Hi everyone! Welcome to the magic show. Ok it's O-natural but it sure seems like magic to me.
This is a step by step journal of how I built my Vertical grow room. Shown Below.
After months of reading up on Vertical grows I have pieced together plenty of useful information. The supposable record for vertical growing was from someone who got 12lbs from 2,000 watts doing a SOG method with 600 plants. This of course is very unpractical for any average grower. Besides the fact that cloning that many babies would take ages, the bacon cares not as to how small your girls are but to the count. You wont make it out anytime soon with 600 plants.
After much consideration and research the husband and I decided to go with the GB Vertical Room Design, named after Green Bastard of Cannabis Culture of whom the design was copied from. You can view his Original Thread and Design
here.
the Basic idea was taken from the well known cylinder grow mechanisms such as the coliseum, the omega garden and the cage.
The Idea is that if you could put plants on all sides of the bulb you wouldn't loose the light that would normally escape in trying to bounce off a reflector. Growing Vertical also gives you the opportunity to take care of each of your plants better since you will have easier access to them at all times. Although it sounds hard to believe that this could make such a difference in weight it has been proven over and over as early as 2002 as this Cannabis Culture Article states :
The cannabis cage
Coming back to a present day experiment the Green Bastard has just past the year mark of growing Vertical and now runs 2 8x8 rooms which he boasts yields upwards of 6lbs each harvest. This being done without bloom boosters or Co2. I commend him on his construction skills, although I am doing this the ghetto way because I do not have access to the special construction equipment I believe that I will find the way to fine tune this Room Design to yield a considerable amount more than what he has accomplished. His goal is 8lbs per harvest after having added a 600watt light . I don't believe I will get to that much with just 2,000watts, but it Doesn't hurt to try.
Lets get started. First off I will go over what I have as of now:
Strains: Sour Diesel, AK-47, and White Rhino
Space:
I started with a room 10'x10' in which the Flowering room will be built to the size of 8'x8'. The Vegging room is a closet that is 4'x8' which a 4'x4' table is used for vegging.
Lighting:
Veg: 600watt Lumatek Digital ballast ~Hotilux Bulb ~Flat Air-cooled hood
Flower: 2000watts Coil ballasts ~Hortilux ~Cool Tube hung vertically
Cooling, Ventilation, Odor Control:
14,000BTU A/C Window Unit, 465 CFM Blower Attached to a 26 Inch Carbon Scrubber made following the DIY CarbonScrubber for Dummies (see my other posts) then exhausted outside.
Feeding and Additions:
General Hydroponics 3 Part series, B'Cuzz Boosters, and CalMag occasional additives: monster bloom, superthrive, and spray-n-grow
Co2 system will be set up later.
Let's Start Building
First we build the frames using standard 2x4s following the rule of a stud every 16". The Door leading to the outside had glass panes on it so I put up a dark drape and taped black plastic on the other side. For anyone who is more concerned about how this looks from the outside I would suggest lining the inside of the door with light rope and setting it on a timer before sealing it up with a wall so that it looks like someone is turning on and off the lights.
We used thin Drywall which I do not recommend as now we have light leaks that need to be fixed and a hole which is suspiciously shaped like a hand. Learn from our mistakes hehe.
I so need to trade my last dead weight co2 tank for a nice aluminum feather. Those things could take out a toe or two if you don't know how to roll them around right.
No Problems with the doorway yet, but I expect we will run across an issue for it being so small.
Drywall mud every crevice, don't leave any hole uncovered.
Whole room is primed with Kilz and then painted with 2 coats of Flat white paint. Anywhere you can't paint(floor,ceiling), cover it with Panda Poly/Film (Black/White Poly)
Coming Next: Shelving