Maybe instead of asking for patient names give doctors your information to pass onto patients.
20,000 Watt Medical Grow Op Construction
- Thread starter collective gardener
- Start date
incognegro999
Well-Known Member
Or for security sake a third party not involved with the growing part, maybe a friend or family member who wouldnt mind being the contact person.
collective gardener
Well-Known Member
I'm thinking of treating each group of 10 buckets as an independant system. A 100 liter air pump would service the 10 plants plus the resevoir. We would run 6 systems in the bloom room. Each 10 bucket system will be under 2 - 1000 watt HPS lights. If there were a pathogen problem, it would be contained to just 10 plants. We would still runn a perpetual harvest, with 12 clones being taken every 10 days. The 2 weakest clones will be discarded and the other 10 will go into mesh baskets in a DWC unit under the T-5 light. There, they will be topped and grow for about 10 days. Then, they will be transplanted into the buckets in the veg room. They should be small enough that 1 - 1000 watt MH will handle the bulk of the veg growth for each batch of 10 plants. Since we have 6 - 1000 watt MH's, we should be good on keeping up with the bloom room.
collective gardener
Well-Known Member
I've run SCROG before with good results. But, with the larger plants that we grow, I prefer to just top once and LST each plant. We tie down the branches to the edge of the bucket lid to get the plant wide and short. We aslo remove quite a bit of the fan leaves week 3 of bloom to get the light down into the plant. The results so far has been solid dense buds 24" down into the canopy. I like to move my plants around quite a bit to maximize the light. I can't do this with a screen. If we were growing 500 or more plants in the same area, I'd probably run a SCROG settup. For 20 years that was the kind of plant density I grew. Now that we do this legal, med thing, I'm having to adapt to different growing styles using fewr but larger plants. I plan to dedicate a couple lights on this new settup to Kitty's style of bare vertical bulb growing (baverb). I believe it to be the wave of the future for us limmited plant med growers.
incognegro999
Well-Known Member
Are you going to build it completly yourself or buy pre fabbed kits? Sounds like a shit ton of work but if it makes life easier sweet. Prolly less KIA'S from helper D as well
mellokitty
Moderatrix of Journals
lol, sounds all too familiar.... very excited to see yours in action (10 bucket group? que? i probably won't 'get' it til i see it, i'm visual like that....)
hellraizer30
Rebel From The North
cant believe this shit! the trio pack of a 1000 preds is 47$ and 25$ to ship to my state WTF!!! and 10,000 thrip preds are 49$ and 25$ to ship 
that is stupid prices
that is stupid prices
Wolverine97
Well-Known Member
That's the whole premise behind the "deep current" systems (I think that's what they're called). All of the buckets are set up in-line with a recirculating pump moving solution from a reservoir through all of the buckets using 2-3" pvc pipe. It provides super oxygenated water that's always moving. If I recall, the guy who came up with the system got the idea when walking by a river and observed a trees' roots gently moving in the stream...
Edit: Undercurrent, should have seen that from CGs' post.
mellokitty
Moderatrix of Journals
i am intimately acquainted with diy undercurrent dwc..... all too intimately. *bleck*. (<--bad associative taste in mouth, nothing to do with the system itself but the people involved) .... and from back in the pre-med days too: "well, i need that many 3inch y's and sink drains because.... duh....."we had 3 ginormous pumps running the whole room, which drew from and drained back to the same series of tanks..... (which letmetellya, catastrophic failure is called that for a *reason*.)
xebeche
Well-Known Member
This is a great discussion, I've been reading up on mite control for months and was curious how well those mite predators actually work, what conditions they work best in, etc. So I'm very interested in following along here, and thanks for sharing the info and your experiences.
High Times had an article about a similar system last fall, can't remember exactly when. Buckets connected to a small res. with a float valve that was connected to a large res. that was regulated by the float valve in the small res. A swamp cooler float valve worked for me. My copy of the system added a small, very small pump to move water from one bucket to the others, I used a small aquarium pump. I figured I didn't need to move the water quickly, just enough to keep a uniform PH. I also added a ball valve between the small res. and the growing buckets to shut of the flow when I changed water. Rather than putting the buckets in line I made a small manifold out of pvc. Made it easier to add or delete buckets if necessary. To this I attached a dead end hose with a ball valve to attach a pump to either fill or empty the buckets, but replacing water was more simple just pouring it into the small res. after everything necessary was added and PH checked. As the large res. only had a small line going to the small res. water dumped into the small res. got to the grow buckets quicker due to the larger size of hose interconnecting them. I also had a small aquarium airstone in each bucket. For a stone cold or was that cold stoned beginner trying all three, HID, LED, and inductive types of lights, it worked, quite well I thought, but having nothing to compare it with thats just my opinion.
collective gardener
Well-Known Member
We'll build the system ourselves...it's way too easy not to. The only real modification from the original Under Current is that we'll be using smaller and flexable hose between the buckets. I need the ability to move the buckets around a bit...pet peeve of mine. I believe that the air stone with large enough pump adds more than enough oxygen to the roots. My current DWC test buckets just have this and the growth is nothing short of explosive. The main reason for connecting 10 buckets to a common res is to add some nutrient solution buffer capacity and to make solution changes and adjustments easily done at a common location for every 10 buckets. Also, if an air stone should fail, the circulating water would provide areated water to the plant regardless. I'm not even sure that I'll go with the second res hooked up to the float valve to automatically add water. First off, it will take up precious room. Also, I believe it is important to force ourselves to have to go and check everything everyday. I don't mind having to be at the grow everyday...I just don't want Helper D to have to spend 3+ hrs/day just draining buckets, mixing solution, and watering. Not to mention transplanting and soil disposal time. I also have to admit that over the years, my most prolific grows have been hydroponic.I started this grow soiless because I wanted the reliability while we sorted out the rest of the room's systems. Now that we're there. I'm ready to crank it up a notch. My hat's off to the Under Current designers for designing a DWC system that allows movable buckets (with our modification), a centralized solution tank, and doesn't rely 100% on each air stone functioning perfectly.
The changover will take place over the next few months. We have plants in all stages of growth right now.
The changover will take place over the next few months. We have plants in all stages of growth right now.
collective gardener
Well-Known Member
cant believe this shit! the trio pack of a 1000 preds is 47$ and 25$ to ship to my state WTF!!! and 10,000 thrip preds are 49$ and 25$ to ship
that is stupid prices
I would atay away from the trio pack. As I pointed out ina previous post, one of the 3 actually eats the eggs of the other 2. I believe that company is called Tip Top Bio. Contact Rincon Vitova in Ventura, Ca (dont have contact info in front of me). If your RH is under 60%, I would get the Califonicus for your spider mites. They don't eat as much or as fast as the other one that starts with a P, but their survival and breeding rate will be much better. I believe they run about $25 for 1000, or $100 for 5000. If your RH is in the 40% area, you may want the Califonicus/Oxidentalis blend. The prices are about the same. The Oxidentalis does well in as low as 20% RH.
If you're using Lacewing larvae for thrips, keep in mind that they will eat any and all larvae. So, pest identification is important. The Lacewing larvae only live around 3 weeks, so you can use them first and then cut loose the others after 3 weeks.
I can't say enough about how pleased I am with these little guys. The folks at Rincon Vitova are also extremely helpful and interested in 'medicinal herb" gardens. Just make sure you folow all instructions as far as the last time you sprayed and with what. It would be a shame to buy the little fuckers and have them die upon contact with your plants.
hellraizer30
Rebel From The North
I think il order outside the grow shop they only offer trio and at 47 to 49$ and the californacus would match my RH perfect! plus they are the tip top bio brand.
Il look them up online, thanks so much!! as I sit back and look at how much greef these critters have given me a stupid movie poped in my mind, lol starship troopers
and the battle of the bugs!! time to nuke them bastards.
collective gardener
Well-Known Member
hows it feel to maintain an ecosystem of 10,000+ bugs every day CG?
Are you wearing like a beekeeper getup or something?
LOL...I wish I could see the little bastards. We cut loose 5000 more today. Helper D sorted through the ground corn cob that they ship in to actually see some. They are sooooo small. I had a few webs form on some bud tops today. Tomorrow it's back to the bug lab for some Lacewing larvae. At least I can see those guys go to work. We'll cut loose the larvae on the 5 tops that had webs. We're hoping that the original batch has started to breed some. That's when we should really start seeing some mite death. The Califonicus female (they're 75% female) lays 3 eggs/day. When you figure we should have around 7500 females x 3/day x a 20 day life span....it totals out to 450,000 predators in 20 days. They, they start breeding! In the end, I will win this war. It's just a matter of how much damage we sustain in the process.
Fortunately, about 75% of my bloom room will be harvested over the next 3 weeks. Hopefully, by then we will have regained control. I'd be lying if I said there's not a part of me that wants to just go wholesale chemical warfare on these guys. Everyday, Helper D has to talk me down. We've invested alot of time and $$$ into these predators. I'll give them some time to work their magic. In the meantime, we'll keep adding them every week until we know for sure the enemy is in retreat.
Wolverine97
Well-Known Member
If you treat your plants with Azamax as they enter the bloom room with both a spray and root drench the plants will have systemic resistance to mites.
SCCA
Active Member
Thank god for Helper D! we going to be starting our own bio control program in the next few weeks, as soon as i can find a local source that doesn't try to sell me the triple threat or P. persimilis. you inspired me to really look into something iv been thinking about for a long time. we are even redesigning the landscape at a few of the gardens i maintain to allow us to use beneficials in the veggie gardens and a vineyard. Keep up fighting the good fight! and HAPPY 420!!!!!!
TheLastWood
Well-Known Member
You should play some barry white to help the predetors reproduce faster
And then play some disturbed to help them kill faster.
And then play some disturbed to help them kill faster.