Seeking Critique on Vert Colosseum SOG concept.

[Anti]

Another thing I like about this idea is that the tiers would fit in a 2'2"x2'2" space, and my current chamber is already 2.5'x7' so I could theoretically add a dividing wall and put both flip chambers within the "closet" I already built to hold this table!

To sketchup!

 

[Maj.Cottonmouth]

Two rooms would be awesome because you could run it on a flipbox but I think you might be better to just do one room with both tables in it and still have them 5 weeks apart. This is what my room basically is just more wattage. I assume if you are building a wall it is because you plan to run each room 12 hours apart. The advantages to one room would be cost savings from not building a wall and having to light proof a door as well as the extra fans and filter needed. You would get some light from the other ring of plants hitting the backside of part of the ring that is across from it. You can work on both sides at the same time and not have to deal with rooms that are 12 hours apart. Can run all of the lights at night when ambient temps are lower. I guess what I am saying is do it but do it in one room

 

[Guest 88950]

Anti, i sent ya the link to what i was talking about, several of those cooled by a lung room.

 

[Anti]

That advantage to one room would be cost savings from not building a wall and having to light proof a door as well as the extra fans and filter needed. You would get some light from the other ring of plants hitting the backside of part of the ring that is across from it. You can work on both sides at the same time and not have to deal with rooms that are 12 hours apart. Can run all of the lights at night when ambient temps are lower. I guess what I am saying is do it but do it in one room

Things to think about. I was assuming I would need a separate fan/filter for each one even if they were in the same room, as I'm not 100% convinced that the fan would be able to keep up with the heat from doubling the amount of lamps running at once.

Running flip flop means buying a new fan/filter (~$300) and two new moguls + some wiring.

Running full out requires buying two new ballasts + moguls & wiring and then potentially still having to buy the new fan/filter as well.

But it would allow me to work all the plants at once.

Things to think about.

Anti, i sent ya the link to what i was talking about, several of those cooled by a lung room.

That shit was great and I'm really glad you sent it. The way he uses trim around the circle makes the whole drainage issue cake.

Here's what I was tinkering with in Sketchup since my last post:

This is to real-life scale. This represents using about eight 2x4's and a single sheet of 3/4" plywood.

Each of these "plants" represents an 18" tall, 3" diameter single cola.


EDIT: Thanks to McFly420, I found this:

A 26" circular water heater drain pan with 1" PVC drain built in.

I could put that under the bottom tier. Top tier would need to be trimmed and drains plumbed down to the bottom in the corners can drain right into this pan. SWEET. ($20 from Home De Pot.)

Thanks McFly!

 

[bobblehead]

A... I'm gonna tell it to you like this... If you follow the 2x air exchange rule and you design your room to blow hot air straight out the top and suck cool air up and blow it gently under the plants... You'll be golden. For me that means an intake temperature of 70-75F and I don't need an a/c or heat exchanger in the grow room. Since you're building 2 cabs, why not build a tent around them for a lung room? You can use it to store your nutrients, coco, pots, random equipment... Just tryin to help a brother out. You know that when you google vert SOG your pictures come up? You know you're doing something right when you're pics come up on google.

 

[silver hawaiian]

Anti

Been lurkn' always. Watching this today. I love the way you think. And the way you illustrate/present ideas. I feel like it's a little too techy-involved for me, but I'm glad guys like you do it.

I'm en route to a very similar setup. Right now I'm in a 3' x 4' x 6' H area. Just wrapping up a grow with two stacked 400s, and one level of "tall(ish)" plants.

Already I can see it's not the yield I'm looking for. Might be lucky to get half a gipper per watt.

So, next run, I'll be doing a similar setup, but two levels, and the bulbs spaced out - essentially two 400w vert grows, in one space.

(I'll be working with a limited number of plants to fill the two levels - I have a feeling your plant count will be more efficient)

From where you are now, I think you'll be quite happy with the proposed new setup (one set of levels). If you're really considering duplicating that setup, for a total of two 2x400w/2-level gimmicks, then kudos to you sir - I'd say that's the "next level."

 

[Chunkypigs]

dude, you posted a potential 4' x 13.5' setup there, stop monkeying around in a cabinet mentality. you got room to spread out, grow you some variety for your head, and most importantly help others who can't grow... this will provide the funds you need for a proper room.

you can build a nice little collie in just 4 x 8 of that space and run decent sized pots and veg to build up a good root mass, then you are going to throw some big nugs. you won't have to work as hard as you do and your plants will have room to breathe and get plump.

I think your project was "winning". an elbow out of that little box is awesome.
there is a world of awesome weed out there that doesn't really lend itself to budsickles that I'm afraid you will miss if you stay in the cabinet. c'mon Anti, c'mon out buddy, you are gonna dig it out here homie....

seriously tho I think you have killed it with 2 great shows, stellar follow through!

 

[Anti]

dude, you posted a potential 4' x 13.5' setup there, stop monkeying around in a cabinet mentality. you got room to spread out, grow you some variety for your head, and most importantly help others who can't grow... this will provide the funds you need for a proper room.

The proposed 48 plant x 800w setup would be one of two flip rooms. It would just take up less space than the other setup and make better use of the available light.



In the design I'm currently advocating, growing small plants allows me to use every centimeter of light in the 3500-5000 lumens per sq. ft. region. The entire plant would be bathed in JUST THE RIGHT AMOUNT of light that the 400w is capable of providing. Not too much, not too little. I've already seen that in my microcab I was able to get frosty, dense 1/2 oz (on average) budsicles with these genetics. I'm sure that with the proper setup, I can make the same genetics in the same containers with a superior watering setup and superior environmental controls pump out an extra gram per plant. And that's all I'd have to do to double my current harvest. In half the space.

If you look at the image on the right above, there's only about a 3" goldilocks zone (represented by the yellow ring). Small single cola plants can best take advantage of that narrow region. Keeping the entire plant within the "optimal" light conditions should mean that I have nice tight buds throughout each plant. No larf to trim off.

I achieved this already in my microcab under cfls. But at that point 4-5 oz per cycle (non-perpetual) was about my max. So going from 500w of CFL to 800w of CMH and going from 5oz to 16oz per harvest with the same genetics ain't bad.

But I can do better.

If I wanted to do this same thing on a larger scale, I could use a 600w or 1000w bulb and scale the whole thing up.

In my current situation, I have to have something that is relatively inconspicuous.

As I grow I hope to one day move my setup out of the house (for stealth, safety, security) and at that point I will perhaps go a little bigger.

Most of that 4' x13' space was me making room so that I could get in between the racks to trim and train. The size of these racks will make moving them much easier than moving the current table.

I think your project was "winning". an elbow out of that little box is awesome.
there is a world of awesome weed out there that doesn't really lend itself to budsickles that I'm afraid you will miss if you stay in the cabinet. c'mon Anti, c'mon out buddy, you are gonna dig it out here homie....

seriously tho I think you have killed it with 2 great shows, stellar follow through!

Chunky... I appreciate your input and feel free to throw up some examples of your own work. Maybe you'll change my mind. Free exchange of ideas is one of the most beautiful parts of being a part of IC and it's something that seems to be mostly lacking on the other forums I've perused.

The reason I believe in budsicles over large plants is the problem of veg time. If you do the math, factoring in your veg time, you can get more harvests from many small plants than you can get from fewer large plants. With flip rooms going every 5 weeks, if I can get this thing firing on all cylinders, I could harvest 10 times a year. If I stayed at current GPW, that'd be about 11 elbows a year. If I could get to 1 GPW (~17g per plant x 48 plants) then I'd be pulling about 22 elbows a year. (From 800 watts!)

I have not perfected my system yet. (far from it.) In an ideal world, I can envision having 48 rooted clones (24 per side) in my microcab waiting for harvest day. On harvest day, those 48 clones would take their harvested clone-sisters' places and their sisters would go into the yet-to-be-built curing chamber. 2 weeks later, I'd take 150 clones. 2 more weeks later I'd take the best 48 of those 150 clones and put them in the microcab for a week. Then it would be time for room #2 to harvest and the plants from the microcab could take their place. Rinse and repeat with harvests every 5 weeks.

That's the plan.

 

[Anti]

Anti

Been lurkn' always. Watching this today. I love the way you think. And the way you illustrate/present ideas. I feel like it's a little too techy-involved for me, but I'm glad guys like you do it.

I do it because I want to be as methodical as I can with this and I'm also broke. So I can't afford to keep building a thousand different contraptions and constantly upgrading everything all the time. I have to find a system worth dialing in.

Building it in sketchup using actual lumber dimensions allows me to do two things:

1. write, check and re-check all of my cut list
2. make tons of stupid stoney mistakes for free in sketchup before ever buying a single 2x4.

Plus if I build something and someone says, "Ya know, if you did this or that...." I haven't actually spent any money and I can rebuild it to the new specs and look at it from 360 degrees in ways I could never easily do in real life.


And that leads to solutions I would never have arrived at by simply going to the hardware store and plunking down $500 or whatever.


I also like the added benefit that other people who have no clue what they're doing either can come and look at what I'm doing and it will help them get past the learning curves.


That's why I take so much time explaining what I'm doing all the time. Because if I'm wrong, I want to be called out on it. And if I'm right, others can use my record here as a DIY starting point for their own ideas...


It's nice to be a part of something bigger than yourself that actually does something useful for your community.

PS - Bobble - I just googled "vert sog" and then hit the "images" tab.

I'm a little afraid.

 

[mcfly420]

¨The way he uses trim around the circle makes the whole drainage issue cake.¨

if someone could explain this a bit

 

[Anti]

¨The way he uses trim around the circle makes the whole drainage issue cake.¨

if someone could explain this a bit

You've perhaps heard the saying a picture is worth a thousand words? Well I just wasted seventeen.

The lips that have been attached to the inner and outer edge will keep water from spilling over before it goes down the drain. So no worries about plants (or lights) below.

Hope it makes sense now.

 

[benjuanman]

It's funny how Bobblehead said about the "vert SOG" search on google. Cause just last week I found a thread on another pot site titled "A Compilation of Heath Robinson's Grows" and amongst Heaths grows was your first round grow with the skinny tree pots. There is a link to your thread here so you still get credit where credit is due. So yeah it just goes to show that despite your yields not being as good as you want Anti your dedication to experiment new ideas and ways is something to be proud of. So good luck with whatever direction you head down this round. Peace

 

[ImaginaryFriend]

I do it because I want to be as methodical as I can with this and I'm also broke. So I can't afford to keep building a thousand different contraptions and constantly upgrading everything all the time. I have to find a system worth dialing in.

You need a sponsor/fund.

All you should do is build contraptions and upgrade things all the time.

I'm in for a Benjamin...

 

[Crusader Rabbit]

quote; Anti

"I'd really love to know what you used to put the "lips" on each tier. I'm definitely stealing that idea, but I'd like to steal it as completely as possible, so any details on your technique would be appreciated, as you obviously did a meticulous job."


I'm not sure what Igotyourback used for the trim, but something similar is sold as lawn edging. It is usually a bit wider and heavier.

edit; Maybe check what the stores have in their selection of concrete form materials too.

edit #2; Another possibility is the plastic strips designed to insert within the weave of chain link fences for a visual barrier.

 

[Chunkypigs]

Hey Anti,
love this grow but I think there is something this rig misses and
it has to do with how much light you utilize from your bulbs output.

I think that your yeilds are limited because a vertical budsickle
is only using the light through the thickness of the plant.
ie too narrow a band utilized.

the size plants you are growing could be lit from above as a
sea of green, it yeilds better that way as we can see in threads
all over the web because each plant is using more of the
available light when lit from above in that style.

If you are shooting for an 18" budsickle You can get there easier
I think in an aircooled horizontal scrog. if you want to max out
efficiency in vert with budsickles you need to stack them in a
way to get a thicker canopy than 1 bud thick.

when you see people with high yeilds in multi plant vert grows
they are usually growing in the direction of the light source,
from the sides of the space, or colesseum style where the plant
is basically parallel to the lights like yours but they are not
growing budsickles, they are lighting up an entire plant
from just one side. they are using a thicker band of light.

also I think you need to look at how much more light intensity
you can get running bigger bulbs. it sounds like you would like
to pull commercial sized numbers, 11 bows a year or double that.
you just don't see commercial growers running 400 watt bulbs to
flower their crops. sell the 4's to a hobbyist and flip a 1000 or
maybe run 3 6's in a 4x8 or 4x10.... I like your 1st idea of 2 4x4's
in that space way better.

the number of well rooted clones you are proposing... equals a shit
load of work. if you were to grow less plants, train and veg a bit,
you can take the pinched growth and root it and never need
another mother. also grow variety... I just can't imagine smoking
the same single strain for years while you figure out your best
grow technique, but that's me and we all have different goals....

you save some work by not trimming any larf but I think that
maintaining 80 budsickles caused you to spend the time trimming
them while they were growing and for me the work on the plants
while they are in situ is harder work than the trimming.

I really like the way you think and build shit and try to push the
limit. IMHO if you want to improve your yields build more rootmass
to support bigger buds, use ALL of your light to light up more buds.

Hope I don't sound like a stoned asshole man 'cause I really love
this thread. best wishes and stellar work documenting your project.
not many threads out there like this....

 

[redbudduckfoot]

Everything chunkypigs just wrote I'd dead on. In vert SOG, you gotta STAGGER them plants. The budsicles then need to be trained so they angle out and toward the light, to envelop them in light.

Always been personally dissapointed in 400w for flowering. Love them 600w and 1000w bulbs.

 

[Anti]

I'm not disagreeing with Chunky's reasoning.

I am attempting one more rebuild with my 400w lamps. Because I simply am on a very restricted budget guys. If I can't get the kind of density and yield that I want from 400w lamps after this rebuild, I *WILL* do as has been suggested and switch to a pair of 600s or a single 1000w.

I am trying to make the most of the money I've already sunk into this project and find ways to deal with the limitations because I'm living hand to mouth at the moment.

When I was thinking of the 4ft rooms, I was planning on angling the racks towards the light like bobble does, but then getting the actual readings off of Bobble's 400w lamps got my thinking running in the other direction. If there's such a small "sweet spot", why not try to keep the entire harvest within that sweet spot?

 

[Chunkypigs]

why not try to keep the entire harvest within that sweet spot?
Bingo! that's the trick, buds stacked just deep enough... not too much...
I gotta guess you got 12" deep zone with a 400w maybe more???

 

[bobblehead]

13". He doesn't want the plants getting too close to the lamps and blocking light to the rest of the canopy. Anti has found that multiple levels don't work as well with a 400w lamp. He wants his canopy to finish 3-5" thick.

 

[redbudduckfoot]

Sacrifice 1 oz out of the current 15.4 oz to upgrade to 2 600w budget combos; ive seen them as cheap as 169$ a piece, ballast and bulb + cheapo batwing reflector. Instantly double(or triple) your harvest. End up with at least 30oz, more like 40oz. so u invest 400$ and reap at least 4-6$ thousand(value depending on your geographical location and local/state laws). That means a 1000%-1500% return on your investment, lol. U gotta graduate Anti, And it's natural to bee uneasy about the upgrade.

You are planning on upgrading bulbs, right? That's at least 40 a piece, for plantmax's, or 80$a pop for hortis.........so u are spending between 80 and 160, that will buy u the first budget 600w system. You have done the 400w x 2 CMH twice now. U got skills, great attention to details, what seems to be good work ethic........also not afraid to show yer trials and tribulations within your grow/(logs) which I admire. You also have been quick to listen to more experienced growers suggestions; except this one. We have been trying to drill it into your head that u need 600watters in there; we have been saying this for both runs.

Take my word for it. U could harvest 20oz with one, yes one 600w hps and two levels with 10 plants on each level. I know u wanna hit1 gpw with the 4's, but u will hit 1 gpw way faster with 600's under your hood(or "in yer holsters") whatever.

Don't mean to be overbearing. I'll go take some pics and show ya what's I am accomplishing in a 4' x 5' x 6'h box, with only a single 600watter. Started with 14 plants, gotta remove two of them cause of overcrowding. Also, the top 2.5ft is not being used because this is a single level test run. Day 30, just put up the nets. So u could do 4 x 4 x 3.5h, times two. Side by side or stacked flip rooms. Ooooooooooh, that's a sick idea, stacked flip rooms. Huh?

Good Luck to ya Anti, I'll be over here on my milkcrate,keeping an eye on your progress.

Big ups,

RBDF