Hey Al.
Great thread.
Just wondering if a 4 inch 160 cfm inline fan would be enough for 2 cooltubes?
If not, would it be better to get a bigger inline fan or a 150 axial?
Also, do you think I would run into much trouble for this kind of setup using 4 inch pots filled with rockwool floc for clones, placed on a table once rooted, and the table filled with hydroton
What would be the drawbacks? I'm assuming portability(moving plants around). Anything else?
You said you use 8 inch pots filled with rockwool and fytocell ...Why use the fytocell? Is it like perlite? I'm assuming you trim the roots back from the bottom of the pot? Wouldn't this stunt growth? I guess what i'm asking is why do you choose the medium you use?
Thanks in advance.

Vertical mounting of cooltubed HPS lights is kinda interesting; light is emitted mainly from the side of the tube and it's better to hit the plants with light directly from the tube than with light which has been bounced off a reflector, as occurs with half the light leaving a tube when mounting a lamp & reflector above the plants in typical fashion.

If you do fit any cooltubed lights vertically, feed cool air in from the bottom and fit the thing so the lamp socket is at the bottom as well. Sounds a bit complex mixing vertical and horizontal fixtures though, particularly from a ducting perspective.

Ducting is already kinda interesting in my space...








I wouldn't use MH in flowering if I were you. While it is mainly the photoperiod which determines the growth habit (flowering vs veg), the bluish spectrum in MH can induce excessive leafiness on buds in flowering.

Where possible, cover an area with the most powerful single HPS lamp you can. Larger HPS lamps deliver greater intensity and are more efficient in lumens/watt. Cooltubes allow closer lamp-to-leaf spacing, allowing you to make use of that high intensity. It's a rough guide but 50W/sq ft works pretty well for HPS. With efficient batwing reflectors, horizontal HPS fixtures cover a rectangular area. A cooltubed 1000 with a batwing ref covers a 3.5'x6' area nicely and when the lamp is at 12-18" above the tops, gives the highest avg intensity of any conventional horizontal HPS arrangement.

No worries. Good luck getting the temps down. Will increase your yield and density dramatically. Cooltubes will help lots!


I think I'd opt for the 150mm axial. Not terribly expensive and the greater diameter will match the diameter of the cooltube and will flow a bit better than the 4" unit.

Yep, portability is the main problem when planting in a common bed of any medium. Means that roots knit and if you get a dud, you can't remove it until harvest time for everything else.

My pots are actually 175mm dia on the top and 130mm on the bottom, 175mm tall. 175mm = 6.9". If roots escape pots, they usually get 'air pruned' since there is no medium in my trays. If you water so often that roots escape your pots and live to knit with roots of other plants, they'll be torn to buggery if you move the plants. If roots don't air-prune themselves, trim them off as they escape the pot drain holes while they are still small. The plant won't notice some small roots being trimmed off. However, if you allow the escaped roots to develop into large masses, the plant will come to depend on them and you will see transplant shock-like responses to cutting them off. If you have to trim them, do it often while the escaped roots are still small.

I use Fytocell because it is inexpensive, very light weight and easy to dispose of after a single use. I can carry 2x 100L bags with one hand. Pellets can be re-used but cleaning and sterilising them is a pain. If not cleaned and fully sterilised, root diseases can be passed from crop to crop.

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Get a harvest every 2 weeks - A batch of clones in rockwool - Al B. Gone

Great Set-Up My Brother!!!!,,,,,,,,Thank You Ounce Again!!!!,,,,,,,Great Info!!!,,,,,,,I Can Take It & Run With It!!!!!!!,,,,,,,,You Have Saved The South!!!!!!!!,,,,,,,Cheer's,,,,,,Later,,,,, HATCH``~~/`^_^`\~~``

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http://www.rollitup.org/grow-juornals/58174-hatch-style-chronic-kindbud-cuoch.html Show http://www.rollitup.org/grow-journal...les-hatch.html

Hey Al, just wondering what your take is on the Hempy buckets?

They look so simple and no equipment. Seems too good to be true.

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The Temporary Relief Assistant Trailer Park Supervisor. Carmelisous Jornl :: ElecUsageCostsCalc (now with carbon footprint) :: FloroTubeCompendium ::

heh, no problem, sorry I wasn't handy in 1865.

Hempy evangelists swear they do not rot roots, but they do keep roots submerged without added aeration, a recipe for root rot.

If you want a simple hydro system with no moving parts which can be run unattended for long periods, look into a wick system.



It's just two buckets, a brick and a few 6" lengths of nylon rope used as wicks, perlite or something in the upper pot. Simply Hydro's plan uses a large tub reservoir and a tray instead of two buckets, but you get the idea. Impossible to overwater. Noobie proof.

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Get a harvest every 2 weeks - A batch of clones in rockwool - Al B. Gone

Thanks! Been looking into wicks for soil.

I'm just looking for a simple hands off system. Hydro or soil. Biggest 2 things that concern me with hydro is res change overs every 2 weeks and keeping the res cool. But I plan on only growing during winter, so keeping things cool might be easier.

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The Temporary Relief Assistant Trailer Park Supervisor. Carmelisous Jornl :: ElecUsageCostsCalc (now with carbon footprint) :: FloroTubeCompendium ::

Tank dumps are not a big deal with a spare pump and a length of garden hose. If your system is in buckets, easy to carry to the nearest sink. Wick systems still need some maintenance, mainly dosing the tank with 50% grade H2O2 @ 1ml/L every 3-4 days to keep it funk-free.

The res just needs to stay under 27C as dissolved oxygen is lost readily at and above that temp; considering you need to hold your grow room to 25C, shouldn't be a problem. Without a pump in the res, there's nothing to warm it above 25 anyway.

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Get a harvest every 2 weeks - A batch of clones in rockwool - Al B. Gone

this one thread is more helpful then all the other threads put together.
Im doing sog and have tempetures from 80-90, i know its too hot but there not much i can do besides add a airconditioner which i cannot afford. I was just wondering if this will affect my yield GREATLY or slightly? Thankyou albf

welcome back al

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2000w Purple Kush 106 Plant Ebb and Flow SOG
Don't take life too seriously cause you'll never get out of it alive...
If this post helped you or was informative +rep me...

Thanks for the praise.

What is the temperature of the air that you are drawing into the op? If you have effective ventilation installed, your room temp should not be (much) higher than the ambient intake air temp.

When temps start hovering at 32C/90F and above, yields will drop significantly. Buds will also tend to 'bolt' or grow long strands of bud material rather than nice, tight dense buds. As poor CG discovered, excessive temps will also cause long internodal spaces (ie plants get 'leggy').

Worst of all, d9-THC begins to break down into non-psychoactive components like cannabidinol & cannabidiol when temps exceed 29C. You may be growing plants that look like cannabis but get you as high as lawn clips.

If your intake air is above 25C, the only way to get room temps down is with aircon. However, if you have cooltubes on your HPS lighting, you have a much better chance of at least getting the air temps close to the intake air temp. Cooltubes will also make your aircon, if you have it, work much less hard.

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Get a harvest every 2 weeks - A batch of clones in rockwool - Al B. Gone