Advanced grow room setup with black dog leds

[Broclee]

Hey everybody hope this post find you all in good spirits. Like most of yall i have always wanted to grow like the pros. You know the one you see on you tube in the white cover alls walkin around in a room with 100 plants. So after wrapping up my 2nd grow i decided would set an all new grow space using upgraded equipment to see if i could get the same results as the pros. The grow room will be 16×14 with 5x15 for canopy space for my existing lights and the addition of the phyto max 1000. Im currently building out the space now and will let you all come along on the journey from setup all the way to harvest . ill post a list of all my equipment once it is all set up and will post pics for you too. I hope you guys and gals enjoy my journal and are able to take way some useful info for your uncoming grows feel free to ask me whatever you like now it time to get back in the lab and get things set up
lastly This is to document my grow not a solicition to buy anything.

 

[Hobbes]

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Broclee I only grow in a 4x4 tent but I have a Black Dog Phytomax 1050W too.

It puts out great light and the buds are hard to the edges of the tent. Heavy SOBs but you`ll grow great bud with it.

Will you be using their topping and trellis techniques?

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[Broclee]

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Broclee I only grow in a 4x4 tent but I have a Black Dog Phytomax 1050W too.

It puts out great light and the buds are hard to the edges of the tent. Heavy SOBs but you`ll grow great bud with it.

Will you be using their topping and trellis techniques?

.

You know i think imma go with the trelis technique but depends if i stay with 5foot wide foot print or not.what kind of yields do you think one can look to see in a 5x5

 

[Hobbes]

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I'm still perfecting their technique and I grew 850 grams cured to 62% H with a 4x4 footprint. If you vegged 7 or 8 weeks to fill out the 5x5 footprint with colas you could bring in 1500 grams. 1.5 grams per watt, I've seen many growers on here get more than 2 grams per watt.

.

 

[Broclee]

So let get to growing some dank. But first let talk about the design. So the first thing that had to be done was upgrading the electrics. The new grow space will be pulling close to 85 amps it is far more then what is available now in the breaker box so A dedicated sub panel was installed.

 

[Broclee]

Just what will all this power be used for you might ask .well With an canopy space of 75sqft or 5x15 @ 40 watts a sqft that comes out to 3000 watts or 25 amps of power for the canopy. The job of making those 3000 watts goes to 3 blackdog phyto max 1000s with Another 450 watts Being used to light the germination/ mother tent.

 

[ttystikk]

Well I'm in for the ride, though I'll be honest and say I've never been favorably impressed by any of Black Dog's equipment.

 

[ttystikk]

Just what will all this power be used for you might ask .well With an canopy space of 75sqft or 5x15 @ 40 watts a sqft that comes out to 3000 watts or 25 amps of power for the canopy. The job of making those 3000 watts goes to 3 blackdog phyto max 1000s with Another 450 watts Being used to light the germination/ mother tent.

So that's 12A@240V. What's all the rest of the headroom for?

 

[Broclee]

So that's 12A@240V. What's all the rest of the headroom for?

Im running 120v not 240v

 

[Broclee]

. To deal with the humidity of 24 plants that will be under the 3k watts is a 300pint dehumidifier. all this so far is about 5000 watts of power or 41 amps. Now when we convert watts to btu , watts x 3.41= btu, we come up with 17k btu of heat and to deall with that heat a 18k mini split was used. To control the air flow three hi flow fans were used with a inline duct fan for filtration.

 

[ttystikk]

Once your room is over 3kW, you really want to be running 240V as much as you can, for efficiency and even more for safety reasons.

Advantages include less expensive wiring because it can be thinner, and they won't heat up, costing more power. The drivers for most LED lights can use 240V and it's actually more efficient for them. Drivers run cooler and last longer.

Then there's the fact that the line into your house is 240V, which gets split into two legs of 120V at the main breaker. If those two legs are unbalanced, you'll start tripping the main breaker while drawing far less than the rated amount of power. If you wire your facility for 240V, you sidestep this problem.

I'm not here to criticise, I'm trying to help you avoid problems before you have them.

 

[Broclee]

Once your room is over 3kW, you really want to be running 240V as much as you can, for efficiency and even more for safety reasons.

Advantages include less expensive wiring because it can be thinner, and they won't heat up, costing more power. The drivers for most LED lights can use 240V and it's actually more efficient for them. Drivers run cooler and last longer.

Then there's the fact that the line into your house is 240V, which gets split into two legs of 120V at the main breaker. If those two legs are unbalanced, you'll start tripping the main breaker while drawing far less than the rated amount of power. If you wire your facility for 240V, you sidestep this problem.

I'm not here to criticise, I'm trying to help you avoid problems before you have them.

Im not a novice at wiring and constuction. Im actually in the build and contruction trades. I wont spend alot of time talki g about wiring since it is up and running without problems but just know adding 100 amp sub panels do not require 240v. The typical home addition add from 60 to 125 amps and it wiring exactly like the home exisiting wiring

 

[Broclee]

After a few long days of working i finally got a chance to get back to outfiting this room.
With the wiring done, light up, hvac taken care of and air filtration addressed its on to irrigation. For irrigation i decided to go with the 3.9 gal auto pots with a 100 gal reservoir with a float valve to keep it topped off. managing the ph and feeding schedule is a blulab pro controller and m3 peripods and General hyponics is what they will be feeding. And once all said and done a gemmacert spectrometer will be testing everything to see just how much thc we really go. Oh Boy lol. Outside a 450 watt light in the tent for the clones and mother that pretty much everything that we gonn abe using in this setup. next step is calibrating the room and transpanting the clones feom the areo phonics cloning box to the pots. So Until next time roll one smoke one

 

[twentyeight.threefive]

So let get to growing some dank. But first let talk about the design. So the first thing that had to be done was upgrading the electrics. The new grow space will be pulling close to 85 amps it is far more then what is available now in the breaker box so A dedicated sub panel was installed.

I wish you the best, but you should have had certified electrician perform that installation. That's not even close to code or safe. Not being an ass just don't want to see you dead. Best of luck, hope you pull out some monsters.

 

[Broclee]

Every build project has it hiccups and unexpected mishaps ,this build was no expectation. For me the largest issue was ups and usps. Yes the parcel service and the post offiice. Both companies drop the ball on rhe deliveries. Ups signature requirements make for some long days and nights waitng for packages just to get a notice that had tried to be delivered st 9 oclock while you were sitting on the porch waiting for them . One guy actuall parked in front the house for 3 mins never got out and drove off with my package as i was attempting to walk to his truck to get my stuff. He told me it was heavy package so he was gonna drop a few more off then come back to my house lol yeah right.
Then you have usps. Who decided it wasnt worth there time to even attempt to make a delivery. For most of there packages i had to go there at 8 in the morning and just wait fornthe truck to unload and get them with is far from the priority mail service that was purchased. The other issue was equipment, one of the lights didnt come with hangers making it impossible to hang anothe light came with a 240 plug instead of a 120 like the rest. Ordered a co troller from ebay that didnt work( i should have known better lol) and im still waiting on the main hose for the autopots that didnt come in with the other stuff. And the aeroponic system was missng parts. Though it didnt stop the grow it did slow it down waiting for replacement parts but all in all the delays were minimal.. so with the clones in pots and everything just about set up this is what everything looks like.

 

[Broclee]

So last week was pretty interesting. Got all the replacement hose and parts in got the controller and dosing pumps setup transplanted the girls and smoked a fat one lol. Then the grow room with black for a few days.
I had consulted with the electrician that had re wired my old home during a renovation. Under his guidance he told me i could hook up another panel just follow what he did in the existing panel on that floor with i did. Then comes along @twentyeight.threefive
And death talk haha. Well i had naother electrican look at the other sub panel the first electrician did and found it was installed incorrectly. So i went back added the ground needed unbonded the neutral from the box and had the first electrician come back out and fix his work. Now we back in business and dont have to worry about getting killed growing pot hahah..

 

[Broclee]

So the girls did suffer some transplant shock and took some time for them to get used to their new blk dog light spectrum. But they have adjusted and i think they ready for all the food and water they want so Today ill be switching from manual to automating everything. considering i have never used anything in the grow room before im kinda nervous ill fuck shit up And kill all my girls. Im running general hydroponics flora series. And will start off with a low ppm and gradually take it up until i find the sweet spot.

 

[twentyeight.threefive]

So last week was pretty interesting. Got all the replacement hose and parts in got the controller and dosing pumps setup transplanted the girls and smoked a fat one lol. Then the grow room with black for a few days.
I had consulted with the electrician that had re wired my old home during a renovation. Under his guidance he told me i could hook up another panel just follow what he did in the existing panel on that floor with i did. Then comes along @twentyeight.threefive
And death talk haha. Well i had naother electrican look at the other sub panel the first electrician did and found it was installed incorrectly. So i went back added the ground needed unbonded the neutral from the box and had the first electrician come back out and fix his work. Now we back in business and dont have to worry about getting killed growing pot hahah..View attachment 4883079

Looking sweet. Good luck man.

 

[Broclee]

Update...
Well while setting up my automated nutrition delivery system i found out that rhe company i ordered my nutes from didnt send out the correct order. So now i have 12 gallons of general hydroponics flora bloom. Well i called i emailed them and was told they were no longer carrying the produce so the told me to keep the disordered nutes and gave a refund. Well the grow was in need of nitrogen and mirco nutes so i supplemented with some 5.0.0 cal mag and it seemed to be doing the job until i get what i actually need. Lucky for me i had something use or it could have shut down thw grow. Before we wven really got started considering the clones were already in pots.
So he lesson learned was "always have everything for the grow and grow room before propagation of any plants to so your grow isnt sabatoged because something you ordered didnt come

 

[Broclee]

Its been ten days since the clones have been in dirt. The first 5 or 6 days the girls spent getting the roots adjusted to the soil and the vegetation adjusted to the lights. I hand watered them so the roots can grow down to the level the water will be when the autopots were turned on. On day 6 i turned on the autopots. Today all plants have visible growth. It should be said that this visible growth is much different the the growth under mars hydro lights ( the light it was under before cloning and during the rooting stage of cloning). The first thing you notice is the leaf size. The leaves start growing smaller and thinner. And the intermodal spacing is much tighter hanging 60 inches over the clones compared to the spacing of the mars hydro that is in the mother tent with is hanging 12inches over canopy. In the pics below you can see the blk dog led spacing is about a 1/2 of and inch and the mars hydro about 1inch. I believe because of this the black dog led will produce tighter more dense bud. Also visible reddening/ tanning of leaf stems and branches is occurring from the u.v diodes.
This doesnt happen with mars hydro. I believe because of this the black dog led will produce more potent bud. To test my hypothesis ill flip the two mother plants undef the mars hydro at the same time i flip the clones and see who has the tightest buds and ill test them for potency on the spectrometer.