13’x30’ 8k de build, 32 site DIY top feed hydro

drgreentm

Well-Known Member
What up fellow growers!!
I had the opportunity to buy this house recently up in the mountains with this room that I figured would be perfect for my dream build so I jumped on it and here we are after quite a bit of work.
First, this is going to be a long post with allot of editing most likely as I have a ton of pics throughout this buildout so bare with me. I will do my best to explain the system and equipment but there is so much going on (and still in the process of odds and ends) I don’t want to drag it out. so feel free to ask questions.

First pic is February 21 when all clones where planted in a 3.5x7 top feed tray I built along with a 2x4 tray for a few extras I needed to plant (31 clones total) they are under two 315w cmh’s and The others are under a phantom DE 1k dimmed to 600w. All plants where put into 2gal pots filled with chunky perlite #4.strains are-

X8 chem 4 og’s (pheno 2)
X7 chem 4 og’s (pheno 1)
X16 platinum cookies (clones)
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The room is a 13’ wide by 30’ long finished kinda like a garage or attachment to the house. This room is built into the side of a hill so it’s semi underground so it stays quite cool. Panda filmed the walls and most of the roof and painted the concrete floor with durable epoxy paint. Then we hung the lights, ballasts are all hung remotely in the other room plugged into a titan Helios 8 controller. Lights are-

X4 phantom 1000w commercial DE’s
X4 grolite 1000w AC DE’s
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For cooling we went with two 8” intake fans pulling through a small window through a large HEPA filter and have some two 21” fans mounted to the ceiling on each intake to move the cold air around efficiently ( its winter so quite cold in the mountains). Tested temps and all is well as long as temps outside are at least 50 or lower.
this pic is lights and ventilation done.
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Now the system is one I have been wanting to do for some time now. I built eight 1.5x9 foot trays (well troughs really) to house the 7 gallon pots, four pots per tray. They are lined with black pond liner and sloped just enough to have no water build up but rather flow straight to the front where I recessed a 2” shower drain in each tray. 568018E1-F275-429E-8A3F-89E5E5207165.jpeg

We built half the room first to test everything and make sure there where no flaws in the system. We ran 3/4” manifold piping and each pot gets a feed ring (made from blu loc poly pipe and quick connect fittings).

For the watering system we bought a 1/4 hp 1300 gph GH pump (pump and all res’s will be in room to right in last pic). 3/4” piping throughout for feed lines. Now for draining in order to keep our trays low we had to adapt a brain/control bucket from old oxygen pot system to take water back to the res so we plumbed our 2” drains into control bucket and fitted it with the same 1/4 hp 1300 gph pump.
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Drains in and feed manifold done.
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For a res we used a 40 gallon trash can in the beginning just to run the system but knew we needed larger and we ended up acquiring a poly mart 150 gallon vertical storage tank, it was pricey but worth it for sure. The RO is a hydrologic stealth 150 mounted with the ballasts in the other room and we have have two 40 gallon brutes and a 55 gallon drum to collect RO water until we get another 150 gallon tank.
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150 gallon upgrade done.
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drgreentm

Well-Known Member
February 9th we got half the clones in and system running perfect.
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Now we built the other side out same as other side and plumbed it all in and tested it out and go figure there is no way that pump is going to feed 32 sites so I improvise and buy a sprinkler timer, pump start relay and solinoid valves and decide to run the room in two zones to alleviate the pumps workload and it worked great.

Transplanting the platinum cookies, been in 2 gallon pots far to long.
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Testing flow to zone 2.
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Control/timer system installed and wired.
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Solenoid valves installed and tested.
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February 16th all clones in and watering perfectly, no leaks and no failures as of yet.
Today we are at 30 days since clones where planted from the dome, platinum cookies where in 2 gallon pots for way to long so they are quite a bit behind but the chem 4’s are impressively big for being at 4 weeks veg. Also my lovely wife wanted to paint my trays so she did and they look great!!

Chem 4’s loving life after a bottom clean up today to get some airflow down there.
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Platinum cookies side looking better today with some noticeable growth but still far behind. 8852CE79-131B-4086-B4B1-AE7D4DEAAB84.jpeg
 

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drgreentm

Well-Known Member
Cookies will more than likely taken out of next rotation and replaced with white cake (wedding cake x the white). Nutrients we are using is cogos original A/B for veg (super simple and effective) for flower we will be using pure essentials black label bloom A/B with bud enhance, zyme and green planets massive.

Some random pics today from today. All plants where topped once and have had one round of supercropping, going to attemp to veg another week then flip to flower.

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drgreentm

Well-Known Member
Things hoping to get done soon-
-better thermostat ( sentinel chhc-4 control fans better now and future co2 monitor)
-blulab guardian tri meter as checking a res as tall as me sucks lol
-high flow inline filters to keep feed rings clean and clear
-many more wall fans should be acquiring them soon want four on each side.
After this run I will be installing two 2 ton mini splits and running a co2 generator, didn’t want to waste mother nature’s free AC while it lasts.
 
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drgreentm

Well-Known Member
Very nice, clean build. Looks great!
Thank you, been allot of work but well worth it.

On a side not I did run 14 plants already under the 4 phantoms and did well, had quite a few problems (half the seeds Hermied halfway through flower)so only was able to harvest 8 of the plants, didn’t train anything but the 2 keeper phenos of the chem 4 where great.
 

drgreentm

Well-Known Member
Very nice my friend. Keep us posted. That shot of the halos raining in the trough gives a great perspective.
Thank you, I will definitely keep this going. Hopefully I can veg at least another week to let these cookies get a bit bigger but these chems are just exploding lol.
 

drgreentm

Well-Known Member
Dam sprinkler controller got the best of me last night lol, accidentally set no watering for even days and they got skipped two waterings before I noticed this morning. A few where a bit droopy but I think they will be ok.
 

drgreentm

Well-Known Member
Plants are good all is well. Adjusting my watering durations from 5 min on to 2 min on and frequency to every 2 hours instead of every 3 hours because I’m getting algae buildup on the top layer of perlite. I’m thinking it is from water just running for too long. So I figure less duration more frequent might help.

Put a few more little holes in my feed rings for a total of seven now seems good.
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