36 HPS light set up the legacy way

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TrichHomies

Member
Let me start this thread off by saying I have been a proponent of cannabis pretty much my entire life. The plant has brought so many incredible times and people into my journey even if it came at a cost.

I have been hesitant to post about this endeavor because only 2 people know about it. It's tough having this type of secret and not being able to really share how exciting it is because of the danger it could bring. Although theres always risk involved I believe it's important to post things like this because I started in the woods/attic and built up to this. Every experiment, every obstacle and every failure has culminated into this op. If I can do it then so can you!

Long story short,
We have acquired a building, built out alot, boot strapped some but it's coming together.
36 lights in flower, auto feeding from old school resis into 4x8 trays drip to waste style with a coco mix in 5 gal pots.
We are growing a ton of known top shelf strains as well as doing some pheno hunting/small breeding projects.

As anyone knows as much as you want to try and put together a perfect time table of events to happen for success things are going to get in the way of all that lol

Im lowkey embarassed because things are a bit messy since we are pretty much building out the grow at the same time we are filling it with ladies. It's not perfect and def not how I would want to show it but the journey is just as important as the destination so we will get there together.

I will post pics soon.

I'm at the beach clearing my head and getting ready for the long days and night to come.

Peace
D.
 
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TrichHomies

Member
HydroKid239 said:
Is there a reason you are auto feeding coco in such large pots? Why not 2 or 3 gallon pots?
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They were in veg for a bit longer than normal so the roots were crazy. Was think of moving down to smaller pots and more plants per run buts its just what we are use to doing for now till we tweak things. Right now we veg for 2 and a half weeks then flip 30 per tray every week.
 
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TrichHomies

Member
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Now this building we ended up in was less than ideal but I didn't pull the trigger on that and we were on a time line that was moving faster than we expected. We went old school with the hoods since I already had all the equipment and the ceilings are so short we needed a way to contain the heat and move it out the room. We have it running perpetually where we harvest a tray and put a new run in every week. Then there are 8 lights not being used at the moment on the other side because that will be a large harvest turning every 90 days separate from the perpetual schedule. Cutting clones for that now from the mother room so we can have trays of one or 2 solid strains at most per tray. Depending on environment and strain we average about 3.5 to 5 lbs per run with 30 plants. We use coco because it's what we know works and we can't afford to gamble. I'll post more pics but it was harvest and transplant day so it was a busy one
 
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TrichHomies

Member
Canadian_Growing said:
That looks great. What sort of preventative IPM actions are you taking? Because I'd hate to let a single spider mite into that place.
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Different things each time like like peppermint, rosemary and safe soap in 3 day intervals along with coppercide for mold control then we water rinse and stop after 3 weeks. We have minor issues with fungus nats but I think we can kill em off by letting the coco dry first before using it.
 
Dividedsky

Dividedsky

Well-Known Member
TrichHomies said:
View attachment 5275260

Now this building we ended up in was less than ideal but I didn't pull the trigger on that and we were on a time line that was moving faster than we expected. We went old school with the hoods since I already had all the equipment and the ceilings are so short we needed a way to contain the heat and move it out the room. We have it running perpetually where we harvest a tray and put a new run in every week. Then there are 8 lights not being used at the moment on the other side because that will be a large harvest turning every 90 days separate from the perpetual schedule. Cutting clones for that now from the mother room so we can have trays of one or 2 solid strains at most per tray. Depending on environment and strain we average about 3.5 to 5 lbs per run with 30 plants. We use coco because it's what we know works and we can't afford to gamble. I'll post more pics but it was harvest and transplant day so it was a busy one
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Jesus christ you're running those old school 8" a/c raptors hoods, if I knew you needed em I would've given em to you for free. I literally chucked those massive hoods out in dumpsters a few years ago because I had no use for them anymore. Seeing your pic is like going back in time. Weird and uneffiecent endeavor to do, but good luck either way, you must be paying for cheaper electic than me, lol.
 
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TrichHomies

Member
Dividedsky said:
Jesus christ you're running those old school 8" a/c raptors hoods, if I knew you needed em I would've given em to you for free. I literally chucked those massive hoods out in dumpsters a few years ago because I had no use for them anymore. Seeing your pic is like going back in time. Weird and uneffiecent endeavor to do, but good luck either way, you must be paying for cheaper electic than me, lol.
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trust me compared to what we see online now compared to this it def looks like a trip through time. I will say, if we didn't have the building we do they would def be gravitas instead. We need to be able to control the heat because we don't have high enough ceilings to have them not vented. We love the herb HPS produces which is why we have not moved to LEDs. The raptors have never failed me and I had 40 of em leftover from a project from way back.
 
Dividedsky

Dividedsky

Well-Known Member
TrichHomies said:
trust me compared to what we see online now compared to this it def looks like a trip through time. I will say, if we didn't have the building we do they would def be gravitas instead. We need to be able to control the heat because we don't have high enough ceilings to have them not vented. We love the herb HPS produces which is why we have not moved to LEDs. The raptors have never failed me and I had 40 of em leftover from a project from way back.
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Dude if you running mini split a/c and enough btu's to handle that 36,000 watts...off the top of my head it would be around 180,0000 btu legit 15 ton a/c unit + and I'd be running the room sealed for sure. I thought you most likely already had those lights and raptors on hand from years ago or got setup real cheap because why not go with double ended 1000w hps, you know...
 
Dividedsky

Dividedsky

Well-Known Member
Also with you running the single ended 1000w hps, have you ever run the bare bulb extra large adjust-a-wing open hood, with proper a/c those hoods kick ass, I used to get killer yields with s/e 1000w hps in extra large adjustawing hoods. Wasn't shitting on you by saying you grow is what I meant to write, "inefficient". I understand you got to use what you have at times. I just think you can sometimes be suprised with the height you get away growing with d/e 1000w
 
Nizza

Nizza

Well-Known Member
TrichHomies said:
I read that and heard good things about em even in coco. Any brand you would recommend?
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They're a living microscopic organism that come as a powder. Once put in water you just water it in and they'll deal with the gnats
The cause of the gnats though, is to do with watering and root decay. Usually only happens to me early in the grow when the plants are young
I don't think the brand matters so much I think I used nature's good guys from Amazon. If you wanna check if theyre dead on arrival I think you'd need a microscope
 
Dividedsky

Dividedsky

Well-Known Member
I know you said you like growing with hps but this is the type of room that would be perfect to switching over to say 680-720w led. Say you ran 30- 36 of the 680w led with proper cooling, sealed up room and co2, once dialed in you absolutely blow away the the yields than what you what get with a s/e hps with a lot less watts. 36 of the 680w leds = 24,480w...that's a lot less power consumption for your electic costs (11,520w less than you're using 12/hr a day in flower), and I believe 36 of 680w led would blow s/e 1000w hps yields away once you where dialed in.

Trust I'm a big hps guy, just switched over to led recently and I was really impressed with the led results, ran the growers choice roi-720w lights and they yielded great and produced trich'd out, terpy, fuego bud. I can send you some pics if you want. Just food for thought down the road
 
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TrichHomies

Member
Dividedsky said:
I know you said you like growing with hps but this is the type of room that would be perfect to switching over to say 680-720w led. Say you ran 30- 36 of the 680w led with proper cooling, sealed up room and co2, once dialed in you absolutely blow away the the yields than what you what get with a s/e hps with a lot less watts. 36 of the 680w leds = 24,480w...that's a lot less power consumption for your electic costs (11,520w less than you're using 12/hr a day in flower), and I believe 36 of 680w led would blow s/e 1000w hps yields away once you where dialed in.

Trust I'm a big hps guy, just switched over to led recently and I was really impressed with the led results, ran the growers choice roi-720w lights and they yielded great and produced trich'd out, terpy, fuego bud. I can send you some pics if you want. Just food for thought down the road
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Definitely considering running a side by side to compare what kind of differences we see with HPS vs LED. We will upgrade in the future once we get a building that has high ceilings to where we can run double open ended without it causing fluctuations in the environment. Keep in mind that this building is the LAST place I would want to set up shop. My partner had to make a quick decision because we started to put the funds together and push right when covid hit. Since then it's has been trials and tribulations from building upgrades, getting more power, environment issues, equipment failure, etc. Finally after fine tuning we are getting the place running and producing what the building itself can do.
 
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TrichHomies

Member
Ok fellas got some updates on the "build it while you grow it" project going on. It's been pretty crazy with life in general not to mention this thing so thanks for all the suggestions, feedback and the interest enough in general to even bother commenting. I'll try to be more active with updates but it's been like 17 hour work days 5 times a week so please be patient with me

Got the nematodes in and will be adding those to the resis to prevent the knats from getting crazy.

Doing a pheno hunt with some beans I got and we have been having some great luck. We just pulled down a test run of all the strains listed below and will have updates/pics asap.

Playing with some White Wedding, Purple Sunset, Purple Gelato, Guava Runtz, Grandi Cake, Lemon Cherry Belts, Lemfuel, Purple Trainwreck and a bunch of others I'll name once I check inventory again.

Here's some pics of trays 1,2, 3 and 4.
Tray 1: 3 or 4 different strains IceBox Pie, Tangie Wreck, Purple Trainwreck, and a few HighMacs I believe
Tray 2: Blueberry Headband
Tray 3: A special cross of P. Wreck we created
Tray 4: a strain we created called Lembrulee, more P Wreck and plant of 2 of something random lol

Trying to get a system in place where I can run 1 or 2 strains max per tray that complement eachother that way I can feed them better/catch issues easier. That's all for now! Be ez fellas.
 

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