Club Vert(600)

Hello all, this is my first post, I have been browsing through alot of the stuff on this site and I really like the atmosphere of this forum. This will be my first grow, but im going into it with alot of research/brainstorming/creativity. havent got any plants started yet, I plan to begin germinating my seeds Dec 1st, just bought some kali-mist seeds from serious seeds so Im pretty stoked that I have a potent strain like that, I have been playing with lots of ideas as to how I'll be setting up my grow. Vertical Scrog is definately appealing to me. Im thinking to have 1 400watt superMH hung low and have 1 600watt HPS hung a foot or so above that. I will be growing from seed(I have 11) so however many of those successfully germinate will be how many I place around those two bulbs.

I havent seen these "cool tubes" until I hit this thread... are these purchased at a store or are they something you guys DIY??? how much closer to the plants are you able to bring the lights with those on? Snowgrow19 you mentioned your getting more trichs without it on, but I would think you can bring your plants a whole lot closer to the bulb for overall more production.

also another question about if Vert growing stops plants from growing up... MEGAyeilder420 you said that they will always grow up because of the auxins going up, but what if I have my colas trained so they are facing down(like they did a U-turn)? Will the colas stretch downward after being turned upside down like that? Im a little worried about having my 90% sativa strain shoot through the roof on me.

Ill be using soil, not sure what Im doing for nutes yet. I was also thinking of turning my 400 MH on 2 hours later and off 2 hours earlier than the 600 HPS to mimic sun-up and sundown/save money, any thoughts on that?

Heres an idea I have to increase yeild, let me know if youve ever seen anything like it or if you think its just too crazy to do....
since ill be working with a sativa strain I might not be able to bush out my plants effectively so im thinking to top the plant twice, creating 4 colas to each plant. I would then anchor 4 bamboo sticks into each pot and train each cola up the sticks. Each corner of my pot will have 1 cola. That will give me a narrow profile, with each plant being trained so that it doesnt reach more than a few inches past the edge of the pot(unlike Vert Scrog where you have a 2 dimentional screen that reaches past the width of the pot). The crazy part of the idea is that I want to place each pot on some sort of automated rotating holder. with 6 plants I will need 6 of these rotating pot bases(do they already exist?! ?). I imagine I would want to set them so that during a 12 hour period my plants will complete 1 360degree rotation thus equally distributing my 1000watts onto the plants
...so how do I make that happen?

Thedillestpickle said:

Hello all, this is my first post, I have been browsing through alot of the stuff on this site and I really like the atmosphere of this forum.

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Welcome to RIU. I really like the place too.

Thedillestpickle said:

Vertical Scrog is definately appealing to me. Im thinking to have 1 400watt superMH hung low and have 1 600watt HPS hung a foot or so above that.

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Vert scrog is the way to go in my eyes, but I'm quite biased. The lighting plan sounds good. 250 MH on bottom and 400 HPS on top worked great for me... one step up should be even better.

Thedillestpickle said:

I havent seen these "cool tubes" until I hit this thread... are these purchased at a store or are they something you guys DIY???

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You can buy cooltubes from all sorts of places. Mine is DIY... here's a link to how I made it (well how I made one of my fixtures at least)
https://www.rollitup.org/do-yourself/161300-batwing-reflector-cool-tube-40-a.html#post2315758

I view 40 posts per page, so the link might not get you to my post... it's #37 in that thread. (it's the really really long one with lots of pics)

Thedillestpickle said:

how much closer to the plants are you able to bring the lights with those on?

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Any way you do it with a cool tube, enclosure, or bare bulb... if you are cooling things enough heat wont be an issue, so really the closeness to the lights is determined by when the buds start bleaching. I can hold my hand on my cool tube even with the 1000w in there... my buds could get within an inch probably and not burn... BUT they bleach at about 6-8" away from the 1000w, not sure about 600's. The 400 you could get really really close, like a couple inches from the tube.

Thedillestpickle said:

Snowgrow19 you mentioned your getting more trichs without it on, but I would think you can bring your plants a whole lot closer to the bulb for overall more production.

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I have only run cooltubes, never a bare bulb, so I don't know from experience, but I think the best way to do it is bare bulb. Like above the closeness has to do with bleaching, so with a tube or not you will be able to get them about as close (technically the glass robs some of the light, so you could get a tiny bit closer with the glass... but it's probably the same amount of light, feel me). So yeah, imo the best is bare... more light intensity always better. And that's coming from someone who'd never even done it, lol.

Thedillestpickle said:

also another question about if Vert growing stops plants from growing up... MEGAyeilder420 you said that they will always grow up because of the auxins going up, but what if I have my colas trained so they are facing down(like they did a U-turn)? Will the colas stretch downward after being turned upside down like that?

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They will always want to grow up. You can keep tying them back, but if you leave them to do what they want they will grow up. Well, up and leaning towards the light, but it's not like they are going to say to themselves "I think theDillest want's us to grow down, so lets do that". But you can train them to do whatever the hell you want them to do.

Thedillestpickle said:

I was also thinking of turning my 400 MH on 2 hours later and off 2 hours earlier than the 600 HPS to mimic sun-up and sundown/save money, any thoughts on that?

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Sounds good to me. However if you wanted to mimic sunrise/down I think turning the HPS on first and last with the MH in the midday would be closer to reality. Plus if you have the HPS on top that's where the biggest buds will most likely be, so you want to bring those along as well as possible, leaving the bottom to do what it can with what it gets. I'd do it the other way around. And 2 hours each end might be pusing it. Maybe an hour on each end. Maybe someone has experience.

Thedillestpickle said:

im thinking to top the plant twice, creating 4 colas to each plant.

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If you do this early it will work like that, but you have to cut at the right node at the right time (at least that's what I understand). If you cut them above a certain node they will give you either 4 or 8 tops... I tried to find the thread but was unsuccessful. Other wise if you just cut it somewhere not specific it will make the lower branches more dominant, but you probably won't get 4 matching tops.

Thedillestpickle said:

I would then anchor 4 bamboo sticks into each pot and train each cola up the sticks. Each corner of my pot will have 1 cola. That will give me a narrow profile, with each plant being trained so that it doesnt reach more than a few inches past the edge of the pot(unlike Vert Scrog where you have a 2 dimentional screen that reaches past the width of the pot).

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I haven't the slightest what you mean about this.

Thedillestpickle said:

The crazy part of the idea is that I want to place each pot on some sort of automated rotating holder. with 6 plants I will need 6 of these rotating pot bases(do they already exist?! ?). I imagine I would want to set them so that during a 12 hour period my plants will complete 1 360degree rotation thus equally distributing my 1000watts onto the plants
...so how do I make that happen?

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This is a subject people like to argue about. I've never personally done a side by side to know, but from all I've read, considering the sources and the things they said, my opinion is that you will slightly decrease your yeild by spinning your plants. The thinking is that they spend more of their energy moving their leaves and branches around to try to be in direct light, and that energy isn't put into growing fat buds. Also another point is that you will have more smaller buds by rotating, so instead of having fat buds on the light side and some smaller ones on the other, you will have equally midsize buds everywhere. I personally like fewer fatter buds. Less trimming, and it just looks cool.

Hope that helps a little.

Happy Thanksgiving.

And anyone else please feel free to add or correct anything I'm saying. I'm no pro... just someone who reads a lot and has grown for a couple years now.

EDIT: Here's another thread you might like reading through. It's not active, but some good ideas: https://www.rollitup.org/advanced-marijuana-cultivation/263751-vertical-growing.html

Thedillestpickle said:

since ill be working with a sativa strain I might not be able to bush out my plants effectively so im thinking to top the plant twice, creating 4 colas to each plant. I would then anchor 4 bamboo sticks into each pot and train each cola up the sticks. Each corner of my pot will have 1 cola. That will give me a narrow profile, with each plant being trained so that it doesnt reach more than a few inches past the edge of the pot(unlike Vert Scrog where you have a 2 dimentional screen that reaches past the width of the pot). The crazy part of the idea is that I want to place each pot on some sort of automated rotating holder. with 6 plants I will need 6 of these rotating pot bases(do they already exist?! ?). I imagine I would want to set them so that during a 12 hour period my plants will complete 1 360degree rotation thus equally distributing my 1000watts onto the plants
...so how do I make that happen?

Click to expand...

Hey, not a vert grower myself, just checking out this section of the forum. You don't need to top twice to get 4 colas, but you can if you want some more control over how balanced they are at the expense of canopy height and veg time. If you want 4 colas with one top, grow the plants out to about the 5th or 6th node, and then clip them as close to the 2nd node as you can get without removing any of the growth around the node. This should leave you with 4 mature leaves coming off the main stem, with 4 young branches to accompany them (genetics depending ofc). This method is a little less even (colas from the top two branches will usually be slightly smaller as the stems are slightly younger) but you can have a nice big plant to go into flower in about 5 weeks or so from seed.

As for the rotation, you defiantly want more than 1 rotation per light cycle. There are commercial systems built around this kind of idea... http://spinnerhydro.com/?page_id=2 will give you a little info, but from what I have seen they normally rotate pretty quickly...30mins-2hours I think. But the idea is solid, so long as you can keep the plants moving in some way. The right hydro setup could do it with water pumps and low friction bearings, doing away with the problems associated with a high torque motor.

If I weren't leaning toward an LED panel as my next upgrade (currently doing a no-cash auto cfl grow because i have no cash, but going back to work soon so thats gunna change) I'd probably put some more though into designing that. Either method tho, it's either a BIG engineering problem, or an expensive purchase.

If you are going down a specific track, I can give my thoughts and would be happy to input on a diy project in general terms, but I'm a little to baked to go into much more now. Jut bear in mind, plants plus buds plus dirt PLUS WATER (water is frigin heavy, as anyone who grows more than about 3' from a tap knows) equals a lot of weight. Add that to observations most people will make that it takes about 2 hours or so for a plant to stretch to a light change, and you have to move all that mass in a circle with roughly that frequency or less. You defiantly don't want the plants stretch to the lights the whole time, it uses up energy, and more wasted energy leaning back and forth = less yeild.

Best of luck, can't wait to see what you come up with.

Hope this helps

awesome responses! OK I think to make what I was saying really simple for that part you didnt understand Jig... basically all I was trying to say was that the plants would be grown in a narrow column in order to allow me to have the pots spinning for 12 hours and not worry about branches from one plant bumping into the branches on another plant as it spins... that was all I meant there.

you also advised me to do the opposite of what I proposed doing with turning on one light longer than the other... except you then went on to describe the same exact thing(unless i read it wrong). I would think HPS is the one to leave on 12 hours because its a warmer light(like sunrise and sunset) and the MH to come on for only say 8-10 hours because it will mimic midday light. Im guessing you misread what I described there but correct me if thats not the case.

Great tips additives, Ill look into that spinner product or I may decide to do a DIY motorized lazy susan project and make them myself. I am glad to hear that they need to spin alot faster because the DIY project would be alot harder if i had to make it spin only 1 rotation. If what your saying is correct maybe its almost a case of faster is better... if I had them rotating at 1 rotation per 5 minutes I should be able to get away with having my plants very close to the lights. Do you think I should still be worrying about light bleaching if the leaves are only getting the super intense light for only a few minutes at a time?

5 weeks sounds like an acceptable wait for good sized fully vegged seeded sativas with 4 colas, I'm hoping to pull off the whole grow in 21 weeks or less from seed if at all possible. I might be downsizing the plans to have what I grow fit into a small closet(very tiny closet) because of fear of being discovered by my landlord. Im not sure how he would react to finding a grow in my basement(how do you hide a 6x6 growroom!! ahhhhh)... but I will play it by ear, not sure which way I will go. things are going to be pretty tight if I do go with the closet, probably 1.5' x 3' x 8' so this is a big part of my interest in having the ability to get those plants as close to the light as they can go.

I just saw a really nice thread with a 2x3 closet grow that put out over a pound on a two level hydroponic system with 10 plants, oh shit wait that was actually your thread Jigfresh haha so yea that gives me some inspiration that I can still pull off something worthwhile despite the limiting space... ill have to check it with a tape measure see if it sizes up as small as I think it is.

Jigfresh Im wondering what is the advantage of having your plants in a hydro medium over a soil medium? I might go hydro if i do the mini closet grow if its going to give me a more worthy yeild.

Thedillestpickle said:

Great tips additives, Ill look into that spinner product or I may decide to do a DIY motorized lazy susan project and make them myself. I am glad to hear that they need to spin alot faster because the DIY project would be alot harder if i had to make it spin only 1 rotation. If what your saying is correct maybe its almost a case of faster is better... if I had them rotating at 1 rotation per 5 minutes I should be able to get away with having my plants very close to the lights. Do you think I should still be worrying about light bleaching if the leaves are only getting the super intense light for only a few minutes at a time?

5 weeks sounds like an acceptable wait for good sized fully vegged seeded sativas with 4 colas, I'm hoping to pull off the whole grow in 21 weeks or less from seed if at all possible. I might be downsizing the plans to have what I grow fit into a small closet(very tiny closet) because of fear of being discovered by my landlord. Im not sure how he would react to finding a grow in my basement(how do you hide a 6x6 growroom!! ahhhhh)... but I will play it by ear, not sure which way I will go. things are going to be pretty tight if I do go with the closet, probably 1.5' x 3' x 8' so this is a big part of my interest in having the ability to get those plants as close to the light as they can go.

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With a diy, you need to balance out the weight and duty cycle on the motor. Even a 2-3gal pot with a full sized plant in it could weigh up to 30kg (70-80lb i think) and spinning that mass at that speed is possibly too much. If you can find a combination of motors and gears that can handle it however, I don't see it being a problem. When looking at a motor for DIY, go torque over RPMs, and don't skimp. A cheap motor can lead to fires, which is not such a great idea in a grow, yeah? I mean, unless you a really that desperate for some extra co2

As for the light burn, its complicated. Different strains can take different amounts of light before they burn, and nutrient levels, as well as water levels, humidity, airflow etc. If you can keep it cool, you may be able to get to 6" or so from a bare bulb, or right up to the face of a cool-tube with a high enough cfm fan. But on the reverse, you can even bleach your plants using exposed fluros with the wrong strain, or other factors. Adding CO2 can reduce light burn, as it occurs when the photosynthetic reaction has a huge excess of energy that can't be converted from light/heat, and that damages the plant. The more of the light the plant can use, the less likely it is it will become burnt (the reaction is obviously more complex, but well worth reading up on).

So, if you are worried about the light intensity, moving will help, so rotation is a plus. Keeping the temperature under control is key, if the internal temperature of the leaves cant decrease away from the light then moving wont be much help. Add some C02, keep the humidity in the right range for your plants and pump some extra neuts to deal with all the boosters.

TLR You can reduce the light burn by maximizing the amount of light your plants can use. Not how much they get, but how much they can biologically use.

Just thinking as I expanded my grow to 4 plants in 11litre pots thinking hanging bare bulb vertical... Partially due to maybe slightly less heat and using all 360 degrees of the bulb. My question is.... Any idea on how to get my reflector off but keep the socket? I havent looked at it properly yet as just thinking about it and not near my grow atm so may sounds like a silly question.

DJ - I would just order or buy a new socket. They are around $5, and I wouldn't want to mess up my reflector. If you really didn't want it anymore you could sell it, buy a socket and pocket the rest.

Dillest-
I get you now about the profile thing. And yeah, haha, I read the lighting backwards we are on the same wavelength (rimshot***). I'll just say one more thing about spinning and leave it at that. What kinda of yield increase are you expecting from spinning the plants? And is it worth all the trouble to get that extra bit? I don't see it increasing yield by more than a few percentage points, maybe 5%? To me all the hassle of building it, and then the hassle of making the plants able to work with it seems a bit over my head even and I've been doing this a little while now. Having not grown, you aren't even sure how the plants are going to behave. Hell even if you have grown a lot one isn't sure how a new strain is going to behave. Plants have a way of doing what they want, and making them cooperate isn't very easy sometimes. My suggestion would be to run your first grow without the spinning, and incorporate that into the second grow. Trust me, there will be enough things to keep you on your toes your first grow. Ok I'm done with the spinning.

About why I like hydro... hydro has faster growth than soil. It finishes a couple days earlier than soil. I like not having to water my plants every couple of days. I have left my grow completely alone for 2 weeks. Not a single person laid eyes on them for 14 days and all was well. Can't do that with soil. Plus I like the hands on-ness of it. If I fuck up and put too much nutrients and the girls show sign of nute burn, I can easily add more water and dilute the mix, or if it's really bad drain the rez and start a new one. In soil you have to work it more slowly, adjust the feeding next watering and so forth. And the best way to do soil is to have a living soil with beneficial bacteria and the like, and that involved brewing teas and such. That's all more than I'm willing to do right now. That being said, I am going to take a crack at soil again next year... but that will supplement the closet. The flooded tubes aren't going anywhere just yet. People say you get more weight too, but I think that has a lot more to do with what your growing environment is doing.

Kinda like the spinning, I don't think any increase in yield using hydro vs. soil is going to be worth scrapping plans or doing something more involved. You might get 3% higher yield using hydro, maybe. I don't see that as worth it to do something just for the yield. If you do hydro, do it because you've weighed each (soil +hydro) and you chose that way for many reasons, not just for yield.

KISS - keep it simple stupid (not calling you stupid, it's just the saying)

the shittiest thing just happened and I navigated away from my response to you two...

point form response

-I wont burn the house down because Ill get good advice from the hobby store guy

-i might not do the spinner thing because a tiny closet wont get enough room for moving plants

-I probably will do dirt because im inclined to already and its easier to setup initially

-I dont know what kindof yeild I would be expecting as im never had a yeild

-ive been looking into using excellofizz pucks to create co2, ever heard of this? super simple just not sure how effective(probably good enough for a tiny grow)

-Ill be keeping the temp of the room that the fresh air is drawn in from at roughly 15 degrees and im hoping with a decent filter exhaust set my room will not get too hot, sound like a sound plan??

-as far as the spinning not being worth a potential 5% yield... Im looking at this first grow as a hobby, and just the making/having motorized lazy susans would make that worth the time/effort

-also thought of using a brew of beer to keep the co2 levels up, brewing beer is another hobby id like to get into this winter

and I hope everyone knows that when I say 15 degrees im talking celcius of course so thats 59 farenheit

One thing, co2 requires a sealed room, so if you are exhausting air out of it, the co2 will go right out with it and not really do anything. Otherwise sounds good.

Here's a video for Thanksgiving (or just for Thursday if you aren't in the US, lol)
[youtube]jQMgkUA-SjY[/youtube]

Thedillestpickle said:

...
I havent seen these "cool tubes" until I hit this thread... are these purchased at a store or are they something you guys DIY??? how much closer to the plants are you able to bring the lights with those on? Snowgrow19 you mentioned your getting more trichs without it on, but I would think you can bring your plants a whole lot closer to the bulb for overall more production.

Click to expand...

I believe it is simply because cooltubes have a tendency to get dirty and this diminishes the light intensity. Also, if you use a metal halide under a cooltube, it negates the UV-B (UV rays) benefits of blue lights as the glass filters out the UV-B which is proven to increase resin production and potency. If you need to use a cooltube for heat issues, i recommend a filter that fits over the end of the cooltube such as this one >>>dust shroom filter<<< or to clean your cooltube weekly.

jigfresh said:

One thing, co2 requires a sealed room, so if you are exhausting air out of it, the co2 will go right out with it and not really do anything. Otherwise sounds good.

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From my experience, this is partially true, but if you cannot seal your room you can still make it work. I have a 6x4x7 room that runs through a 20lb tank per week, which kinda sucks, but i'd rather have the co2 than not. And also, it seems about right if you figure in that I have about 50 sq feet of canopy in that room, similar to what an 8x8 room would hold with a horizontal setup. I put my co2 injector line on top of my fan that blows straight up over the vertically hung lights which creates a water fountain type effect. Since the co2 is light but heavier than rest of the air, it rises with the fan and then falls out to the sides. Of course the fan, which is mounted at the top of the room, still sucks some of the co2 out, but a lot of it gets blown around. I have a sensor about halfway between the floor and ceiling of the room, and I check it. It really doesn't even come on too often, even when the fan is on, which lets me know the co2 isn't being extracted too quickly

Heres my 1800watt Verticle cool tube set up. Only way to grow 9 foot indoor trees


Got this set up as well as a S.O.G operation 35plant every 3 weeks. And growing trees vertically really is so much less work. And since i prefer concentrates the ammount of trimmings is awesome from trees
Might be converting the S.O.G area which is much bigger to a 3-4 vert cool tubes 1000watters set up.

suTraGrow said:

Heres my 1800watt Verticle cool tube set up. Only way to grow 9 foot indoor trees
View attachment 1905792View attachment 1905793View attachment 1905794View attachment 1905795View attachment 1905796

Got this set up as well as a S.O.G operation 35plant every 3 weeks. And growing trees vertically really is so much less work. And since i prefer concentrates the ammount of trimmings is awesome from trees
Might be converting the S.O.G area which is much bigger to a 3-4 vert cool tubes 1000watters set up.

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Badass Bru!

I want to grow just a few trees at a time but have been having trouble getting enough veg time in. I've got a few going now that I am growing just for this purpose so hopefully I don't hit any snags that leave me short on plants to flower. That is what has happened every time so far and I end up flowering them before I really wanted to so they never got anywhere as big as I want.

Hey fellow vertical 600'ers! Here is a few pics of my own cross i did a few months back. I grew a Dinafem bluewidow and it got pollinated by a old school AK47 strain. I got 35 seeds and i am growing 8 of the seeds right now. I grow 12/12 from seed in 2litre bottles hempy bucket style and it works great. This is my 3rd grow using this method and i will never go back to soil. This BlueWidow/AK47 cross is a fast finisher. It is looking like a 7-8 week strain. And it is pretty frosty and it is taking on the blue hues now in some of the bud.

Question: Is there any additional equipment needed vs a horizontal setup? In a 3x3x7H would it be better to use the coliseum style (screen with bulb in middle) or should i go for mini bush/tree?. Can you guys set some basic guidelines for a setup vs a horizontal or is it basically the same? Should i go for more branch strains or more collum style. I was thinking that if a screen was used i could go for a for lanky satdom. But im just rambling now so ...

thanks in advance

Peace and Love

How many plants do you plan to have in the tent? That will have a direct bearing on your set up but IMO there isn't any additional equipment needed. I actually think most people get away with less equipment running vertical gardens by running a bare bulb with a simple fan under it. There's no reflector/hood in that type so there's one less thing anyway.

1gne said:

Question: Is there any additional equipment needed vs a horizontal setup? In a 3x3x7H would it be better to use the coliseum style (screen with bulb in middle) or should i go for mini bush/tree?. Can you guys set some basic guidelines for a setup vs a horizontal or is it basically the same? Should i go for more branch strains or more collum style. I was thinking that if a screen was used i could go for a for lanky satdom. But im just rambling now so ...

thanks in advance

Peace and Love

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Tired the Colosseum before IMO to much work.
I do a custom rdwc drip set up now with cool tubes just hung vertically, been doing it this way for quite some time now and u get two of best worlds. Shit tons of Grade A trimming for concentrates and edible which we all love, and a very nice amount of flower from a 6-9 foot bush.

Dezracer said:

How many plants do you plan to have in the tent? That will have a direct bearing on your set up but IMO there isn't any additional equipment needed. I actually think most people get away with less equipment running vertical gardens by running a bare bulb with a simple fan under it. There's no reflector/hood in that type so there's one less thing anyway.

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1st off thanks for the quick response
Like 4 o 5 in drip hempy bucket

Will a cooltube be needed for a 400 cmh

Peace and Love

As long as you have a fan blowing towards the ceiling of your tent directly under the bulb you should be fine without a cooltube. I wasn't sure about running a bare 600 in my 40"x40" tent but with a fan centered on the floor blowing straight up, it's fine. I have a replacement 1000 bulb coming this week and will see how that works. I already tried to run a 1000 but the bulb was defective and went bad in a couple of hours so I put the trusty 600w magnetic ballast and HPS bulb back in.

Just stick a plant in each corner of the tent with your bulb in the center and let it ride. If they seem to be getting too close to the bulb, tie them back agains the tent walls. You can use anything for that from a string net to some heavy wire mesh and can get it all from your local hardware store. I have some chicken wire type stuff meant to keep rabbits out of gardens that is getting attached to the bucket lid net pots and when in the tent, tied to the vertical poles of the tent in the corners. Just keep it as simple as possible for the first run to determine if vertical lighting is right for you and go from there.

jigfresh said:

WOOT!!! Vert lover in the house. Nice thread G. Here's some shit I've done with my vert:

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OMG Its a wall of bud. You've got my attention sir.