done right) will yield more than enough for my personal usage (and enough to give some away even).
The gear I have readily available on hand:
For those in the know, wwyd and why?
The gear I have readily available on hand:
- I have multiple tents available to me. I.e. I have (2) 4x4 tents, (1) 2x4 tent, (1) 2x4 shorty that fits in another space/closet I can use for moms/clones. And I have (2) 2.5x2 tents where I currently use 1 for a drying tent primarily. Most of those are still new in the box as it was in preparation for a bigger op but that was never needed to achieve my goals.
- For lights, my main rig is (2) CLW SS550 that I'm running for the main flowering space (4x4). Additionally, I have (1) CLW SS275 Veg as well if I want to bump up the blue spectrum or actually use it as a veg light. For my moms/clones I have (2) 60w HLG panels that are used to keep things healthy but not driving the moms hard as I don't need clones very often for my small op.
- For ventilation I'm running AC infinity 6" fans and have the newer Controller 67 for at least 2 of them. If I go with the tent approach I was evaluating getting some 4" fans to pair up as intakes and run on the controllers.
- The room has a single 6" exhaust outlet currently and I might be able to squeeze another 4" outlet beside it. For the air intake to the room there's (3) 4" inlets where 2 of them have 4" hoses attached so I can sort of 'route' the fresh air close to the far ends where the plants would reside.
- I do have 1 large humidifier and a couple small ones but the small ones need constantly filled. For any dehumidification needs I have a modest size unit with a pump built in but I have to ensure I don't get any overflows as I don't want to fuck up my house with this hobby.
- For the cooler months, I have (2) heat mats with temp controllers that could cover a 4x4 space available. For heating in general though, I've got a deficiency during light-out time and need to address that. I have some oil-filed radiant heaters on hand but those have the shitty newer digital controls and don't restore once power blips happen. Need an InkBird controller & an old-school analog unit perhaps for that issue but I've also eyeballed other solutions and would be open to suggestions there; I.e. chicken coop heaters, etc. HAS TO BE SAFE THOUGH!
- Organic living soil in SIPs has been my primary setup for the past few years, but I do have some old salt-based nutes I want to use up on this next run.
- Usually I run either 4 or 6 plants, I keep f'ing up and not using a SCROG but that is the plan. I don't plan to go SOG due to plant count concerns.
- Moms/clones are kept in a small 2x4 space in another room/closet completely separate.
- Reduce the noise from the exhaust into the open living space. I do have a duct silencer but that didn't really eliminate the 'whooshing' sound at the outlet into the shared living space (loft). I'm thinking use the silencer at the point of exhaust instead of connected to the fan end of the ducting run.
- if necessary, I could put one at each end; I don't think I'm getting much fan noise from these AC infinity fans running at a lower speed, it's just the air movement itself and perhaps turbulence from the exhaust tubing which is the common foil crap from a big box store and no insulation on it.
- Reduce any visible light leaking from the doors & exhaust.
- In a quick test, putting my duct silencer at the exhaust itself really helped on this front. The inlets have ducting on 2 of them and the 3rd one uses a couple of 90 degree elbows to eliminate light leaks and those were painted black inside to further help.
- The door to the room doesn't make a great light-tight seal & prior attempts didn't work out well. Using the tents inside the room could mitigate the light leak concerns. I've not had hermi's from light leaking IN it's the light leaking OUT that I'm trying to eliminate here for security reasons.
- Consider consolidating all hobby related operations into the 1 space for security considerations (lockable door) and if the side-effect of having them co-located could be turned into an advantage somehow.
- Of course, improving yield never hurts. I did pull just shy of 40oz in SIPs (x4) in effectively a 4x4 space once - but I haven't achieved that same outcome again since then (even with same strain/phenos and lights/environment). I was pushing the nutes a bit harder by having both my super soil and top feeding some NFTG goodies to give them bumps occasionally.
- Use the tents in the room vs leave it open like I've been doing up to this point? If I use a tent then the fan/exhaust would pull from inside it and it would in turn pull air from the room but I have the choice of passive vs active and if I want to use 1 or more of the (3) 4" inlets directly to the tent inlet.
- One concern here is dead air in the room outside of the tent. If the tent used 1 of the 4" intakes directly and the other from the room that'd help I think.
- During a power outage I was freaking out a bit about the odor - using a tent might have helped better contain it with a lack of negative pressure.
- Good ole' VPD and Humidity. It's dry as shit in the house with winter especially. For summer with the AC on it remains in that 40-50% range.
- The space outside of the tent could help reduce the cubic footage I need to humidify or dehumidify assuming the tent is drawing from it.
- The grow space/room itself can be somewhat of a 'lung room' but the inlets are also drawing from a bedroom that is effectively the primary (large) lung room. It exhausts into a loft that the same bedroom has a door to but there's a decent amount of space separating the inlets & outlets in the current setup.
- Do I go with the SIP route again given the salt-based nutes; I'm considering it.
- Was looking at how to repurpose the SIPs to be used in a semi-DTW type of setup; I have pumps that can be used to drain things on an as-needed basis.
- Also considered leave the 'wicks' in the SIPs and letting the plants wick up what it wants between the times I run the pumps to really drain the 'waste' as they are not on any type of float-switch and short of that I could run them on a timer but want to avoid the risks of any dry runs and destroying the pumps.
- I do have good old fashioned 5g buckets prepared and ready to rock otherwise with my current medium ready to go (coco-based primarily but some perlite, peat & a handful or two of some NFTG #4/EWC/Bu's I had prepared a while back).
- I have a single 20a outlet for the space. There is access to plugs for another 15a circuit but that is shared with 2 other bedrooms so I try to not run much of anything on it. The builder was a jack ass and cut corners on the wiring (another rant for another day) so I was surprised to find the shared circuits.
- The far end that has an exterior wall does tend to get very cold in winter and hot in the summer as there's a window that I've covered over. I think I did have 1 run where something cause the 2 plants at that end to damp-off/die with some white funky mold around the main stem but the other 2 plants at the other end were fine and luckily it didn't spread to them.
For those in the know, wwyd and why?
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