vertical growing

Bob Smith

Well-Known Member
MEANGREEN69, the water/nute delivery system is the 4th and 6th pics above - those are caps which fit onto the top of each column, and those are shrub sprinklers attached to each "T". Water flows through an the "T" shoots water out in 360 degrees, creating a mist/flow over the roots. It's basically an LP aero/NFT hybrid type deal, probably run it for 30 seconds on/3 minutes off, or something like that. Obviously gonna have to experiment with that, but I love that it's got all the benefits of aero without the chance of misters clogging.

I wanted to do a drain to waste (and still might in the future), but I was worried about root space in the 4" PVC so I figured a medium-less growing system was the best move for right now, but again, I'd love to be able to ditch my chiller(s), pumps, and all the other equipment that draws electric and doesn't directly contribute to growing.

As you can see from the water-cooled generator and the 50' coil in the video below, trying to make this room as efficient as possible.

Jig, thanks for the compliments (tell your wife thanks as well, and I hope all is well with her and the baby).

As far as cost, there's 90 wyes @$10 a piece, plus 15 waste "Ts" @$7 a piece, and then 15 22.5s (went with those instead of 8 45s, and it's much rounder and prettier because of it) @$7 a piece. Also, 5 10' tubes of PVC @$15 a piece - if you don't have a table saw to cut the PVC, I'd HIGHLY recommend one - I bought a DeWalt for $200 specifically (and only) for this project. Oh, and a shit ton of PVC primer and cement. Just bought a 1/6HP pump at Lowes yesterday for $70, and then assorted tubing, Ts, etc. for another couple of hundred bucks.

I'd say if you already have the saw that you can make one for $1500 (not including lights, obviously).

Which is a nice segue to lighting - I'm going to be running 4 stacked 600s (wanted to run bare bulbs, but my 14K AC couldn't handle the heat) in a vertical cooltube that I ordered from this place:

http://octagonhydroponics.com/grow-lighting-vertical-systems.html
I'm getting the 4L600, obviously, and it'll be here on Friday.....


EDIT: Here's a quick video I shot of my new setup - put a lot (like a fucking LOT) of time and money into building a sealed 14x10 room in my garage, and the Pentadecagon (yes, that's what a 15-sided "thingy" is called) is kind of the cherry on top - if anyone wants the construction shots, lemme know and I'll throw up a link for you........

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWTX5CqEALw


9.28.10 016.jpg


9.28.10 021.jpg10.4.10 001.jpg10.4.10 002.jpg
 

MEANGREEN69

Well-Known Member
thats bad ass.thanks for the videos..is this your 1st time working/makeing one of these bad boys?..also what strain are you going to use?
 

RavenMochi

Well-Known Member
I can't wait to see what your results are...

has anyone tried to make an omega system replica? because I've been thinking on it alot...biggest problem I'm running into is what to use to make it spin slow enough...
 

Bob Smith

Well-Known Member
thats bad ass.thanks for the videos..is this your 1st time working/makeing one of these bad boys?..also what strain are you going to use?
Yes, and I'm probably going to run 4-6 strains per run - I don't need to max this out (monocrop) and shoot for 8+ pounds everytime; I'd rather get 4-6 pounds of different dank strains.

This run I'm going to go with Super Skunk (have 144 clones that are really anxious to get into the system because they've been ready for over a week).

After I get some things figured out this run, gonna run a bunch of different strains for the next run.
 

reggaerican

Well-Known Member
hey bob i dont know if you said already but how much did this diy kit cost you ? im real currious about trying something tlike that??
 

Bob Smith

Well-Known Member
"As far as cost, there's 90 wyes @$10 a piece, plus 15 waste "Ts" @$7 a piece, and then 15 22.5s (went with those instead of 8 45s, and it's much rounder and prettier because of it) @$7 a piece. Also, 5 10' tubes of PVC @$15 a piece - if you don't have a table saw to cut the PVC, I'd HIGHLY recommend one - I bought a DeWalt for $200 specifically (and only) for this project. Oh, and a shit ton of PVC primer and cement. Just bought a 1/6HP pump at Lowes yesterday for $70, and then assorted tubing, Ts, etc. for another couple of hundred bucks.

I'd say if you already have the saw that you can make one for $1500 (not including lights, obviously)."

EDIT: Forgot to mention this before - if anyone is interested in how this all went down, there's a thread on another site where there's tons of info (basically just me and one other guy going back and forth as we hit snags in construction, etc.).

I'd highly recommend checking that out if any of you are serious about building one.

PM me for a link if you're interested.
 

reggaerican

Well-Known Member
not bad i guess seeing that those ecosystems hold the same amount of plants and cost more than twice that.. good job bob im subbed to this one and +1 for the nice build..
 

Bob Smith

Well-Known Member
The plants in this system are going to be 3 or 4x as large as the Ecosystem plants - I can't imagine what would possess someone to buy a multi-thousand dollar rockwool hanging device, but I guess we all have our priorities in life.

With all the problems I've heard of many different vertical growing systems, I figured I'd build my own so that I could understand what went wrong when something does go wrong.

Also, not sure what all the Ecosystem comes with - that $1500 number is just for the PVC and plumbing; you still need lights, pumps, reservoirs, etc.

Total cost for the structure to be operational is gonna be somewhere above $3K (EDIT: probably more like $4K, giving it some more thought), when you factor in the $1K cooltube, the lights, pumps, etc.

That doesn't count the two 6" inlines to run the cooltube or any other equipment I already have before this setup.
 

reggaerican

Well-Known Member
tru that, it sure does get expensive.. im sure i have everything but the pvc in spair parts floating around so would be around 1500 to 2000 cool.. i like how it is twice the size as the eco them babies are gonna get chuncky..
 

Bob Smith

Well-Known Member
You could easily make one with 3" PVC (and the prototype I based mine off of was made with 3" PVC) and save yourself a lot of money.

The guy online I've been chatting with and bouncing ideas off of has a 2" and a 3", and likes his 2" more - 160 sites, straight from the aerocloner to flower - you could probably make that for a few hundred dollars.

A 3" would be in the $500 neighborhood.
 

RavenMochi

Well-Known Member
I'm going to be starting up the definition of primitive vertical grow, waiting for the lights and beans to be delivered. 400w surrounded by 8 ladies started from seed 12/12, 2 cycles (16 plants in total) simply going to have the 400 w standing vertical with 8 plants in dirt (actually 10 to start off with, be weeding out 2, with 12/12 I get mostly females, so I shouldn't need much of a buffer) AK-48. Also be the first grow I add co2 to...
 

OregonMeds

Well-Known Member
I just cropped out my best indoor vertical plant so far... Wanted to share the details.

I'm currently using a single 1kw open bulb, and the last plant (one single plant) was over 1lb !!!!dry!!!!. That might not sound like a big deal to some, but this is just a soil plant and it's not even in a room with reflective walls or a/c or climate control or co2, not any kind work done to make it a grow room at all.

Vegged to 5'-6' or so in a 20 some gallon rubbermaid bin full of FFOF, and then trained around the light as in sort of a 1/3 cylinder wall of bud.

Sorry I didn't get pics of that one before chopping it, but you get the idea.

Two to MAYBE three plants could share one 1kw this way, after some experimenting I could see getting 3lbs off a single 1k per cycle.

(But I'm doing perpetual with 5 around the 1 light, of various sizes obviously, or they wouldn't all fit...) Should work out better...

I spit on flat gardens. :)

(btw before someone says bullshit, I will show pics of the 8' indoor plant that's coming up next and how I tie it up, so don't even bother wasting any of our time with that crap.)
 

jigfresh

Well-Known Member
I just cropped out my best indoor vertical plant so far... Wanted to share the details.

I'm currently using a single 1kw open bulb, and the last plant (one single plant) was over 1lb !!!!dry!!!!. That might not sound like a big deal to some, but this is just a soil plant and it's not even in a room with reflective walls or a/c or climate control or co2, not any kind work done to make it a grow room at all.

Vegged to 5'-6' or so in a 20 some gallon rubbermaid bin full of FFOF, and then trained around the light as in sort of a 1/3 cylinder wall of bud.

Sorry I didn't get pics of that one before chopping it, but you get the idea.

Two to MAYBE three plants could share one 1kw this way, after some experimenting I could see getting 3lbs off a single 1k per cycle.

(But I'm doing perpetual with 5 around the 1 light, of various sizes obviously, or they wouldn't all fit...) Should work out better...

I spit on flat gardens. :)

(btw before someone says bullshit, I will show pics of the 8' indoor plant that's coming up next and how I tie it up, so don't even bother wasting any of our time with that crap.)
Congrats on that harvest. Sounds fucking awesome. Vert rocks.
 

OregonMeds

Well-Known Member
I promised pics of my last two vertical rounds and never took them, sorry guys, I was too afraid looking at what I had to post such things, but I did finally finish my last crop and now that I'm retired from growing and at least temporarily on the wagon due to the law I can share the details.

I don't care if anyone believes me, so save your breath for eating your pies but just for the record, if you stack two 1kw lights open bulb vertical in the center of a ring of 6 critical mass ladies that you vegged over 5' before flower in 20 some gallon rubbermaid bins of FFOF, with no reflective walls and no a/c or c02 (but scrogged vertically to chicken wire in a cylinder) a person can in fact crop 1lb dry for EACH of those six plants completely breaking 3lbs per 1kw. Six is just what I had left after loosing track of a few oz's, it was more, I know it was, but someone else had their hand in my grow this time around, so all I can claim is six heavily manicured can't see a stem didn't miss a leaf anywhere fully dry sweet sticky purply pounds. (really purpled up, must have been the cold, CM never did this before for me anyway.)

I know I did it, believe or don't up to you. Actually I'm not suprised because what I had was just a vertical equivalent of those rotary grows, and they reach the same weights, mine just didn't have to spin and took six big slow plants instead of 60 quick little ones or whatever.

And with that I am retired, at least for a year or so while I take care of sobriety for my dui classes and such.

Rock on vertical folks... I might not even be on here any more at all so goodbye and good luck people.
I can't smoke now, and am cleared out clean and sober, and since I have no choice but to stay that way for a year I don't want to be on here even thinking about weed, makes me miss it more.
 
Top