Med room in progress(Help Needed)

[Guest]

I am moving up from my 400HPS to a 1600-2000w grow room. Right now i have a fully operational 400hps and 400MH. I have another 400MH ballast that just needs wired up and a bulb.

My room is about 10x8 and needs to be filled with light and plants asap for some med patients. I will be growing 12 plants all organic for now all soil in large pots with local soil blends, perlite, and all organic additives. Any supplemental nutrients will be supplied via Earth Juice grow/bloom. The walls will be covered in mylar.

I will be growing the following strains.
White widow
Orange spice
unknown clone(reported as "bubba something")
super silver haze
DTC99
ICE
NLxBB
Grapefruit
Shiskaberry
F-13
Purple Urkle

Now to the help part. I need advice on how much more lighting i will need to achieve maximum yields with out more then a month veg. I have 400hps and 800mh right now. I want to use all 800MH through flowering but will need more HPS light. My question is would a 400hps be enough or a 600/1000hps? I don't want to buy a 1000watt light if it will be overkill.

I also need a creative way to hang the lights from the ceiling WITHOUT drilling into the beams in the ceiling. Right now my ventilation will be normal circulating fans in the room and venting the room air into the rest of the house.

I'll keep this thread updated as i build the room. Any comments suggestions would be great.

 

[PharmaCan]

You need at least 50 watts/sq.ft. - so to fill an 80sq.ft. room with plants, you would need at least 4k of light. If you don't want to suspend the lights from the ceiling, you would need to build a frame to suspend them from. (Two 8' 4'x4's [or two 8' 2'x6's] and ten 2'x4' studs would be all you need to build a frame.

PC

 

[Guest]

bajasauce I drew up a quick sketch of an 8x10 room and I made a frame using 4x4 lumber to hold the lights. Sketch only, never done it. Maybe this will help.

 

[PharmaCan]

SoylentGreen - nice sketch. That's exactly what I had in mind too, except if you use 2x4s for the vertical support it's a little easier to nail the frame together.

PC

 

[Guest]

Thanks, you could also anchor your uprights in small buckets of concrete. 2x4's are probably the best bet and enough strength but 4x4's looked better in the drawing

 

[Guest]

I was guessing i would have to build a frame. I don't have so much money so lumber will set me back some.

As far as the 4Kwatt to fill the room i can only run 2K so the 12 plants will have to fill up half the room with some extra walking room. I don't feel comfortable running more then 2K in lights in the room plus the fans. Not to mention the cost of buying the extra lights and electricity.

As for the frame i was thinging of making something like 2 large saw horses to hang two light from each and rotate the plants every few days and keep the lights in place. If you don't know what a saw horse is:

here are the 400hps and bare bulb 400MH in the closet, also in this room. To make things more complicated i will have to seal this closet every night while these plants flower and the rest of the room is used for vegging a Purple Urkle arriving today as well as some clones waiting to root. I should be getting the hood for the MH today or tomorrow and will update with more pics of the room and progress as it happens!

 

[Guest]

"A" frames will certainly work well and you can weight them on the crossbeams.

I made another frame with buckets.

 

[PharmaCan]

ROFLMAO - Those would be some big sawhorses.

PC

 

[Guest]

You guys are a kick, LOL You could use that design for a kiddee swing set or a Gallows.

 

[Guest]

Yeah well, theres no friggen duct tape on it..........

 

[Guest]

hope no one will need to be hung in my grow room!

I received a large urkle a small pine-tar and small purple shaman clone today along with unknown clone. I will be getting a hood for the MH in a few hours along with some random hydro supplies. Maybe enough to set up 2 plants in large DWC using my earth juice. Like i said the room will end up as a flower only room and harvest 2-3 plants every few weeks. A few quick growing plants in hydro will help alot. Pictures tonight.

 

[cabanetforester]

Hey bajasauce. Mind if I pull up a chair? Have you considered a light mover?

I think MR Wags used a light mover with about 2k of lights. Dono what the WPSF was though.

Anyway his plants always get to big with giant buds and it freaks people out so it might not be a good idea.

 

[Guest]

well a light mover costs money and has to be installed in the ceiling. I might have to drill hooks into the ceiling beams for lack of funds to get lights and buy the frame. How easy is it to repair holes from drilling hooks into the beam? As easy as mixing nail holes?

 

[yamaha_1fan]

The ceiling is drywall I assume? Is it flat or textured?

It would be easy to fix, just matching the texture might be tough.

2x4's are like 2$ each. $30 would get enough 2x4's and screws/nails

 

[Guest]

We used to fill holes with colgate toothpaste when I was moving out of an apartment. I always got my deposits back.

 

[Guest]

i got the magic <beep>...

i got the magic <beep>...

how are ya' going to perfect nutes with sooo many strains?

my rule of thumb: one strain per rez. are you running 11 rez's? i know fer sure, dude, that your urkle's and f-13 have diff nute needs. what if they are not ready to flower at same time? waiting til all ready wastes time...which is money...do you have seperate veg area?

lighting grid...my favourite word right now: overlap.
pack the lights in....i am running 9, 600wMH in the same size space you are talking about. in 8" pots, you can get 4 plants per light on a scrog.
in my experience, light movers are a novice waste of time...good for veg, but produce airy flowers, regardless.

or, go small now and build up as you go. i just see too many peeps like you drown coz they do not invest in proper set up from the get go...waste time and energy pluggin holes.

and one gets what one pays for...ask for a business loan if you are doing a med grow. that is totally reasonable, draw up a business plan, find an investor, sell a few futures....also, make sure you have the proper insurance policy to cover your med grow getting ripped. renter's/home owners covers this in cali.

also, in that type of space be ready to deal with serious heat/humidity issues, as summer is around the corner in cali. and mold/mildew is not medical.

would post pics, but i am not *allowed*

att

 

[cabanetforester]

Hey allthesethings, welcome to IC.

Sounds like a nice setup you have running there. Also Good points about the different strains needing different diets.

lighting grid...my favourite word right now: overlap.
pack the lights in....i am running 9, 600wMH in the same size space you are talking about. in 8" pots, you can get 4 plants per light on a scrog.
in my experience, light movers are a novice waste of time...good for veg, but produce airy flowers, regardless.

I think he mentioned something about not going over 2k with the lights, maybe you missed that. All around good advice though. There is a good support network for the med folks in Oregon they won't let him drown.

As for your experiences with light movers, maybe this can shed some 'light' on that. Haha it's a funny. I make a funny!

http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=13810

Its long read but a good one. If you haven't the time for it maybe start on page 20 or something.

Also true about trying to do this on a budget isn't the easiest thing sometimes you can have major challenges at the worst times because something got left out or skimped on. I'm sure bajasauce could do fine without a light mover as well. As for the mover being a novice waste of time, well I'm laughing AT you on that one big dog.

Anyway props for throwing in your .02 to help a fellow newbie med grower. Peace CF

 

[Mr Celsius]

how are ya' going to perfect nutes with sooo many strains?

He said he was doing it the right way , organics, he can run a million different strains and they will all grow fine.

 

[Guest]

Well sorry up front for no pictures, more on why later. To clear things up 10 plants will be in 3 gallon organic soil. i just got two complete DWC with air and water pumps and pebbles. SO two plants will be monster DWC via earth juice.

Got hooks and chains to hang lights, decided to fix the minor damage. Got everything hung and the MH buzzing away and the flower area separated. THEN as i'm eating i hear this popping and ran to the grow room and saw the ballast smoking enough to double my heart rate. I quickly unplugged it and stopped it from catching on fire but now i have one dead ballast and one that i might be able to wire up but am afriad the same thing might happen.

This ballast was running perfect for 4 days before this happening. If this would have happened 3 hours later in the night i would be in big trouble.

Needless to say i'm investing pretty much the entire grow budget(it's small) into a new quality light system. I don't want to die!

Back to ghetto grow supplies till next payday.

 

[Guest]

If you want to get a ballast cheap then order a ballast kit and build your own. Many people here have done it and it is a cheap alternative.

http://www.htgsupply.com/viewproduct.asp?productID=45706