$7000 Budget - 3000 Watt Basement CGE Setup

Gonna put my plants into flower in about a week. I just cut several clones off of the plants because they were getting too big. I finished my aeroponic cloner so I can start up the next batch of clones.

Plants were looking thirsty when I took the pics, so I just fed them.

Just about done creating the flower room and installing the ventillation. Off to the hydro store tomorrow to get some mylar., unless anyone can recommend something else besides paint?

very nice plants

good start,but i would skip the mylar and get the panda film(white onone side black on the other).mylar is good but its a bitch to clean.painting the room white is the best option imo but the panda film is a good option to. as far as venting to the upper part of the house i think thats a terrible idea.unless your in alaska and need heat up there i would route your lights out the side of the house or up through an unused chimney. if you can get air from outside the grow and exhaust it back outside the grow you wont have a smell issue and you wont lose co2 if you decide to use it.gl

sixstring2112 said:

good start,but i would skip the mylar and get the panda film(white onone side black on the other).mylar is good but its a bitch to clean.painting the room white is the best option imo but the panda film is a good option to. as far as venting to the upper part of the house i think thats a terrible idea.unless your in alaska and need heat up there i would route your lights out the side of the house or up through an unused chimney. if you can get air from outside the grow and exhaust it back outside the grow you wont have a smell issue and you wont lose co2 if you decide to use it.gl

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Do they sell Panda film primarily in hydro shops, or is it something you can pick up at home depot?

I've decided to pull air from the outside of my house, through my lights, into an extra unused chimney. I decided to do without co2 since it would be next to impossible to get the room completely sealed. Next grow though I hope to have an even better location.

I'm gonna Bring fresh air into my grow room and exhaust it into my chimney as well. Maybe scrub the exhausted air before it gets blown out of the room.

I ended picking up some Panda film!

I also rearranged my veg room to make more space for my flowering room.

I have a ventilation issue I need help with. I am trying to exhaust my room and lights through my chimney.

I was wanting to use a 8" Tee configured as so:

Chimney < (Tee) < Exhaust from Flower Room

^ Reduced 8" opening to 4" for furnace exhaust

Would this work? I've also thought of a similar idea, but instead of using a Tee, I can use a Y.

I want to know how to safely exhaust my room since I don't want any sort of carbon monoxide poisoning due to a mistake in ventilation.

Are there any other holes in the chimney? I use the same method but no Tee or "y".

Mine goes

back draft damper > exhaust fan > ozone generator > chimney

The back draft damper is for peace of mind...if my fan was to fail for some reason my damper would close and my house would not fill with poisonous o3 generated from the ozone generator.

If you can plumb your exhaust air below the furnace it would be best as well. Whichever has the highest pressure should be lowest on the chimney (your chimney is a natural vacuum) . The reason you don't really want a tee or "y" is because there is a chance of creating turbulence inside the chimney which will/can result in back pressure and improper exhausting of the furnaces gases (water heaters as well)


Get out the grinder if need be and use a transition.

Unfortunately I am only renting this house, so I cannot make any permanent modifications. But otherwise, if it was my house I would definitely do it your way.

I'm gonna have to try it with a wye. Of course I'm going to need to test and make sure that there isn't any backpressure where I will be hooking my furnace exhaust into.

yeah i get the renting thing. just kepp safety in mind. if u cut a couple brick out u can always put them back. no one would ever notice...mortar is $3-4 a bag

medheadgrw said:

yeah i get the renting thing. just kepp safety in mind. if u cut a couple brick out u can always put them back. no one would ever notice...mortar is $3-4 a bag

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You know what, good point! lol Come to think of it, it would even be a lot easier just putting a new hole in the chimney with a grinder and patching it up later. How would I attach that transition to the chimney? do I use some sort of caulking? Gonna do a google search on it. Looks like it's off to Home Depot for me!

Thanks for your help! +rep!

a mongo frog said:

3 1000 watt lights 30 plants in 3 gallon pots, go soiless sir. good nutes and u will luv the results.

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I would rather go with 5 600w and have 6 plants in a water farm, vertical style, it will out perform 30 in that space easy, much more efficient use of light also and will keeps temps down, unlike shades..

I get a an average of 23c lights off with 6 600w, and 26c with light on using vertical, you could add 10c on that using shades and will stress the plant.

crazy larry said:

I would rather go with 5 600w and have 6 plants in a water farm, vertical style, it will out perform 30 in that space easy, much more efficient use of light also and will keeps temps down, unlike shades..

I get a an average of 23c lights off with 6 600w, and 26c with light on using vertical, you could add 10c on that using shades and will stress the plant.

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That's amazing. If I had known this before, I would've gone that route. I already have my ballasts and reflectors. I'm interested to see how temps look with my fans going.

Crazy Larry, any pics of your set up? I run 6 600w also...no ac and run @ 75 in the daytime and 65 at night.

I average 1 pound per light

Quick pic...30 days flowering in this pic

MedicalJay said:

You know what, good point! lol Come to think of it, it would even be a lot easier just putting a new hole in the chimney with a grinder and patching it up later. How would I attach that transition to the chimney? do I use some sort of caulking? Gonna do a google search on it. Looks like it's off to Home Depot for me!

Thanks for your help! +rep!

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You can safely use that metal looking ducting tape if the hole isn't too badly cut (that is what I do) but otherwise most older style chimneys like that have them mortared into place.

MedicalJay said:

That's amazing. If I had known this before, I would've gone that route. I already have my ballasts and reflectors. I'm interested to see how temps look with my fans going.

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You may have some heat issues in the summer, we were getting about 33c with shades, we decided to ditch shades as vertical is a much better use of light, also keeps temps down, also given the bulb locations we were getting free light also which great..

Bulb = 0 Tree =

X 0 x 0 x 0
0 X 0 X 0 X

Due to the layout each plants gets light from all three bulbs in the figure above, in effect 4 plants each get 1800w each and 2 get 1200w, due to the layout the bulbs are working at there pinnacle wasting no light at all, so in effect i am getting the most out of the bulbs, averaging 2lb plus per plant, the system is modeled on heath robinson style tree grow, only difference being he is better at it than I am.

It basically consists of 6 waterfam connected to a controller tank, a ball cock in the main tank is topped up each time the plant consumes, so the ph and ec is stable and the tank level is always level with the bottom waterfarm buckets, more info on that system is on the web, no doubt you have seen this already.

medheadgrw said:

Crazy Larry, any pics of your set up? I run 6 600w also...no ac and run @ 75 in the daytime and 65 at night.

I average 1 pound per light

Quick pic...30 days flowering in this pic

View attachment 1625787

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Will get some pics up, currently remodelling the room at present to make it more efficient, also had the dreaded spidermite problem on the last one, went away for a week and my mate decided to bring a broom in from the outside garden so he could poke around up the top room, he basically could not get in the room due to the layout and used a broom handle to check the buds for mold due to size by poking them.

He was poking my old ladies lol and transfered it from outside, i now have to bomb the room to kill all the little beggers and sterilize the bloody room, i ended up hoovering them off the bloody buds whilst it finished, first time iv ever had these buggers, only went away for a week. I have a few pics of my old style aeroponic waterfarm and eco system, although would avoid using both them systems as they are crap unless modified.

Will get some piccies up when i reset the room, currently doing critical mass, although got to find the ladies first.

Anyone used an airmaster venturi, currently picked one up and planned on using it in a waterfarm to increase the level of DO in the water, apparently it is better than any other form on oxygenation of water, they also self clean?

hey guys i love ur setups i run 5x preditor 6'' x600w and i have a 400 w mh in the middle of my flower room w 3 lumitec dual digitals (dimmable 360, 400, 600, super lums...approx 640) this is my first grow in my new room but im seein amazing growth this pic was taken last night 12 days into flower(i caged all the plants on the right too so they def uncured some trauma but they looked good this morning) 3 plants per tray from bottom left to bottom right: ak47, cheese, sour diesel, lemon drop, lemon drop

I say go for the 5x 600 watters....keep up w/ my journal and ull get a pretty good idea of the results u can look forward too. Hopefully....

I would take $7,000 to las vegas first, then go down to south america and buy a pound of WR for $1100. I like growing, but thrifty shopping is more fun

BS theres nothing like building EXACTLY what u want! and being absolutely blown away everytime u walk in ur "dream room." i live in a place w/ TONS of rain but its always 3400w sunny downstairs. lol i spent about 10k on build then another bout grand on small start up stuff. i cant go into my grow shop w/out spending atleast $200 but i guess u could say its not only a labor of love but an investment. go for it man build ur "dream room" i may not know tons about growing but i can help u build the shit out of ur room!

Okay I decided that they were gonna stretch way too much, so I went ahead and put them into a 4x4(2) scrog lol. I transplanted them into 10 Gal Smart wool pots. These pots are great! Highly recommended!

Gonna be replacing the ducting with insulated ducting. Waiting for my Can Max 8" Fan to come in the mail. I Will be using that to cool my lights, so I can have a separate fan for my lights and a separate fan for my exhaust. I just want to be sure I'll be able to keep up with temps this summer.

At canopy level now I'm getting about 70 degrees at night and 80 during the day. Everyday I'm fine-tuning my whole ventilation system so that I hopefully won't even require an AC unit. I love basements!

I also ordered an oasis auto-water system which I got online for less than $100 since I will be gone for a weekend to attend a family reunion. Don't wanna risk any chance of having my babies go thirsty.

It looks like the plant adjusted very smoothly from its transplant and scrog because within 24 hours I'm noticing all this new growth! The screen is about 20" from the base of the plant. I'm using 2" plastic fencing that I picked up from Lowes along with the PVC and zip ties to build my screen and stand.

sudynim said:

BS theres nothing like building EXACTLY what u want! and being absolutely blown away everytime u walk in ur "dream room." i live in a place w/ TONS of rain but its always 3400w sunny downstairs. lol i spent about 10k on build then another bout grand on small start up stuff. i cant go into my grow shop w/out spending atleast $200 but i guess u could say its not only a labor of love but an investment. go for it man build ur "dream room" i may not know tons about growing but i can help u build the shit out of ur room!

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Thanks for the words of encouragement! It has taken a lot of hard work and saving and stressing to finally get this whole thing underway. I said to myself if I'm gonna do this, I might as well make a decent attempt at doing it right. My grow room has become my new playground. I'm in there whenever I get a chance. Need to get a radio to play some music down there. For me, and for the plants lol