Liquid Cooled Grow Journal

Hey everyone, I'm real busy and running late with a bunch of shit, but couldn't help but post some pics up of my new set up.

I recently purchased a 600W liquid cooled light, and CO2 injection system, and I plan on using my 5x5 closet for a stealth perpetual sea of green style grow. This is only my second grow, but first was very successful, and I am ready to see what I can do with this closet. I have a 250MH for vegging right now, but as soon as I get the 600W running I'm taking it out, and putting some tek-5s in there to prevent heat built up when the room is sealed. I plan on separating the closet into a small cloning/seedling space with a tek-5, and then the flowering space with the 600W. I'll provide more details tomorrow, for now just check out my pics!

Also, any information on CO2 injection would be really nice- this is only my second grow (first one was successful, but haven't ever messed with CO2 before). I need to know if it's necessary to exhaust the air in my room. I'll have no problems keeping the room airtight and below 85 with this liquid cooled light set up since my water chiller is mounted externally through the ceiling. So, aside from heat build up, is there any reason to exchange air more than once a day for a grow room of this size if I can pump CO2 into it? Some have said you need to for fresh oxygen, and some have said you don't need to as long as temps stay down.

Thanks to all for any advice, I'll be back soon with more pics as I get everything more organized!

shiiiit very nice, i've been wondering when we'd start to see some of those liquid cooled lights in action- i'm all about the liquid cooled (as you can tell by my username, ha) but just don't have enough cash for them- i've seen one in action once and i was very impressed with how cool the glass is on the surface...i'm interested to see what kind of temps you will get with the room completely sealed

Interested to watch this grow. I never could quite wrap my mind around the liquid cooled thing. Is there actually a layer of water between bulb and glass? Wouldn't the light passing through liquid lose lumens?

TechnoMage said:

Interested to watch this grow. I never could quite wrap my mind around the liquid cooled thing. Is there actually a layer of water between bulb and glass? Wouldn't the light passing through liquid lose lumens?

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yeah it does lose a little bit, but when you consider how much closer the light can get to the plants, and the fact that if it's 4 times closer the light is 16 times more intense, i'm pretty sure you come out pretty far ahead overall on the luminous output...i would be interested in seeing some actual data on how much is lost through the liquid however because you never really know

is air cool just the same, cant that get close also, and with air cool do you push ac air around the bulb or just fanned air, and in all cases how much closer can they get

light.............................................distant
600w notcooled..........................?????
fan aircooled ..............................?????
a/c aircooled...............................?????
water cooled..............................?????

can anyone tell me the no. (it does not have to be a 600w'er)

Ok gentlemen, here we go. I've been busy as shit with class all day, but I was able to get a decent amount of work done on the room. Today I went and got a hortilux bulb from the local hydro shop ($129 dollars, fucking rip-off, but didn't feel like waiting for one in the mail), and then I hooked up the plumbing from the water reservoir to the light, along with a 'no flow no go' switch (it basically cuts off the power supply to the light in the event of a pump failure- apparently it's necessary since you shouldn't run the light without flowing water). After all that, I finally got the light on- and that thing is blinding! I had to put some friggin sunglasses on just to work around it . I ran it for a couple of hours with the ballast in the room- and temps never got above 85! This thing is amazing. Of course, I do plan on routing the ballast outside of the room which might help lower it to 82-83, I just need to find a longer cable for it...Although I've heard CO2 injection actually works better with temps in the mid-upper 80's, not sure why that is. I also finished setting up a 4 unit aeroponic system that I'm going to be using for some plants that are in another room- it's using two 400GPH pumps to power two separate sprayer arrays- that way if one pump fails the nutrient solution will stay aerated, even though mist is only coming out of one of the arrays. It's probably overkill on pump flow, but I happened to have a lot of extra 400GPH pumps laying around so what the hell. The next thing I need to do is separate my closet into the two separate rooms before I get the flowering plants in there since I have some seedlings and clones going on the 18/6 schedule. Hopefully by the end of this weekend I'll have the room completely finished with plants in both the veg and flower spaces. It will definitely be a while until the CO2 system is up and running, but that's fine since I'm still reading up and trying to figure out how I want to set it up. Here's the pics- let me know what y'all think of the set up so far.

Oh and thanks LiquidLumen, I appreciate the feedback- the system is nice and I hope I will prove that liquid cooled is worth the investment.

That5hit- I have no answer to your questions, althought I would like to know myself. I do know that with the liquid cooled 600W, as you can see, the plants can be touching the glass of the light and never get burned. As far as air cooled, I'd say it really depends on how powerful your fan is, how cold the air is that's moving through it, and how big your light is. I can safely say that even with an air cooled 600W light, there's no way you're getting within 6 inches of the bulb unless you have ice-cold air blowing through at a very fast rate...

Is anyone else on this forum using liquid cooled lights? I'd like to see some more set ups, but couldn't find any others one at all....

https://www.rollitup.org/indoor-growing/233166-hortilux-vs-generic-hps-bulb.html
https://www.rollitup.org/general-marijuana-growing/233362-600w-liquid-cooled-light-co2.html
https://www.rollitup.org/indoor-growing/73464-water-cooled-lights-liquid-lumens.html
https://www.rollitup.org/do-yourself/697-water-cooled-lamp-fixtures.html

That 5hit said:

https://www.rollitup.org/indoor-growing/233166-hortilux-vs-generic-hps-bulb.html
https://www.rollitup.org/general-marijuana-growing/233362-600w-liquid-cooled-light-co2.html
https://www.rollitup.org/indoor-growing/73464-water-cooled-lights-liquid-lumens.html
https://www.rollitup.org/do-yourself/697-water-cooled-lamp-fixtures.html

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Wow so it looks like most people think it's a big waste of money...hopefully this grow actually goes through to the finish so we can see what kind of results are possible...

yeah, i want to know also, i think i read somewhere that these systems cost like 2 stacks

Subscribed!!! I def gonna stick around for this grow as I too am VERY INTERESTED in this water cooled light stuff!! Also, I haved read and heard that usuing an Icebox heat exchanger with an air cooled reflector produces the same results...{and is much safer} you still would need to use pumps and a water chiller to achieve that COOL AIR EFFECT! I think the only downside is you still have to buy a in-line fan,(265cfm min), ductuing...just google it....

I'm using an Ice-Box and it seems to work really well. It looks like you are using a liquid-lumens type of water-cooled light, I would assume that the lumen output would be greatly reduced with that type. It seems like it would be more effective at cooling than the Ice-Box though.

Looking forward to your grow . . .

I'm using a fresca sol. This is my secong go around. Really does work great!

Few problems for me have been light bleaching.

Seems like the two cylinders of glass could potentially cause refraction or focusing of the light into very hot spots.

Verdict is still out. Last time I had a 1k hps crammed into a 4 x 4' space that was only 40" tall. Sure couldn't have done that without it.

This time it's 4 x 5 with a 64" height. I'm running the bulb vertical with no reflectors and the plants surrounding it.

Seems to be less hot spots.Close branches <8" seem to be showing signs of a cal mag defeciency. Perhaps it's from the intense transpiration. I know tomatoes can get end rot fram cal def if they are pumping too much water.

I too run sealed with co2 (water cooled too). I doo not vent at all but use a widow ac to keep things in ck when it's 100 outside in the summer. Not likely to need it in the winter, or my chiller for that matter. I will be installing an air cleaner either in the form of a carbon scrubber or an ionizer of some sort.

I'm probably going to try the bare bulb approach next using 600hps bare with ac.

I do find that a grow controller really helps. It can be a challenge to juggle all of the internal thermostats, timers etc... to get your enviromment were you want it. I use a system called a DigiGro system. They are custom built and do pretty much do everything. Co2, Air Conditioning, Heat, Hunidity as well as multiple timers. Kind of nice only having one timer clock that all of the timers work off of.

can we see some pics
start a journal

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That 5hit said:

can we see some pics</P>
<P>start a journal

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