Indoor Vertical Grow Systems 101

[manchild]

Im sold.I've been eyeing verticals for quite sometime.Even if I fell I still want to give it a go.I have all the info any one man can obtain.Thanks guys.Keep it green Marlo and thanks DHF for your insight as well as the peeps that posted there experience.Much respect.

 

[bobblehead]

 

[thingshappening]

They won't let me rep u any more man, but thank you very much.

So I'm setting up the new garden as we speak, standard tree garden as outlined in the OP. The room is 8x8 with tall ceilings, guessing 10-ish feet ceilings. But if needed I can set it up in a 10x10 room as well. With X being light O being plant:

XOX
OXO
XOX


Trying to decide what lights to use, tough call.


Clearly 600's on the perimeter will be the most efficient, but I have an itch to try 1K's...I just don't know. Electric ain't cheap where this garden is, something like 12 cents per Khr...dunno if it's worth subbing with 1K's?

I was thinking 1K MH down the middle with 4 1K HPS in the corners, run 12/12 with no staggering.

What do you guys think?

 

[MyGreenToe]

I don't believe you will want to use 1k's in an 8x8 room. That's a bit tight. Stick with the 600s, at least in the corners. If you insist on the 1k's, I insist you use the 10x10 space.

Otherwise sounds ok to me. 600s are the best lumen bang for your kw/h buck, so thats somethin to chew on if AC costs are high...

 

[Aerohead]

Looking good, been working hard I see.. Only thing that bugs me about the pic is the bottom bulb cord. The way it exits the fixture puts the wires very close to the bulb above.
Could you swap that one for the top, looks like your other fixtures exit from the sides away from the bulb. Maybe it's not as close as the picture makes it look, in which case nevermind..lol

Love the idea of a centrifugal for the floor fan, that's going to rock, especially with the radiator..

 

[TexasMonster]

Only thing that bugs me about the pic is the bottom bulb cord. The way it exits the fixture puts the wires very close to the bulb above.
Could you swap that one for the top, looks like your other fixtures exit from the sides away from the bulb.

Good catch. Catches like that, IMHO, are the most important reasons for these forums

 

[statusquo]

Looking good, been working hard I see.. Only thing that bugs me about the pic is the bottom bulb cord. The way it exits the fixture puts the wires very close to the bulb above.
Could you swap that one for the top, looks like your other fixtures exit from the sides away from the bulb. Maybe it's not as close as the picture makes it look, in which case nevermind..lol

Love the idea of a centrifugal for the floor fan, that's going to rock, especially with the radiator..

This is exactly what I was thinking. I just remedied a similar issue in my garden yesterday by wrapping a few layers of foil around the chord. I realized it while driving home and got super sketched out. 400w CMH (uv rays...) within a few inches of chord = bad!

Edit: @BOBBLE wondering how much you paid for those sockets and where you got them? Thanks

As to the guys arrangement a few posts above with the 600s, I feel like I would personally use less bulbs and more plants. Ideally you want to shoot for using 360 degrees of each bulbs light whenever possible. There are a few bulbs where it is essentially the same as a horizontal orientation - just food for thought.

Other Edit: I have been thinking about it more and was curious to get your guys' thoughts. Although vertical is more efficient, I can envision certain grow rooms that would benefit more from utilizing vertical and horizontal lighting. What do you guys think? All vert > hort + vert?

 

[Ravi Singh]

Just an FYI to the person thinking of putting the 600s in corners - most experienced vert growers (Heath aside, but he's a freak of nature so just forget about him ) have come to the conclusion that using bare 600s in corners is a waste, as they're *almost* as hot as a bare bulbed 1000.

When taking into account AC needs, there's an inflection point of efficiency (when graphed) where it makes more sense to use more light and generate a larger yield while using (just about) the same amount of cooling.

Statusquo, you can get those sockets from HTG Supply...........they're about $15 a piece.

BTW, I'll sneak in some pics of my new setup - converted over to HP aero and reduced the diameter of my octagon from 7' to 5' for more light reaching the plants.

 

[Zapaleniec]

This thread should be sticky definitely . Great work guys

 

[bobblehead]

Looking good, been working hard I see.. Only thing that bugs me about the pic is the bottom bulb cord. The way it exits the fixture puts the wires very close to the bulb above.
Could you swap that one for the top, looks like your other fixtures exit from the sides away from the bulb. Maybe it's not as close as the picture makes it look, in which case nevermind..lol

Love the idea of a centrifugal for the floor fan, that's going to rock, especially with the radiator..

yeah, I know... I realized when I mounted it I had a potential problem... I'll rearrange the lamps... Clearly more than one person thinks this is a problem, and my name isn't Gingerale, so I can take the constructive criticism... lol It's not that close, and there's gonna be a whole lot of air moving through there, but it's better not to have a fire hazard.

 

[thingshappening]

Thanks guys. So here is where I'm at: 4-6 plants (thoughts on which? 6 is my max unfortunately) vegged in 1K MH down the middle for 6-8 wks. Flower: 5K watts, 10x10 room (probably a tent actually). 4 1k hps on the perimeter, 1K MH (bad idea?) in the middle, as such:

XOX
OXO
XOX

AC as necessary. It's cold here. That's about as efficient a vert grow I can think of (in theory) with a low plant count.

 

[Ravi Singh]

If you wanna talk about maxing out your efficiency, a four light/five plant grow will increase your grams per watt, guaranteed - were I to setup a 10x10 room, that's the direction I'd go (I'm all about efficiency).

Just put the plants where the X's are and a light where the O's are.

Will also lower your cooling needs, and allow you to get closer to your max plant count.

 

[DHF]

Gotta respectfully disagree Ravi on the light/plant placement.....I mean sure 5 plants would yield more in a faster time with increased plant numbers , but dropping the watts per sq ft from 50 to 40 and reversing the lights is a no no in my book from what I`ve witnessed over the yrs.....

Believe me.....back during the krusty wars , folks tried every imaginable light/plant configuration known to man , and NONE produced like the 4 plant 5 light 10 x 10 rooms on a consistent basis.....

IME , there`s absolutely not a more perfect vertical setup than 10x 10 rooms with 5 lights in an X pattern , and 4 plants in a diamond pattern where each plant gets blasted sideways by 3 lights at all times......

I ran 600`s in the corners as well Ravi because I couldn`t afford to run the extra 1600 watts in light with 5-1K`s.......I hadta use the extra wattage for environment down here in Hell cuz relative humidity stays above 80% constantly.......

I do agree that 34 watts per sq ft only works with everything dialed along with the right strain , and 50 per is the shit for dense dank nuggage , but I never found that out till after stopping krusty buckets and moving on to ebb and flow buckets with increased plant numbers in flip rooms......

I do agree that 600`s burned almost as hot as my 1K MH bulbs in the middles , but a 2 ton wall banger a/c unit and major air exchange took care of things nicely......

5000 watts in a 10 x 10 room will grow 4 monster plants given the right strain/variety...preferably a 50/50 sat/ind hybrid that stretches well after the flip and swells up accordingly till end of cycle......

I`ve seen it happen many many times......My`ol Bro Blue Haze grew 3 1/4 lber`s from Reeferman`s # 38 hashplant and said the potency wasn`t there , so moved on to the next strain , but.......the yields dropped , and my main point being that yield is genetically determined as well as environmental.....

Rocked my krusty buckets for over 8 yrs , with 10 lb rooms every run , but I had the perfect mex sat/ind skunk hybrid...

More indica dominant varieties with little to no stretch don`t do as well as hybrids with bare bulbs cuz they grow mostly sideways instead of up AND out.....

Good luck folks....Bobble.....move that damn cord...LOL.....

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

 

[J. Greenstein]

I just read this entire thread today...pure awesomeness! I'm sold on the 10 x 10 room DHF ran, I will be hittin ya up for help bro in the not too distant future.

 

[Ravi Singh]

Gotta respectfully disagree Ravi on the light/plant placement.....I mean sure 5 plants would yield more in a faster time with increased plant numbers , but dropping the watts per sq ft from 50 to 40 and reversing the lights is a no no in my book from what I`ve witnessed over the yrs.....

Believe me.....back during the krusty wars , folks tried every imaginable light/plant configuration known to man , and NONE produced like the 4 plant 5 light 10 x 10 rooms on a consistent basis.....

IME , there`s absolutely not a more perfect vertical setup than 10x 10 rooms with 5 lights in an X pattern , and 4 plants in a diamond pattern where each plant gets blasted sideways by 3 lights at all times......

Hey bro, if there's anyone I'd love to be disagreed with by, it's you

When I was talking "efficiency", I was simply referring to on a GPW vs. GPW basis; sure, for another week or two of veg and using another 1K in your room, of course you're gonna pull more weed down at harvest, not debating that.

And regarding the 600s - I realize that the heat can be taken care of, but if a bare bulbed 600 puts out *just about* the same amount as a bare bulbed 1K, it stands to reason that using 1Ks is the move - you're basically getting the chance to add 4 * 400(1K-600) = 1.6K watts to your grow room "for free", i.e., without having to increase your cooling needs - that's a no-brainer.

Anyhow, reasonable people can agree to disagree

Wait til you see this next project I'm gonna be workng on, holy shit...........HP aero trees on constantly rotating turntables

 

[whodair]

the watts per foot calculation is in regards to flat garden right ?? instead of 8x8 or 10x10 shouldnt we figure the sq foot of our stadium/cylinder canopy ??

i think bare bulb makes more resinous buds than air cooled hoods too i might add...

 

[thingshappening]

Enjoy the discussion guys, thanks.


I was looking at this: http://www.plantlightinghydroponics.com/cap-ebb-monster-gallon-hydroponics-system-p-3110.html

But I don't think it'll be able to handle the size trees we're looking at here in the 10x10. Will it?

I'm in the US so I can't get the Aquafarms and modify it.

 

[whodare]

when i built my stadium i figured that i would have two sides of the room about 5'x9'-10' so 90-100 square feet of foliage. i put 4k in there to get me real close to 50w/sqf.

 

[DHF]

You just missed it cuz......

You just missed it cuz......

I totally agreed witchas Ravi on using the 1K`s in the corners instead of my 600`s Bro , just couldn`t deal with it in my setups when havin ta compensate for humidity and heat here in Hell and THEN pay the powerbill all the while tryin ta fly below the radar in redneckville.......only disagreed on the reverse plant/light placement with less light.......

Saw where you were tinkerin with lazy susan type saucer/stands automated shit and was intrigued..........and yeah guys .....it was determned way back that watts blasted sideways was the equivalence of 20 watts per sq ft thereabouts on the walls with bare bulbs , but that`s all the way around the rooms on all 4 walls , while `ol krusty bucket rules were just 50 watts per total in same said amount of sq ftg regardless with bare bulbs hangin........

6 0f 1 , 1/2 dozen of another......dialed "strain" results is all that matters......period.....

Ya`ll take care.....DHF..........

 

[Ravi Singh]

I totally agreed witchas Ravi on using the 1K`s in the corners instead of my 600`s Bro , just couldn`t deal with it in my setups when havin ta compensate for humidity and heat here in Hell and THEN pay the powerbill all the while tryin ta fly below the radar in redneckville.......

Ahhhh, my bads broski........just reread it, we do agree

Wait until you see this new setup I'm designing, I'm gonna need to write a manual for myself just to remember how it works........lol, I'm the Anti-Heath.

Already tweaking my octagon and might add one or two more misters per column in the next week...............