$15,000 Where do I start

tintala

tintala

Active Member
I am making plans for an underground cellar, abot 500 -1000 sq ft, it will be hidden. I will be going hydro tho. you should seriously think abut hyrdo , coz hand watering all those plants is a full time job. My waterfarm unit damn near takes care of itself. i run 11 so far. All i have to do is check ph, add nutes, and make sure all rings are driping. If you follow a meticulous regimine you will have no fuck ups. That's just an opinion , .. I love having a farm tho, its way out ,, and quiet, never paranoid, noone would ever spect that there is a huge hydro garden in the corral. haha.


 
Silky Shagsalot

Silky Shagsalot

Well-Known Member
if you're planning on using soil, (some folks just prefer it.) you may want to consider beds. i don't know if there are any "how to'" here, but i've seen them at other sites. using a pump in a rez, you can use a wand to water/feed and keep from breaking your back bending all the time. save yourself a lot of hassle and utilize a mother plant to take clones from.
 
J

jackjo

Active Member
Thanks for all the replys it is very appreciated. The omega gardens thing is out because I have seen those before and i don't think very much of em. My brother in law came down for a family reunion and helped me out quite a bit with everything. I think the best setup is going to be a 48bucket ebb and flow system controlled with a 55 gallon drum... I was planning on setting up two of those for a totla of 96 plants.... The temperature is already taken care of ... one exhaust port one intake port and another exhaust for a portable tube exhausted air conditioner for summer and the heat is radiant from the floor for the winter... and i'll have a good dehumidifyer for humidity control.... the deal isthat i need to know how much space i'll need for the other room and how many mothers i'll need to get for the 96 plants i'll be growing.

That again just leaves me with getting an ozone generator one for each of the two rooms and a good intake and exhaust system. My brother in law will help me set everything up so hopefully by jan 1 i'll be able to have it all setup and be growing ... We figured we'd need two 250w lights for the flowering room and 5 600s for the veg room this coupled with the air system and maybe the a.c. in the summer would add about 140 dollars per month to my electric bill... does anyone think that's enough for them to be suspicious... it's gonna basically add 30-40 perecent to my bill each month...
 
potlike

potlike

Well-Known Member
jackjo said:
That again just leaves me with getting an ozone generator one for each of the two rooms and a good intake and exhaust system. My brother in law will help me set everything up so hopefully by jan 1 i'll be able to have it all setup and be growing ... We figured we'd need two 250w lights for the flowering room and 5 600s for the veg room this coupled with the air system and maybe the a.c. in the summer would add about 140 dollars per month to my electric bill... does anyone think that's enough for them to be suspicious... it's gonna basically add 30-40 perecent to my bill each month...
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Wtf 2x250w for flowering and 5x600 for vegging you sure you don't have that reversed and what is the total space utilizing for vegging/ then total space for flowering?


-potlike
 
twinturbochronic

twinturbochronic

Well-Known Member
My neighbors dad just got his electric bill recently and it came to $285, down from over 300 last month. Never had a visit by the police yet, hottub, AC, water heaters, Air compressor, Welder and all that other wasted electricity used all the time. I bet if you could keep your bill regular, it wouldnt be a problem, or if you were using more than say 10 to 15Kwh per hour. There are a few thread active as we speak that are talking about costs and suspicous electricity usage.
 
BCtrippin

BCtrippin

Well-Known Member
Go with soil, easier to manage if you cant be there 100% of the time.


I wouldnt add a second floor, I would keep some nice high 12-14 foot ceilings in the grow room, seal it all off with some poly, the high ceilings will give all the heat and humidity a place to go before your fans pump it out.

Now since you have 18 ft ceilings use that 3 ft space to separate the grow room from the roof and the police planes. Run a small ac unit or something up there so heat doesnt build up.

Your going to be best off running this off some 10000w propane/natural gas generators, which can be rather expensive initially but will be worth it in the long run, saving money on electricity and cutting out a third party electricity company from your situation

If your spending up to 15k, for your first crop you should get 12 1000w HPS lights for flowering, divide it into 2 rooms, 6 lights per room so you have 1 room running, then the other. 12/12. I would make the 2 flowering rooms roughly 12x7 each

Since this is your first one you will be best off growing some mothers, getting them sexed, then once you got some females, build up your numbers, veg them in your flowering room till they are 1 1/2-2 ft tall, then switch the lights to 12/12 and watch the money grow. You could easily grow 5-10 KILOS in a setup like that. 15-25 lbs if not more. During the time that your first crop is flowering you will be able to grow out some nice mothers in the veg room and have a whole new set ready to go in.

If you plan it right, grow out all the mothers then do all your cloning at once about 6 weeks before cropping you can easily have a full set up 2 ft plants to put directly into flowering.

The most important thing is going to be getting enough air flow, if your not running a C02 generator your gonna need several large blowers and some massive carbon filters.

Its a great idea, and if done right can be very rewarding, just dont rush anything, and do it right.


Any chance your in Canada?
 
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VictorVIcious

VictorVIcious

Well-Known Member
jackjo said:
.... the deal isthat i need to know how much space i'll need for the other room and how many mothers i'll need to get for the 96 plants i'll be growing.
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ok, I have a small operation, about 120 plants in flowerng when it is full. I have them on four tables in that room. Soo...the plants go in the flowering room every two weeks and 30 plants get harvested, 35 or so clones start from 12 mother plants which are on a 2' x 4' table. The aerocloner, which will hold 42 clones, takes up a little over 2' x 3'. Because I was still developing mother plants the clones I took earlier are not ready to go into flowering quite yet so I have them on another table, lets call it a vegging table, its 3' x 3'. Soo... I would say you could do something similar just smaller. Here is a picture of them, the area they are in is 6' by 7'.
96 ebb and flow buckets will take up 96 sq ft of floor space, plus the room for the controller and res. With the area you have described, 7' wide, you could leave 18" on each side and run a line of four buckets for 24 feet.

That again just leaves me with getting an ozone generator one for each of the two rooms and a good intake and exhaust system. My brother in law will help me set everything up so hopefully by jan 1 i'll be able to have it all setup and be growing ... We figured we'd need two 250w lights for the flowering room and 5 600s for the veg room this coupled with the air system and maybe the a.c. in the summer would add about 140 dollars per month to my electric bill... does anyone think that's enough for them to be suspicious... it's gonna basically add 30-40 perecent to my bill each month...[/
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Your brother-in-law doesn't seem to understand 'crop rotation' the way we talk about it for indoor growing. A standard nursery tray is 1' by2', at a minumum, in 3" sq pots each tray would hold 18 clones. Even if you took 96 clones and put them all in to your ebb and flow system and started over with new ones for all of them at the same time it would only take 2' by 6' for the clones. That picture has 83 plants in it sport. one 400 watt hid and one 100watt led, a floor fan, a wall mounted oscillating fan, and an intake and exhaust, the intake is passive. I have conversation with folks in my garage, right out side of my work shop, none of them has become aware of what is going on behind those doors.
When we talk about crop rotation we don't mean planting alfalfa instead of corn, we mean taking clones, letting them get roots for a couple of weeks and them placing them in our permanent fall sun room. Most of us harvest and replace about 1/4 of our plants every two weeks and rotate new clones into flowering. This would allow you to harvest your crop 26 times a year. The way your discussing it, it sounds like you think you need enough mothers to take 96 clones from all at once and place them all in flowering a once. Your mather plants would require a seperate building while they waited the 8 to 12 weeks it takes to flower those 96 plants, and your bed will be in the workshop for a week or two while you harvest them. Its not the same kinda farmin'. Maybe next we can talk about the difference between ebb and flow and flood and drain. VV
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BCtrippin

BCtrippin

Well-Known Member
Victor your system works well in a small space, thats about it.

If your talking about a 40' x 7' area, hydro will probably be a waste of money and take too long to set up and waste space. If you were to take a little extra time and set up 2 flowering rooms and 1 veg room with 10-15 mothers and shelves upon shelves of clones and young plants ready to go into flowering. In this large area your going to need a lot of access and the ability to move your plants, I would take the extra time and do 4-5 larger crops a year rather that getting a little bit every month. And by larger Im talking at least 20 lbs per crop, 30+ with Co2 in that space easily.

Its true that the perpetual grow system can yield more product in a smaller space, but if you have the option to be flowering 60-100 4 foot plants while growing mothers and getting all the youngins ready to flower in another room it would be the better way to go.

Off my 4 renae mothers I can take 16-24 clones every week. So roughly 4-6 clones a week per plant. But it could be a lot more if I was vegging under better lights.

You would have the option to easily grow 10-20 good sized mothers and get insane numbers up for after you crop.

High ceilings will be great, use shelves to save space in the veg room, and invest in 2 good flowering rooms.
 
StinkBud

StinkBud

Well-Known Member
First off thermal imaging is a non issue. The problem can be solved quickly and fairly cheap. Seal off two separate flower rooms and a veg/clone room.

The safest way is to use something like Block-IR. One roll will cover your whole room. It blocks 97% of the heat signature. And it reflects your light back like mylar.

Run as many 1000 Watt lights as you can. You can't have too much light, only too much heat. Daylight is 100,000 lumens everywhere. Your lights lose intensity quickly with distance. If you want large tight buds, buy the biggest lights available.

Buy enclosed reflectors with glass covers and a 6" size duct. Run at least a 6" 440 CFM fan through the lights. If you don't run CO2 you can use this fan as your vent fan also. Your lights will be cool to the touch and you can run buds all the way to within 12-18" without heat burn.

If smell is an issue run a carbon filter before the fan.

If you want to run CO2 you can pull your air from outside and all the CO2 won't get sucked out of your room. You will eventually want CO2. The added cost is more than worth it.

With CO2 you can run your room at 80 degrees.

I ran soil for 14 years before switching to Aeroponics. I was a mega hardcore old school organic soil kind of guy. Now I run 100% organic nutrients with hydro and the taste is every bit as good as I used to get using soil. Why did I switch?

Pests - It's easier to keep the grow room clean with no dirt. Nothing goes into my room that is not completely sanitary. I keep my grow room as clean as an operating room at a hospital. This helps to avoid pest problems. I never have to deal with getting rid of pest because I never have them to begin with.

Fertilizing - I know down to the part per million exactly what I'm putting into my plants. I also know the exact ratio of nutes. I can completely flush for the last two weeks very easily because there is no medium to trap nutrients.

PH - My PH is always a perfect 5.8

Growth rate - Double the growth rate over soil. (I also use CO2)

If someone would have told me 14 years ago that I would be growing using state of the art aeroponics I would have laughed at them.

Check out my grow journal and see how easy it is. You could easily scale this operation up by adding more fence posts or two flowering rooms. I'm currently getting 12-16 oz. every three weeks off of two 1000 watt HPS lights in my flower room and a 250W MH for veg. My flower room is 7x8. If you had two separate flower rooms of the same size your could be pulling 2 lbs. of phat buds every three weeks.
 
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J

jackjo

Active Member
Okay stinkbud and victorvicious it sounds like your the two gentlemen I need to talk to about this.
Lots of questions...
1. How is heat not going to be an issue... I understand the IR blocker rolls I was in the military for alot of years and have used many thermal imaging devices in the past... but the bottom line is that if i'm in a room with that much heat coming off of those lights and it's all being pumped out of one or two 4" holes for exhaust that heat CAN and will be seen by a long range thermal imager... or are you saying have an AC unit in to keep the heat in the room down so all there seeing when the air is exhausted is two heat signatures off of the one or two exhaust ports i'll have?

2. I do understand about the "farming" aspect of it and how it differs from corn/alfaalfa/beans whatever. Get mothers take clones off mothers grow them for xx number of weeks bring them into other room and have them grow meanwhile continuing to take more clones off mother and letting those grow for xx number of weeks and so on and so on in a continual cycle. The question I guess is if i have a 40'x5' space (i will have a 2'walkway behind the wall so imagine a wall and behind the wall is 7' to another wall and 40' space from left to right. How big should the two rooms be... and what can i fit in those two rooms give that I now know I want to utilize an ebb and flo system. ... One 55gal drum with 96 3-4 gallon buckets will i need 2 drums for that many pots could i get more in there and still have enough space for my mothers and seedlings in the other room? and so on and so on.

You two should give me a time when you'll be online so we can chat in the room and I can take notes.

As for running a nat gas or propane generator I guess it doesn't matter to me if I go that route or put a 1-2Kw solar sys on the roof I would just prefer to utilize the solar because it's much more energy efficient and better for the environment as well as adds property value for me but a friend does have a 7kW standby generator up for sale.

Stink you said that you have a 7'x8' flowering room that is yielding between 12-16 ounces every three weeks. Thats 56 square feet If i dedicated 25'x5' to 30'x5' to flowering will 10'x5' or 15'x5' be enough for the veg room? I guess that is the first question that needs to get answered so here in the next three weeks when the building gets finished i can put the wall up. Also... given those numbers and being realistic about my first grow I'm guessing that realistically given that my flower room will be between 125sqft to 150sqft i would be able to pull 1.5-2 pounds every three weeks.... if what i've said in this post seems correct as far as yields please let me know.

Furthermore from the lighting that it sounds like I need I will HAVE to find some alternative source of energy be it that solar panels or generators I talked about because we're getting into having if stinkbud is accurate 4-6 1kW hps lights and 2-3 250w lights that alone is between 84kw and 132kw of lighting juice per day alone or between 200 and 315 dollars a month given my current electricity rate of about 8cents a kw. Thats a HUGE amount of juice and would get picked up by my electric company right away thats like what we pay for our farm that has the grain dryer and grain leg on it.

K i'm done now thanks for the help and I/we are making progress thanks again.
 
K

KillerWeed420

Well-Known Member
The heat and smell can easily be cured by having a seperate small room for heat and odour control. You pump everything into that insulated room where your carbon scrubbers or UV Ozone generator and an air conditioner gets it all under control then pump it outside. You need a seperate room for an ozone generator anyway because they can harm plants.
And having solar generators on the roof could actually be a plus because they generate a fair amount of heat too so if they fly over with IR they may just chalk the heat signature up to the solar panels.
I don't think I'd worry too much about power usage. You have a legitimate commercial operation there that will use lots of electricity on its own.
 
tobaaaac

tobaaaac

Well-Known Member
My roommate uses 1000kwh per month just fucking around the house... more than my 1400watts and air conditioner.
 
StinkBud

StinkBud

Well-Known Member
1.are you saying have an AC unit in to keep the heat in the room down so all there seeing when the air is exhausted is two heat signatures off of the one or two exhaust ports i'll have?
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You will still have a heat signature given off by the A/C but that would be normal. If you built a room within a room, that would give you space above to vent your lights and room into. Then you could cool and scrub that air before venting outside.

2.if i have a 40'x5' space How big should the two rooms be...
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I would run three long rooms 13x5. Two flower rooms and one veg/clone room. Two 1000W HPS lights in each flower room. I would design a Aero/NFT to fit the space. Three long PVC fence posts would fit fine. You could run two flower systems in each room.

Run the lights during the night on one room and during the day on the other. That way you will only need 2000W at a time for flowering.

400W for veg and FLs for cloner. Two aero cloners and two small veg systems would keep your flower rooms filled.

You don't need mothers if you take your cuttings off of your veg plants. I have way more cuttings than I could ever use and I don't run any mother plants. I can also run 9 strains without having to deal with 9 mother plants.

Stink you said that you have a 7'x8' flowering room that is yielding between 12-16 ounces every three weeks. Thats 56 square feet If i dedicated 25'x5' to 30'x5' to flowering will 10'x5' or 15'x5' be enough for the veg room? I'm guessing that realistically given that my flower room will be between 125sqft to 150sqft i would be able to pull 1.5-2 pounds every three weeks.... if what i've said in this post seems correct as far as yields please let me know.
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If you built a system just like mine but with two flower rooms you could pull 1.5-2 lbs every 3 weeks easy. You would still need a decent producing strain of weed.

Furthermore from the lighting that it sounds like I need I will HAVE to find some alternative source of energy be it that solar panels or generators I talked about because we're getting into having if stinkbud is accurate 4-6 1kW hps lights and 2-3 250w lights that alone is between 84kw and 132kw of lighting juice per day alone or between 200 and 315 dollars a month given my current electricity rate of about 8cents a kw. Thats a HUGE amount of juice and would get picked up by my electric company right away thats like what we pay for our farm that has the grain dryer and grain leg on it.
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Are you sure? I don't think the Electric company really cares...
They love taking your money!
 
J

jackjo

Active Member
Power companies notice 200 dollar a month jumps in juice and that's what it'll be at 8cents a kw when you figure in lights and everything else. But it'll be taken care of by me having a radiant heat system which uses less juice and investing in 5 200w solar panels....

Like the idea of a seperate room for ozone generation and scrubbing the air before it's exhausted it's a great idea I am going to buy air cooled lights so that will help with heat in the 2 flowering and 1 veg room. Then i will create a fourth room for said air scrubbing/heat removal.

Rooms will be 2 flowering at 12'x7' (1'-2'walkspace) 1veg room at 10'x7'(1'-2'walkspace) and the air handling room will be 6'x7' (no walkway it'll be completely closed off with a 2'door at one end of the "hallway"

I will put up a draft of the false wall/hallway whatever here tonight so you guys can look at it and start telling me what i have wrong as far as what goes where and where i will need outlets and so on and so on.

K I think next on the agenda is since i know no that I don't want to go with soil because of the mess/having to haul/make it all at the farm i need to decide if i want to go with a sog type system I heard that they are good because of the turnaround time and because of the rather large area i'll be working with it'll be easy for me to put up a big sog system and get that 2 pounds of bud every 2 weeks which is what i'm looking for...

K thanks again guys this is great for me i'm really learning alot.
 
VictorVIcious

VictorVIcious

Well-Known Member
Ok, skip the vegging, and don't try to run 96 plants all with the same nutes, break it down, and don't harvest them all at once. The controller unit for ebb and flow uses two pumps, two timers and 5 float valves, its more involved than flood and drain and if you put your plants in individual pots on tables they are logistically the same. VV
 
J

jackjo

Active Member
K stink I just got done reading your entire blog... WOW I think that it would be a good idea for me to go with an aero system very similar to what you have. Here is an address of one that I have heard good things about. AeroFlo2 60-site aeroponics system at Sunburst Hydroponics
Would I be able to utilize all of that? I would have to buy 2 of those which theysell connected version then i could have just one big flowering room! Tell me whatcha think
 
BCtrippin

BCtrippin

Well-Known Member
Man your gonna get about a million different opinions because theres no one way to grow, My advice is to take what you can from each and form your own opinion.

Dont rely on people to walk you through the whole grow show or your setting up for failure.

1. Decide if you want soil or a hydro system. (this will depend on how often you can be there)

2. Build your area, set up 2 flowering rooms and a veg room, You are there so only you can really decide what will be the Best use of space.

If you really are worried about heat have a space above the grow room with cooler air, and add a small shed outside with an AC to pump your hot air.

3. Make a list of the equipment you are going to Absolutely need first, dont forget you wont need to start off with 12 1000w lights, you might only have enough plants for 2 or 4 at first.

4. Start growing your mothers ASAP! Get to know the strain, get to know the babies, see how well it clones and how fast it grows.

Solar panels will be a Great investment, but are not reliable for 100% of the time, they would be a good option to offset the powerusage though and will probably be a good investment in the long run.

If your unsure about anything you should be reading, these forums can be great, but some people can be over opinionated and think that their way is the only way.

A lot of people who are happy to walk you through a giant grow show have only dreamed of the actual logistics and are growing in a small closet.


I agree Hydro is a great system, IF, big IF you have a lot of previous experience with the strain, with hydro, and with managing a large marijuana crop. The problem with hydro is if you over nute or do something wrong just ONCE you can kill a whole crop.

So take your time, read about all the different types of hydro systems and decide if this is really the rout you want to take.

Good luck
 
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