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Bigbud8888
New member
Great read well done nfr, inspired me
DAVES NOT HERE
Member
this setup is sick. i know this thread is old, but i can't get enough
I am thinking about doing another stadium
NorthernsFarmer
New member
Setup info
Setup info
For those that interested in Northern Farmer's stadium grow I read through the entire thread and jotted down his advice/info on how to go about the setup. This is the summary:
-The floor space is 10'x6.5' and 6.5, high. 5 shelves a side with the plants in 1 gal bags
-We just hang the MH's down the middle evenly spaced out. We have one fan at the top of the doorway/enterance of the chamber and then the blower for air out at the other end. It creates a wind tunnel that cools the bulbs. Outside the chambers we bring in outside air. It is drawn into the chambers by the exhaust.
-Best we've done with this system to date is 7.5 lbs with 4 bulbs using 6.5'x10' of floor space with a 6.5' ceiling.
-We usually run 2 of these rooms side by side though (double that 7.5 lbs) using relay switches to split 24 h light into the rooms 12/12 hrs. A small bedroom can really yield this way and it's the most efficient way to run your ballasts because they are always running at maximum output. When you turn a cold ballast on normally they take a while to run at top output and tend to draw more hydro to get there
-YOU HAVE TO PLUCK LEAVES AT STAGES OR THEY BLOCK OUT THE OTHER PLANTS.
-I will add that it is important to turn plants 1/2 a turn once a week to get even growth and to keep from excessive leaning which leads to trouble possibly.
-If you use the full 10 feet you can squish 220 in there so 55 per bulb max(providing you use the 1 gal grow bags I do). I like to pack em tight then once they stop stretching take out 20 of the weakest ones. So you double that and you need between 400 and 440 if you are doing a flip flop system like I do.(2 rooms, 4 ballasts on relays, 8 bulbs)
-I'm using 1 gal bags of Pro Mix. There is no draining onto the floor. I water enough to go on a 2 day watering cycle and no run through happens unless I'm doing it for some other reason.
-The lights hang depending on the height of the plants. I start with them even with the middle shelf and raise them after the plants stretch.
-If most of my bags are dry and I'm not dealing with a cold snap up here then in the area of 100L(25 gals) every 2 days per room. 2x 100 L garbage cans are on standby.
-I leave 20 to 22" ceiling space for the top shelf and drop them 10" each from there, 2"x6" wide shelves
-I like to use around 900 cfm on a thermostat. I force air in to the surrounding room/shop and let the chambers passively intake. There are variations of my set up at different locations. at one location I am running 8 ballasts on at once with both rooms dark during the day so I force air with a vortex into a "T" and split into the rooms.
-I have a Vortex on a can in each room removing air. I have 1 Vortex that is rated less split with a "T" into both rooms. I'm removing more than 2 X the amount of air in. You do not smell anything inside or out. The only time I worry about scent control is in the winter when the thermostats turn off my blowers. That's when I'm using passive intake.
-The relay switches split into 2 lamp wires running into two separate rooms. The switches are controlled by a timer which simply switches the power to the other bulb in the other room. Ballast runs 24h.
-I move lots of cfm's when it's hot and have a good source of outside air. Usually everything stays in optimal range with occasional hot days during a heat wave. I set my thermo at 80 in the hottest part of the room. Lights off the rooms are between 60 and 70 depending on weather. I add heat in the winter. I'm in a tight space in the one place with very little insulation. I may cool my air in with a air conditioner in Aug. We will see how it goes.
-I don't seal my rooms because sometimes the doorway is the air way for passive intake plus I have a large fan in the doorway for air circulation. There is very little room for equipment in those dimensions. The name of the game is keeping everything close to the lights. People I know have tried their own variations of my system and when they make the rooms a little wider the buds are softer with plants stretching. I always tell people you have to keep it narrow.
-1 ballast-1 relay-2 bulbs. 4 ballasts would be 4 relays and 8 bulbs. Each ballast is split to 2 bulbs which are on 12 hours each. You use 1 timer to coordinate all the relays to switch at once
-If you wanted to go less plants you could try my old system and veg longer. You get bigger crops but lose a crop a year. Use 3 shelves, plant in 2 gal pots and veg for 3 -4 weeks depending on strain.
-Raising the lights is something I sometimes do for different reasons and strains are a factor in this usually. Sometimes I plant during hot spells and have to raise the lights so I don't damage the young plants. Sometimes plants get too tall and lean so I have to raise the bulbs. Some strains grow so fast that I raise the bulbs week per week a bit. Some strains like Purple Kush don't stretch worth shit so I have no reason to raise the bulbs at any time.
-These rooms pack their weight on from the over lapping light. I've seen it done where people grew too far from and spread the lights too far apart and didn't do nearly as well
-Letting them grow too big is the most common mistake people have made after I have set them up one of these. People don't believe how much a 10" plant can get away on them when there is this kind of overlapped light so close. I still make the same mistake myself sometimes. It's a fine line between too small and too tall.
-bulbs are about aprox 20" from the ends of the room and 22" apart. I try and keep them lever with my 3rd shelf
-I'm running two 75's filters with 750 or 950 cfm's I think. They are above the rooms now since I've ditched the poly well over a year ago. Instead of the can on a shelf across the back I have some of my bigger plants. Works out well
-Always plant the runts in the middle, and hope they are 3-4" shorter than the plants on the sides
-20" walkway
Setup info
For those that interested in Northern Farmer's stadium grow I read through the entire thread and jotted down his advice/info on how to go about the setup. This is the summary:
-The floor space is 10'x6.5' and 6.5, high. 5 shelves a side with the plants in 1 gal bags
-We just hang the MH's down the middle evenly spaced out. We have one fan at the top of the doorway/enterance of the chamber and then the blower for air out at the other end. It creates a wind tunnel that cools the bulbs. Outside the chambers we bring in outside air. It is drawn into the chambers by the exhaust.
-Best we've done with this system to date is 7.5 lbs with 4 bulbs using 6.5'x10' of floor space with a 6.5' ceiling.
-We usually run 2 of these rooms side by side though (double that 7.5 lbs) using relay switches to split 24 h light into the rooms 12/12 hrs. A small bedroom can really yield this way and it's the most efficient way to run your ballasts because they are always running at maximum output. When you turn a cold ballast on normally they take a while to run at top output and tend to draw more hydro to get there
-YOU HAVE TO PLUCK LEAVES AT STAGES OR THEY BLOCK OUT THE OTHER PLANTS.
-I will add that it is important to turn plants 1/2 a turn once a week to get even growth and to keep from excessive leaning which leads to trouble possibly.
-If you use the full 10 feet you can squish 220 in there so 55 per bulb max(providing you use the 1 gal grow bags I do). I like to pack em tight then once they stop stretching take out 20 of the weakest ones. So you double that and you need between 400 and 440 if you are doing a flip flop system like I do.(2 rooms, 4 ballasts on relays, 8 bulbs)
-I'm using 1 gal bags of Pro Mix. There is no draining onto the floor. I water enough to go on a 2 day watering cycle and no run through happens unless I'm doing it for some other reason.
-The lights hang depending on the height of the plants. I start with them even with the middle shelf and raise them after the plants stretch.
-If most of my bags are dry and I'm not dealing with a cold snap up here then in the area of 100L(25 gals) every 2 days per room. 2x 100 L garbage cans are on standby.
-I leave 20 to 22" ceiling space for the top shelf and drop them 10" each from there, 2"x6" wide shelves
-I like to use around 900 cfm on a thermostat. I force air in to the surrounding room/shop and let the chambers passively intake. There are variations of my set up at different locations. at one location I am running 8 ballasts on at once with both rooms dark during the day so I force air with a vortex into a "T" and split into the rooms.
-I have a Vortex on a can in each room removing air. I have 1 Vortex that is rated less split with a "T" into both rooms. I'm removing more than 2 X the amount of air in. You do not smell anything inside or out. The only time I worry about scent control is in the winter when the thermostats turn off my blowers. That's when I'm using passive intake.
-The relay switches split into 2 lamp wires running into two separate rooms. The switches are controlled by a timer which simply switches the power to the other bulb in the other room. Ballast runs 24h.
-I move lots of cfm's when it's hot and have a good source of outside air. Usually everything stays in optimal range with occasional hot days during a heat wave. I set my thermo at 80 in the hottest part of the room. Lights off the rooms are between 60 and 70 depending on weather. I add heat in the winter. I'm in a tight space in the one place with very little insulation. I may cool my air in with a air conditioner in Aug. We will see how it goes.
-I don't seal my rooms because sometimes the doorway is the air way for passive intake plus I have a large fan in the doorway for air circulation. There is very little room for equipment in those dimensions. The name of the game is keeping everything close to the lights. People I know have tried their own variations of my system and when they make the rooms a little wider the buds are softer with plants stretching. I always tell people you have to keep it narrow.
-1 ballast-1 relay-2 bulbs. 4 ballasts would be 4 relays and 8 bulbs. Each ballast is split to 2 bulbs which are on 12 hours each. You use 1 timer to coordinate all the relays to switch at once
-If you wanted to go less plants you could try my old system and veg longer. You get bigger crops but lose a crop a year. Use 3 shelves, plant in 2 gal pots and veg for 3 -4 weeks depending on strain.
-Raising the lights is something I sometimes do for different reasons and strains are a factor in this usually. Sometimes I plant during hot spells and have to raise the lights so I don't damage the young plants. Sometimes plants get too tall and lean so I have to raise the bulbs. Some strains grow so fast that I raise the bulbs week per week a bit. Some strains like Purple Kush don't stretch worth shit so I have no reason to raise the bulbs at any time.
-These rooms pack their weight on from the over lapping light. I've seen it done where people grew too far from and spread the lights too far apart and didn't do nearly as well
-Letting them grow too big is the most common mistake people have made after I have set them up one of these. People don't believe how much a 10" plant can get away on them when there is this kind of overlapped light so close. I still make the same mistake myself sometimes. It's a fine line between too small and too tall.
-bulbs are about aprox 20" from the ends of the room and 22" apart. I try and keep them lever with my 3rd shelf
-I'm running two 75's filters with 750 or 950 cfm's I think. They are above the rooms now since I've ditched the poly well over a year ago. Instead of the can on a shelf across the back I have some of my bigger plants. Works out well
-Always plant the runts in the middle, and hope they are 3-4" shorter than the plants on the sides
-20" walkway
I did a build last year just about like this 4k bare bulb HPS, can 125 with a a 10inch maxfan at one end 2 wall fans at one end . My door way is on 1 wall so I lose 20 inches of grow space. I am in a shed so had to make it work. I have 3 shelves, I ran 125 plants first time got just over 8 pounds. I am going to be firing the room up again soon. Going for 9.5 pounds this round. Setting up a drip system, and adding a second filter to run when the thermostat shuts the exhaust off. This way is a lot of work but definitely worth it. I don't rotate my plants. I use individual screens on each plant to flatten them out. I have been running donuts for years so the screens are second nature to me. It is a ton of work to do individual screens, but it allows me to move and inspect the plants without having to drop a trellis. Only running 80 plants this time in 2 gal smart pots, going to veg for 3 weeks or so. If I can average 2 ounces per plant that's 10 pounds, well over my goal. I use coco, and water to runoff I made trays out of corrugated metal, and they drain in to adjustable accordion gutter drains.
Glad to see this thread is making a comeback.
Glad to see this thread is making a comeback.
Canadian Farmer
New member
Amazing efficient setup! Are you still reading the boards Northern Farmer ? Would love to see what your current setup looks like.
