First time vertical. Is my setup OK?

[goofy81]

Hi
I'm planning a room for a vertical grow. Please help me, I want to know if it will WORK, and if it does i need to know whats wrong and what i can improve.

Please read the bottom points to know whats what.

• 4 plants, high with net around it.
• 1 plant in the middle! VERY low!
• The middle light is a 1000watt MH with a normal dish reflector
• there will be 2 x 600HPS on EACH corner stacked on top of eachother with cooltubes.
• There is a carbon filter in the corner of the room as you can see already.
• Vent is provided with a hole in the ground top right(forgot to draw it)
• Cooltube intake will be a DUCT connected to a HOLE in the door, and a 570CFM fan will be used.
• The cooltubes will be exhausted in the ceiling.
• I will use SHIELDS on the vertical cooltubes as shown in the diagram.
• Total watts. (600HPS x 8) + 1000MH = 5800watts.

 

[NS775]

I'm a little confused by the drawering... but I think i get the idea. You might want to remove the ducting in the diagram; you can work that in after the fact. I'm no vertical grow expert (yet), but I expect vert. is where I am going to end up based on efficiency)

A couple of things come to mind...

+Redo the 600W light placement. Putting lights on the outside of a vert setup defeats the purpose. The point of vert is to maximize your light usage by making use of all 360 degrees of the light, instead of trying to reflect the back half of your bulbs output. REMEMBER light degrades exponentially the further you get away. You half your available light every foot further away the plant is.

+ you might be better off using more smaller plants. I know that is more of a PITA, but it allows you to sculpt your canopy to match the throw of your light. Utilizing every ounce of available light is the name of the game.

I'm still doing horizontal. Its a 4.5x4.5 aero table under 1Kw. What I do is put the larger plants on the outside and smaller on the inside forming an inverted dome. This allows me to bring the light closer and make the distance from plant to light much more even.

 

[goofy81]

Yes the ducting is mean to be on the ground!
Do you mean the lights where the plants are and the plants where the lights are?
I thought about this method and thought the plants wont get lit in the corners of it facing the walls

 

[osirica420]

loose the reflector and the cool tubes they are like heat lamps and the tube take away much needed lumens, get a A/C or have good exhaust keep temps below 85f,
everything else looks fine if u grow in coco ur lookin at a easy 1 gram a watt..... just my 2 cents.. good luck on ur grow!

 

[goofy81]

thanks for the reply.
I was thinking of the reflector there because theres no plants on that side.
Also, i have no choice but cooltubes. Because i live in the dryest city in the world, last year, it was 40c+ (105F) for more than 7 straight days. Its also known to get to 114 here.

 

[goofy81]

Here are some updates! please opinions/hints/tips/criticism is more than welcome! I am a newbie and this is my first time vertical.

And just to use that extra side near the door..

 

[ironicchronic1]

looks good. kinda cluttered in the pics though. just try to circle your plants around the lights as much as possible.

 

[watercooled@]

Looks good! I like!

You keeping an online journal? Link?

 

[catman]

Goofy I bet if you rearranged things you could get the same yield as you are now minus a couple of those bulbs. You could save some on your electrical bill or just get yield more. Your plants look great, but those lights should be moved. What are the temps like in there?

 

[goofy81]

Hey Catman! thanks, what do you mean by moving the lights?!?
Right now my temp is 30c. Its starting to get cool here.
I'm running 4800w atm because i ran out of extension cords and such.

Hey is there ANY way to trim these plants? they are so big now, 6-7 foot high in the pots!!
without the pots they'd be about 5'4
I'm not sure how to trim them because i've only been familiar with canopy grows.
I'll take some photos as they progress.

 

[SmokinErb]

Try a stack. Or more plants. You're wasting A LOT of light. You need to surround every single one of those lights with plants. If I were you, I'd run 2 stacks, 3x 600w in each stack, side by side... however it looks like you're using a flip/flop? I'm basing this on that your lower 600's aren't ignited, but the tops are.

If that's the case, I suggest you use 2 identical flowering rooms with a 3x 600 bulb stack in each. I'd remove the MH completely and use it for veg or something.

4800w? You mean 4600? Looks like 6x 600 + 1000w to me. Regardless, You need to take those extension cords out and find a better way to use 'em all. You're playing with fire, literally.

Have you started to flower yet? If not... lol, you might wanna top those a bit. Regardless, if you stack those bulbs up, you'll be able to grow some floor to ceiling trees.

Edit: 30 second MSPaint scheme - if you're using a flip/flop basically just separate those stacks and block the light between the two with some black painters plastic or something. Surround each stack the same way.

 

[goofy81]

Thanks for your reply.
You're right its 4600 watts.
Atm they're flowering. My electrician friend claims the 4 sockets he setup should be fine (he thinks each socket is able to take 10amps each (2400w)
I've only got 4 tall plants, I'm actually planning to turn on every single light. I thought the sidelights would be good for the side of teh plant, otherwise i should've stuck to canopy grow? And yea one side of the lower lights is on atm.

I cant have more plants as root count is a big problem here.
Also i actually raised the column of lights another 15 inches hoping it will help a bit.
Is it a good idea to maybe replace the middle light with a 600HPS? because the middle light actually covers most/all of the plants quite nicely.

 

[SmokinErb]

Okay well, if you're only growing 4 plants, I'd honestly run a single floor to ceiling stack of 4x 600w and put the rest away for another day.

Surround that stack with your 4 plants - You'll effectively increase your yield over your current setup as well as lower your electric bill. If you really want to use that 1kw light, you can put it in the middle of a stack, but running the 600's in the cool tubes would probably be a better bet IMO.

The reason your MH bulb is giving you better coverage is because you're using it how you're SUPPOSED to. Right in the middle. My suggestion is to take it out and run it elsewhere for mothers/veg/clones if you have those. If not, just hook it up during the veg cycle. Use the 600's (as many as you can fit in a single stack) in place of the MH.

Surround that stack with your plants. The lighting on the outside is extremely wasteful and is defeating the purpose of the vertical grow. The stack in the middle will give your plants total side lighting coverage - better than the corner lights will. Don't bother rotating the plants, they'll grow to the light naturally.

Remember - It's not necessary to surround the plants with light, but to surround the lights with plants.

 

[SmokinErb]

Another question - How far are you into flowering? And how much more space to you have til you hit the ceiling?

Also, the "playing with fire" comment was in regards to the extension cords, not the wiring. Heavy Duty extension cords are rated to 300 volts. You need a 600 volt rated cord, as there's well over 300 volts drawn upon firing up the bulb.

 

[goofy81]

Hey smokinerb, i only started flowering 2 days already.
I did originally thought those corner lights would be a waste, thats why in my original diagram on the first post i was thinking of using the reflectors. But
As it is now there does seem to be a lot more surface area than the canopy grow i did in the same room last time.
Here in australia we use 230v, so as long as my extension cord is 6A + i should be fine.

I was also originally thinking of the middle with lights surrounded by plants also, but that method will only light up half of the plant. I will try that next time though.

These plants have got way bigger then i imagined. They're about 4 foot wide. I have no idea how i'm going to tie the heavy buds up. I guess grow and learn

 

[SmokinErb]

Actually, the whole plant pretty much does get lit up. Because they grow towards the light, all the branches tend to fight their way to the middle, so even the "outside" branches are actually on the canopy too. You just use a little bit of training (Much like LST, only sideways) to get the branches where you want them, and they'll all bask in that HID light. With the corner bulbs, all you're really doing is giving those "outside" branches another light source to grow towards. Remove the corners and they'll still get enough light from the middle one. Which is why I keep suggesting you concentrate all of your lights in one central spot and place your plants around them.

Let me try to explain this a different way. Put 4,600w in the middle, and all of your plants are getting 4,600 of light. Spread all of your light out like you are right now, and you got each plant receiving light from the bulbs closest to it. So each of those corner plants have TWO 600w stacks lighting it, and 2 600w stacks NOT lighting it on the other side. If you put all of those in the middle, all of your plants are sharing more powerful light, thus producing more bud.

You could produce the same amount of bud you will right now, by putting all of your lights in one central spot and removing a light or two from the equation. Use them all in the middle to produce more.

Edit: Not trying to sound like a dick if that's how it came off as. I'm just not great at trying to explain things. My bad on the electrical thing, I just kinda assumed you were from the states. But yeah bro, those girls are gonna stretch a lot.

I may be wrong here, and you may want to look elsewhere, but I say revert back to veg now. These are going to pretty much double in size here in the next few weeks. I'd turn my lights back to 24/0 and prune. Cut 'em down probably a good 2 feet, let 'em heal a little bit then flip it back to 12/12....

But then again, you might wanna ask someone else. Never quite had to revert back to veg, but if you're almost to the ceiling and only 2 days into flower....

 

[*mistress*]

................

 

[Rouge]

I say keep your setup as is! 7' tall and 4' wide and too much to handle is what I'm talking about. Besides making light changes now, in flower, is not a good idea. But Yeah, in terms of efficiency, those 600 watters need to be in the center. Those 600's should keep the height down but those plants are going stretch(to the MH light). I'd say yah got 12 footers on your hands.

 

[goofy81]

Yes! i've thought about that, but will putting 2 600 watt columns next to eachother be a little waste as well, because there will be light hitting light between the 2 columns. I can't really change anything in this setup now as its a bit too late. Things are really big ! theres hardly no room for me to move around! electricity safety is the first thing i care about. Extension cables are fine as long as they're rated over certain amps.

I'll take some photos soon and as soon as buds start to form.

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[redspaghetti]

looks good bro, one thing i would suggest tho

you should sort out the sizes of your plants and keep them line up in order so they could receive better lights, i see in some pics that tall plants are blocking lights from the little one.