Conex Gardens

chazbolin

Well-Known Member
Being in So Cal there is a plethora of deals to be had on old Conex shipping containers. You can get a 40' in reasonably good condition, for around $2,500 that won't leak, much, and will close up as tight as a ducks butt. I've seen other 'modular' building grow rooms that went from trailers that you could tow around to interlocking panels that could get pretty exotic and pricey. But for what I wanted to do, which was set up the interior so I could run 1 gal pots with short stout plants on a 10 week cycle on two shelves that would flood and drain. Using coco/hydroton as a media, I lay a single level of 1" black lava rock in the bottom of each 1 gal pot than take the rest in a mix of coco and hydroton.

As you'll see the 4' x 8' industrial shelving acts as a good foundation to lay out the tubs that were built out of OSB plywood on the base with 2 x 6 sides that let me lay in pond liner material to make the bed water tight. There are two plumbing lines that go from a 300 gal reservoir outside the conex to each tub. Water height is determined by how high the standpipe is in each tub. When the pump is running, once a day for 15 minutes, all the beds will be recirculating that res water. Since the coco likes to wick the water up the water level in the bed is set for 2". When the plants are young I'll top water but as they get bigger that should not be necessary.

Power is limited to a 120/240v 40 amp circuit. So I need to keep my equipment loads within that. I have been using a sentinel controller to handle temp/humidity/CO2 levels but I'm finishing up an environmental controller that will handle those tasks as well as allow me to program photoperiod and a pump control and jog which basically runs the pump for 10 seconds every hour to churn the reservoir. There are airstones in the res but I really like the idea of just giving the water a hard stir occasionally and this feature is simple to add into the program so I did. The water supply to the res is coming from the fish tanks as a decoupled system. That means we can always add nutrients to the water going to the plants as necessary since that water will not be returned to the fish.

Other equipment that has to factor into this are the two 8000 btu wall mounted AC units. Day temp is set for 85 degrees and night temps are set to 72. There is also a ventilator carbon filter that pulls in fresh air from the outside if it's lights out and the exterior temps are below 75 F.

It took about 7 weeks to get everything in running order and the plants were put into flower. I only have enough plants to do the top shelve but to anyone considering a setup like this I believe a reasonably modest projection of 1 oz per 1 gal plant puts that 84 plants @ 5.25 lb's per 32 sq-ft shelve. Running 3 ea., IG 420/Pontoon combo's @ 460 watts each combines the total shelve load @ 1380 watts which would put us in the 1.7 g/w region.

In addition to the 1 gal vertical shelves there is a more traditional layout which consists of a 3' x 3' and 4' x 8' trays that are single level which allowed the use of 2 gal pots for those taller and bushier plants. The flower room is cordoned off from the veg/mother area with a demising wall/door and two curtains to prevent light trespass. Worth noting here is that this happens to be a standard 40' x 8' x 8' Conex box. There are also High Cube boxes that you could buy which add another 1.5' to the height which in the case of the vertical shelves would most definitely come in handy. We're starting showing day 17 of flower. I'll do regular updates and any comments or suggestions are always welcome.
 

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Greengenes707

Well-Known Member
Being in So Cal there is a plethora of deals to be had on old Conex shipping containers. You can get a 40' in reasonably good condition, for around $2,500 that won't leak, much, and will close up as tight as a ducks butt. I've seen other 'modular' building grow rooms that went from trailers that you could tow around to interlocking panels that could get pretty exotic and pricey. But for what I wanted to do, which was set up the interior so I could run 1 gal pots with short stout plants on a 10 week cycle on two shelves that would flood and drain. Using coco/hydroton as a media, I lay a single level of 1" black lava rock in the bottom of each 1 gal pot than take the rest in a mix of coco and hydroton.

As you'll see the 4' x 8' industrial shelving acts as a good foundation to lay out the tubs that were built out of OSB plywood on the base with 2 x 6 sides that let me lay in pond liner material to make the bed water tight. There are two plumbing lines that go from a 300 gal reservoir outside the conex to each tub. Water height is determined by how high the standpipe is in each tub. When the pump is running, once a day for 15 minutes, all the beds will be recirculating that res water. Since the coco likes to wick the water up the water level in the bed is set for 2". When the plants are young I'll top water but as they get bigger that should not be necessary.

Power is limited to a 120/240v 40 amp circuit. So I need to keep my equipment loads within that. I have been using a sentinel controller to handle temp/humidity/CO2 levels but I'm finishing up an environmental controller that will handle those tasks as well as allow me to program photoperiod and a pump control and jog which basically runs the pump for 10 seconds every hour to churn the reservoir. There are airstones in the res but I really like the idea of just giving the water a hard stir occasionally and this feature is simple to add into the program so I did. The water supply to the res is coming from the fish tanks as a decoupled system. That means we can always add nutrients to the water going to the plants as necessary since that water will not be returned to the fish.

Other equipment that has to factor into this are the two 8000 btu wall mounted AC units. Day temp is set for 85 degrees and night temps are set to 72. There is also a ventilator carbon filter that pulls in fresh air from the outside if it's lights out and the exterior temps are below 75 F.

It took about 7 weeks to get everything in running order and the plants were put into flower. I only have enough plants to do the top shelve but to anyone considering a setup like this I believe a reasonably modest projection of 1 oz per 1 gal plant puts that 84 plants @ 5.25 lb's per 32 sq-ft shelve. Running 3 ea., IG 420/Pontoon combo's @ 460 watts each combines the total shelve load @ 1380 watts which would put us in the 1.7 g/w region.

In addition to the 1 gal vertical shelves there is a more traditional layout which consists of a 3' x 3' and 4' x 8' trays that are single level which allowed the use of 2 gal pots for those taller and bushier plants. The flower room is cordoned off from the veg/mother area with a demising wall/door and two curtains to prevent light trespass. Worth noting here is that this happens to be a standard 40' x 8' x 8' Conex box. There are also High Cube boxes that you could buy which add another 1.5' to the height which in the case of the vertical shelves would most definitely come in handy. We're starting showing day 17 of flower. I'll do regular updates and any comments or suggestions are always welcome.
Awesome bro. I have been contemplating double dickering a veg setup to save space. If I had at least 8' I would do flower too.

Very cool set up. Hope you rock the hell out of it!
 

chazbolin

Well-Known Member
Thanks for the support GG! It means alot. This has always been a dream of mine to develop. Part of it comes down to the fact that these are systems that can be built and sold turnkey with identified genetics that have already proven themselves in these environments. The other side of this is that I want to be the first out there to be LEED certified for commercial cannabis production. That comes down to getting credits for the way energy and water are used. It's already started where the utilities are hitting the growers with these surcharges, lowering the total power they can draw off the grid. I'm bringing in a 30kW Capstone microturbine to come off grid which, in my case, natural gas which puts my kW/hr cost down down to $ 0.06, take CO2 into the Conex and will co-gen allowing me to heat water which can be used for other processes. Put it all together and offer a finance package and who knows what the market reaction might be. We shall see.
 

chazbolin

Well-Known Member
I love these for growing! Have you thought about burying them into the dirt?
I've heard of that being done as a stealth measure and as a way to maintain geothermal equilibrium. I guess the disadvantages would be you lost the drain portion since we let gravity drop the water out of the tubs into an exterior reservoir also exterior access (rust prevention), the potential for flooding and the fact that you've lost alot of the ease of portability should you decide you want to move operations. Nonetheless I think there is a case that could be made for burying the room(s).
How much veg time/size are you going to give the double decker setups?
We're looking for 2 week veg cycles and still identifying the strains that will perform best under these conditions.
 

vitamin_green_inc

Well-Known Member
I've heard of that being done as a stealth measure and as a way to maintain geothermal equilibrium. I guess the disadvantages would be you lost the drain portion since we let gravity drop the water out of the tubs into an exterior reservoir also exterior access (rust prevention), the potential for flooding and the fact that you've lost alot of the ease of portability should you decide you want to move operations. Nonetheless I think there is a case that could be made for burying the room(s).


We're looking for 2 week veg cycles and still identifying the strains that will perform best under these conditions.
Yep, just get a certain footage down and the earth itself is the greatest ecosystem we know of...it will keep it extremely well insulated and cut on those AC costs quite a bit.
 

bicit

Well-Known Member
I would love to have a few of these around. Practically purpose built for indoor gardening. Just need to get some high efficiency cobs in there as well :P
 

cityworker415

Well-Known Member
Hey bro your stuff looks rad we did something similar in the Bay Area and with the weather we have condensation is a a big problem running AC in the summer. Sure you got things dialed in no goddamn doubt roll up R 32 will really help if your boxes are in the Sun. Can't wait to see this one good luck bro

Sent from my SM-G900V using Rollitup mobile app
 

chazbolin

Well-Known Member
Day 38 Update. While I search for the ideal genetics for a stackable conex grow I ended up thinning out some of the plants to give them some breathing room. At this point the plants that seem to be doing the best are the GG4, Obama, and the Chronic Thunder. Thanks to SCRob who hooked me up (thanx again) I got 30 of the Alien Bubba beans to pop so if that strain grows like it sounds than I'll have another for the lineup. In terms of flower development one thing that is quite apparent between the Conex and the Jurassic garden is how much greater the trichome production is in the Conex. It's still early so I'm not reading much into it yet but for what it's worth the Conex is a week behind Jurassic. It's going to be interesting. :weed:
 

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chazbolin

Well-Known Member
The Conex numbers are in. What I can say is that round 1 was a learning curve so we're only going to improve on these numbers. We're also getting closer to determining what strains are ideally suited for these conditions. The quality of the finish was exceptional. We compared trichome production on the GG1 for example on the Jurassic room versus the Conex and there was definitely greater trichome production on the Conex side. When working with a local biochemist the discussions have centered around using this de-coupled aquaponics/IG420-Pontoons approach to concentrate on high CBD strains and harvest when CBD levels are at their optimum development for live resin extraction. They are thinking that may be found at week 6 of flower. I'm open to experimentation so we shall see.

Round 2 is already underway. Some mothers are going to flower out and we have enough of the Chronic Thunder, Alien Bubba, Mint Chocolate Chip and Dark Side of the Moon to make a decent run of them. Thanks to those of you here who contributed to making that happen.
 

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hyroot

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Looks great. Nice pull on both. Those are big yields.

BTW that dark side and mint chocolate chip both get very dense. Yield a lot. The mint chocolate chip was my fav. The flavor was a mix of mint chip ice cream and old school master Kush. I have 2 dark side and 2 mint chocolate chip in veg now. And @lemmy714 is running the same cut of dark side too. That was like a Kushy and fruity. But more on the fruity side. Those I ran were the ones from seed. I haven't flowered the clones yet. They're going into flower next week.



You guys will live those strains. They veg fast too. Only need to top once then and / or super crop a bunch. They both get pretty frosty. The dark side gets a lot more frosty though. Both make great ice wax and rosin.
 

chazbolin

Well-Known Member
I can't wait to see these strains coming up. With 3 weeks of veg they're now in flower and like you noted they are exhibiting fast veg and beautiful structure. . I'll get some closeups for the next update. As to the yields I'm not disappointed at all but I think they'll get better. I went with Veg and Bloom nutrients and for whatever reason the plants just stagnated and I lost a couple of weeks. Once back on Flying Skull they were back on pace. With this run I hope to dial in a more even SOG canopy that really pushes the limits of what all these lil 1 gal pots can push up.
 

Socalrob

Well-Known Member
Nice harvest, got a feeling you'll dial it in a lot further. Tried to get that dark side but ended up getting exotic kimbo kush. Just started a few and also seeds from my Bluepower x blue lime pie bx. Really like the Bluepower, great smooth flavor nice indica high. not a great yielder but in the blue lime pie the key lime pie changes that. Looking forward to the kimbo, heard good things so we'll see. Glad to see you're rocking things down there, keep up the good work.
 

chazbolin

Well-Known Member
Sorry for the delayed update but it's been kind of nuts around here. Today I pulled a Mint Chocolate Chip out of one of the last remaining 1 gal pots this morning that smelled sooo good I had to share it with the ladies. Seriously they better start laying some eggs in the next few weeks. They're eating me out of house and home! Oh and as I found out the hard way don't let them near any plants you care about. They'll nibble em clean.

As to the Conex grow I'm converting it into a single tub instead of the stacked system. It's just too much work dealing with all the 1 gal pots and all the associated chores from cloning on that I just don't have the time to deal with the shear volume of plants that the system required. So I converted the Conex to just a single tub and will let the plants veg bigger in 5 gal buckets as you can see by the new layout. Another benefit as to the overall system design has been the tomatoes and lettuce gardens which network the Conex gardens and are now providing a steady supply of table fare. The concept is described as 151 Farming in that for every 1 lb of cannabis we grow 5 lb's of food for 1 community. There is a considerable amount of R&D getting done with these gardens as it relates to lighting technology and genetics that do well in certain aspects of the aquaponic systems but as long as your growing you might as well have those high CBD strains like Harlequin and AC/DC that can then be made into oils for those that require them.

Happy Holidays to everyone and lets have a safe and prosperous New Year!
 

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