Hydro veg room design?

[Lazyman]

Hey all! Long time no chat, my fault of course!

So as some of you old-timers may remember, I have a 30kw flower room (really 3 x 10 light gardens, perpetual ) with a 6 foot ceiling. In the process of converting my lights to nanolux DE's, about half done so far. Currently growing in 2g smarties of coco/perlite, on the floor, hand watered daily. 16 plants per light, phosphoload as needed to keep size down.

In an effort to ease maintenance and boost yields, I'm contemplating trying a hydro system in flower. Since I have such low ceilings, flood and drain trays won't work, and big plants won't work.

Am thinking of a CAP Ebb and grow (12 buckets per light?) or Sentinel bucket system, umess some one can suggest some thing better for medium sized plants. Large bushy plants won't work here, veg is fixed at 3 weeks max and cannot be lengthened (nor can the ceiling be raised!)

So my next question, is the veg room. I have 5 1000w gavitas in a dedicated veg room, as well as an extra 5x10 tent I could use for veg. Starting on a small scale, what could I use to veg approx. 48 plants and then transplant into a bucket system somehow? I was wondering about a flood and drain tray with the lid for net pots, but again, what medium to use and how to transplant it without damage?

Thanks all!

 

[DunHav`nFun]

Hey old man LTNS......Is it true that the new DE fixtures are brighter than conventional HID lighting ?....

Reason I ask is with the 6' ceiling height , are they dimmable to protect from light bleaching/heat scorching , and how does dropping wattage affect bottomline yield....that said...

I ran DIY ebb and flow buckets for several yrs , and even though it`s fairly bulletproof , gotta keep big ass rez`s and r/o tanks for top off and remix etc. , so I can`t see why you don`t just keep doin the simple "LAZYMAN`S" setup.....especially with....

30KW to handle , even if it is perpetual 10 at a time , you`re not satisfied with the 25-30 lbs you pull now per cycle , or are you just bored........less is more bro trust me....and you know this....

My last several yrs before retirement was DTW coco and would still be if I was to return , so contemplate the options , and THEN keep doin what you do.... lol....anyways....

Glad ta see yas back around , and you know I`m just fuckin witchas , I`ll help any way I can....I vegged mine in 10" netpots that fit like a lid over my 5 gal buckets , and just moved each one from veg to bloomroom when it was time to pull the trigger....anyways...

Good luck and....

Peace....DHF........

 

[Treetroit City]

One of my rooms is the sentinel bucket system, love it. I've done veg in coco, rockwool and rocks. 4x4 rockwool cubes are easy to plants started, I then put the cube in a 1 or 2 gallon smart and fill with rocks. Same with coco, solo cup of coco into smartpot and filled with rocks. Smart pots drop into the bucket system, get filled with more rocks and off and running. Could also do rapid rooter cube to 1 gallon smart pot filled with rocks.

Ive recently bought extra buckets to finish veg in those so I get a root mass ready to be flipped the day they get dropped in the system. This alows a one day turnaround harvesting the system and dropping in the new plants.

 

[Dion]

why not just do ebb n flow type thing with coco- just put the smartpots in a tub or whatever and have a a drain line out?

 

[amanda88]

That low ceiling worries me, not so much for plant height but for successful venting, etc .. but as you say its a veg room..
(..what could I use to veg approx. 48 plants and then transplant into a bucket system somehow?)
..I'd be germing them out in a cloner bubbler, once big enough 2-3 inches, then to neoprene collars, then to your buckets, but many prefer to start them in rapid rooters..?

Good Luck

 

[Lazyman]

Hey DTF, yeah they upped our gpw at a test spot from .68 to .97 gpw, went from 10 x 1000w to 9 x 1150w gavitas, and from 15 to 22 pounds of Og and sours. I'm completely sold.

So, my goal is to reduce maintenance costs, which are, well, a lot. 1.5 hours a night hand watering adds up over a year. My guys have plenty of pruning, staking and taping to do, as well as cloning and trimming, watering could be eliminated. Takes 326 days to pay for the cost of the system in labor savings. If it helps my yields any (even a tiny bit) it's gravy.

Thanks to all who commented, I am reluctant to use rocks because it would be too much to wash and too expensive to replace. We chop 10 lights every 3 weeks, hang em whole in a drying room, dump the pots, wash em, refill flower from veg, and refill veg with new clones within 48 hours. Then trim the dry crop 3 days after that, package it, vac seal the trim and popcorn and get rid of it all. No room to wash around 150 buckets of rocks

We have a couple turbo kloner 144s that have been doing really well with our sour cut, but they grow so fast they almost don't need any veg time. Otherwise I buy rooted clones in rockwool. I think it would be easiest to stick with our coco perlite mix (as Dion suggested) in 2g smartpots for veg and drop em vegged into 2g hydro buckets, that way we don't have to engineer a dedicated hydro system for even a test run. We already have 100g reservoirs, but yeah I'd need 4 more to run 8 rows worth of 48 buckets per row.

Our veg and flower rooms both have excellent ventilation, and always cool evenings. Air exchange in flower is every 16 seconds (5000 cfm in, 6500 cfm out, 5 14x39 carbon filters) plus around 20 oscillating fans.

 

[Dion]

or have u heard of blumat?

http://www.blumat.com/en/watering-system-for-house-plants.html

 

[coldcanna]

Automated coco all day- I'd run PVC main lines down the sides of your rows/tables and install however many branch lines you need (how many pots), put valves on these branch lines so you can add and remove at your leisure, leave the drippers in the pot with the 1/4" tail piece coming off then carry it into the bloom room, plug it into your PVC line in there and your done. In my mind that's simplicity at its finest- I couldn't imagine the upkeep on several hundred DWC sites

 

[coldcanna]

Hey Lazy- Was just re-reading some of your setup- How do you feel about the Nanolux DE's vs the Gavita's? $100 cheaper for the Nanolux's wondering if the quality is $100 lower ya know

 

[Lazyman]

Yeah, I know blumats well, I kinda wrote the book on em, lol. I have enough, but maintaining 500 blumats a day (and the lines/clogs) is a pain in the ass. Always a few runaways and a few clogged lines a day, and hard to keep them clean and hydrated.

Yeah I do like the nanolux, the cost savings is well worth it. The software is still pretty bad but it at least functions, barely. Nice to not have more wires overhead, bit the gavitas are dead nuts reliable.