20,000 Watt Medical Grow Op Construction

Jozikins said:

I'm so fucking defeated man. It happened again, this response was at least twice as long. I saved it all and lost it when I posted a link in it, and I thought I resaved it but it didn't happen, ,this time it was an error by rollitup. It signed me out, and when I signed back in, instead of posting it, the page was no good and brought me to a blank url, and everything was lost!!!

God fucking dammit man, I want to help you because I have experience with all of this shit but RIU will not stop bugging up. This is why half of everyone on here is an idiot, all of our good information gets lost! You'll have to forgive me if I submit 10 responses for now on, 1 for each paragraph!! Arrrgghhh, I'm having a little fit over this right now, I need to go burn one. I spent like an hour typing all that out, I had some great links too!



http://urbangardenmagazine.com/2011/02/breeding-microbes-with-compost-tea/ Here is the stupid fucking url I copied that lost me all the shit I typed out. I guess I'll use notepad as back up next time.

Great fucking source of info though and brings you to one or two other fantastic resources. If you grow your own, you might as well brew your own.

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HAAH...That sucks, it has happened to me so many times...i have tried to leave info on quite a few posts but by the time that i go to the end and about to submit or just halfway through on giving advice it gets deleted. At that time, i cant remember what the hell i just typed or im just to lazy to re type it all...son of a bitch!! Great site with lots of great people with good information, thanks RIU...please fix the bugs! "Respect..in a Jamaican accent!"

collective gardener said:

The inductive lighting test will be done. When I was getting ready to do it several months ago I get hit by mites and all extra time was spent eradicating, and finally destroying a crop. The we changed from trees to SOG...from coco to rockwool...and from having a full time employee to just my wife and I. The whole idea behind the proposed 4 testing trays is to be able to run tests at a moments notice with no hassle or settup time. When the current harvest is trimmed, cured, and distributed I can begin the bloom room remodel.

The remodel will be pretty extensive. I visited Commercial J's grow op last night as he was harvesting. He grows the same exact cut that I grow, uses the same nutes, and has a little les light/sq ft. BUT, he runs a sealed room with CO2 enrichment. His fucking buds are almost double the size of mine. I want to move up the schedule on getting the new ductless split A/C unit and CO2 enrichment. Part of that involves increasing the cooling airflow to the lights and routing the light intake air from outside the bloom room. Since I will be moving the lights during the remodel, I want to go ahead and do all this ducting and fan work. I learned in building other sealed grows that the more air flow through the lights, the less A/C will be needed to keep the grow cool. And, let's face it, inline fans and ducting are alot cheaper to purchase and maintain than A/C systems. So, what was just going to be a basic tray remodel hase become trays, lights, ducts, and fans. It's really not too big of a job. I think I found a guy to help us get it done. We should be ready for running the tests by the beginning of next month. Actaully, we have to be. In another 2 weeks we'll have about 100 plants ready to go into bloom. The idea is that we do this with the bloom room only half full.

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Yeah, I remeber reading through it, tuff times to say the least - I think moving to your tried and true style was a good business move, even with the somewhat increased legal risk. It all sounds fair enough CG. It's all pretty exciting - I'm not gunna lie. If the re-model is going to be that extensive I can't wait to see how it turns out. Doing it now seems like a great idea, considering half the flowering room will be empty as you mentioned. What sort of approach are you going to take on the logistical side of things? Considering you have half a room, I guess it would be ample working room, but those big plant tables could get in the way idk.

Whats up collective how ya been? Check out my video I finally got my tent set up what do you think? Any suggestions thank you!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14uAa7lTE8M

TheLastWood said:

Well when I'm deciding when to chop, before my 3 DAY FLUSH I will snip a bud, give her a 2 day dry then smoke a bowl, and I never taste any "chemicals" or even a "hay" smell that ppl talk about.

I don't know if its the "synthetic organic" or if those are just rumors. And after a nice cure they always taste and smoke good.

I work 40 hours minimum a week(sometimes up to 60 hrs), and have to do everything around the house as well, and don't have the time to go fully organic.

Trust me, I would love to compost and have a worm bin, both interest me a lot. Then I could brew teas and top dress and throw the rest in an outdoor garden.
Coco is so easy and I have great results with it. I think I'm gonna try a few plants in rockwool.
If I ever went organic I would mix up a big batch of subcools super soil, I think the "just add water" technique could be right up my alley.

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I like the full blown organic soil trip in an outdoor/greenhouse grow. It's just way too messy inside. I just want to see what I can make happen in rockwool. I can not lose any yield. I'm just thinking that with the huge selection of clean organic liquid nutes available these days, we can make something happen. If I can get some biology going in the rockwool...great. If not, we'll just give em the liquid organic nutes and do the best we can. The rockwool is just too clean and easy not to use. It's also the most powerful soiless medium I've ever used. It's as close as I've ever gotten to aero or RDWC growth speeds and size. I just know that within a year or 2, all my dispensary customers are going to be pushing more organic. We just want to be ready. If things stay just like they are, I'll stick with what I'm doing.

I hate to admit this. The AN Connaseur has given me tighter internode spacing and bigger buds in week 3.5 than anything I've used in recent history. Fuck. Plants are showing slight K def. I actually think it's from the explosive growth. I had to pick up a bottle of Big Bud for some more K. I could've used any other K boost, but wanted to be fair to the AN lineup. Next I anticipate seeing some mag def. That will require a bottle of Bud Factor X ($90 retail/liter). Before this thing is done, I'll have the whole fucking lineup. Next AN test will be Sensi Bloom instead of Connaseur (sp?). The Sensi is WAY less expensive. And if I'm going to be using a bunch of additives anyways, might as well try the cheaper stuff. Listen gang, if there was just a slight improvement, I wouldn't even post it. I am NOT a fan of Advanced Nutes. But, to be perfectly fair, I'm very impressed so far. BUT, we have 4+ weeks to go. Then, we'll really know.

this is the greatest grow op ever! everytime i read the posts, i learn something new. Thank you so much for sharing your experiance with us... nuff respect!!

Were ya able to see the video collective gardener? Any suggeztions tips are welcomed!!

Gopedxr said:

Were ya able to see the video collective gardener? Any suggeztions tips are welcomed!!

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Yes I saw the vid. Looks like a nice little tent grow. I'm not quite sure what to suggest, as the vid doesn't show much. How are the plants doing? Are you having any problems with the grow? Is there something you can do about that ducting hanging out the window? Maybe get a flange, attach the ducting, mount the flange to a small piece of plywood that you affix in the window next to the A/C. That just seems kinda loud to me...as in visually loud...from the street.

I was going to wait for CO2 until I had the remodel done. After visiting Commercial J's grow op and seeing his example of the same Bubba cut I grow, I've decided to move forward today on the CO2. He just pulled 7 lbs from an 8x8 table lit by 4 1000 watt lights dimmed down to 750 watts. I've never even gotten close to that with 4 1000's over each 8x8 table. So, I just ordered a 24,000 BTU Plug & Grow CO2 burner. I chose the Plug & Grow because they have a 6" ducting attachment to air cool the burner. This is a great feature. The CO2 will be controlled by the Sentinal Fuzzy Logic CO2 controller. These are without question the top of the line CO2 controllers. I also ordered 2 - 21,000 BTU ductless mini split A/C systems. That will give me 42,000 BTU's total cooling. That will be more than enough for 12 - 1000 watt lights and 4 - 600 watt lights...all air cooled hoods with serious airflow. Every 4 lights are cooled by a 740 CFM inline fan. Daisy chaining is limitted to 2 lights per run, negating any real heat buildup in the light closest to the fans.

To the people who insist that I'm a fool for buying at my local hydro store and not Ebay: I was able to put the CO2 gear (along with some inline fans and ducting) on my account, with the agreement that I don't need to pay a dime on it until my first whole CO2 enriched crop is in and gone. Basically, 90+ days interest free, and I still got 30% off on everything. Yet one more reason I will always patronize my local store. I feel like I have a partner in this business, ready to support us when needed.

We should be up and running the CO2 by wed this coming week. Needless to say, I'm very exited.

collective gardener said:

I was going to wait for CO2 until I had the remodel done. After visiting Commercial J's grow op and seeing his example of the same Bubba cut I grow, I've decided to move forward today on the CO2. He just pulled 7 lbs from an 8x8 table lit by 4 1000 watt lights dimmed down to 750 watts. I've never even gotten close to that with 4 1000's over each 8x8 table. So, I just ordered a 24,000 BTU Plug & Grow CO2 burner. I chose the Plug & Grow because they have a 6" ducting attachment to air cool the burner. This is a great feature. The CO2 will be controlled by the Sentinal Fuzzy Logic CO2 controller. These are without question the top of the line CO2 controllers. I also ordered 2 - 21,000 BTU ductless mini split A/C systems. That will give me 42,000 BTU's total cooling. That will be more than enough for 12 - 1000 watt lights and 4 - 600 watt lights...all air cooled hoods with serious airflow. Every 4 lights are cooled by a 740 CFM inline fan. Daisy chaining is limitted to 2 lights per run, negating any real heat buildup in the light closest to the fans.

To the people who insist that I'm a fool for buying at my local hydro store and not Ebay: I was able to put the CO2 gear (along with some inline fans and ducting) on my account, with the agreement that I don't need to pay a dime on it until my first whole CO2 enriched crop is in and gone. Basically, 90+ days interest free, and I still got 30% off on everything. Yet one more reason I will always patronize my local store. I feel like I have a partner in this business, ready to support us when needed.

We should be up and running the CO2 by wed this coming week. Needless to say, I'm very exited.

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Very nice CG. I'm with you on buying local, I've got an arrangement with one of the places nearby. They give me 20-25% off depending on the volume of the purchase and give me all kinds of crap to try out/demo (don't think Ebay does that . It's nice, especially if you ever have issues with any equipment because you get it replaced or refunded on the spot. No suspect deliveries to worry about, etc.. I was actually gifted all of my co2 tanks, just had to buy the reg's and stuff.

Just yesterday I was talking to my guy about ordering new digital ballasts and bulbs and he let me take a bulb home to test with my light meter. That's service, and it's worth an extra nickel to me.

what cut of bubba do you run? and where can i get it bro

KocfOwned said:

what cut of bubba do you run? and where can i get it bro

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Good luck with that...

Wolverine97 said:

Good luck with that...

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is there a reason you always seem to have a attitude? it was a general question if he doesn;t want to tell me thats fine.

collective gardener said:

Yes I saw the vid. Looks like a nice little tent grow. I'm not quite sure what to suggest, as the vid doesn't show much. How are the plants doing? Are you having any problems with the grow? Is there something you can do about that ducting hanging out the window? Maybe get a flange, attach the ducting, mount the flange to a small piece of plywood that you affix in the window next to the A/C. That just seems kinda loud to me...as in visually loud...from the street.

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Thanks for the help! The set up is only a week old. So far so green! Going to get more plants soon! I want another veg room badly haha!!

Gardener your only gonna run 1000ppm? What does commercial J run?

I have a 20# co2 tank, reg, and cap co2/hunid/temp/exhaust controller.

Its sad cuz I'm not even using it anymore. I need to hooke her back up but its such a pain in the ass to refill every 2-3 weeks. And if u run perpetual then good luck cutting co2 to your plants that are finishing while still supplying the other plants.

To operate a fully sealed, perpetual co2 grow its gotta be setup like a damn space station.

Obviously the most efficient way is to exhause your co2 from room to room and then out, but the easiest way is a tank in each room.

KocfOwned said:

what cut of bubba do you run? and where can i get it bro

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Wolverine is right. It's not attitude, bud. He just knows what it takes to get a pheno like this one. It's one of those true "clone only" phenos that get either get passed from firend to friend, or sold for prices that would probably make you choke. Even if I wanted to, I couldn't let a live cut leave the grow. It was given to me with that understanding. There were other condiions, as well.

If you don't know anyone with a prized cut, the only thing to do is either buy hundreds of cuts from dirreferent sources, in the hope that one is something (or even 1000). Or, go with a seed strain and grow out several hundred (or 1000), looking for that special lady. That's the original process that someone had to go through to get our pheno. You can see that after going through all that, they're not going to be selling cuts for $20/ea. All I can say is that if you're running an op of significant size, and plan on growing for a long while, it's worth whatever it takes to get your hands on the best strains possible. That's why many commercial growers have no problem forking over several thousand $$$'s for the right cut. Unfortunately, most seeds sold are not stable at all, and almost all cuts sold are not of the true AAA quality. The only really nice cuts I've ever seen sold to the public were from Oaksterdam...and they don't sell them to the public anumore. Just yesterday I samples some G Dawg from an Oaksterdam cut obtained several months ago, and it was fucking terrific. Of course, like most world class phenos, it was a shitty yielder. A 36" tall topped plant yielded less than an ounce!

TheLastWood said:

Gardener your only gonna run 1000ppm? What does commercial J run?

I have a 20# co2 tank, reg, and cap co2/hunid/temp/exhaust controller.

Its sad cuz I'm not even using it anymore. I need to hooke her back up but its such a pain in the ass to refill every 2-3 weeks. And if u run perpetual then good luck cutting co2 to your plants that are finishing while still supplying the other plants.

To operate a fully sealed, perpetual co2 grow its gotta be setup like a damn space station.

Obviously the most efficient way is to exhause your co2 from room to room and then out, but the easiest way is a tank in each room.

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Wood,

Just got off the phone with Commercial J. He runs 900ppm - 1000ppm, with a 100ppm deadband. As far as reducing CO2 at end of cycle, he just reduces it to 500ppm the last week. He didn't think it would be much a problem with my perpetual running less than 1000 all the way through. I've never ran CO2 on a perpetual before, but he has. According to him, the problem with too much CO2 end cycle is more when you're running 1500ppm.

I've tested 1500ppm vs 1000 vs 700 vs 500. There was no dicernable difference in growth speed or yield between 1000 and 1500ppm. There was some yield reduction going to 700ppm...and a little more at 500. Interesting enough, the biggest difference is between 300 (ambiant) and 500ppm. That 200ppm increase did far more for the yield and growth speed than from 500 to 1000. I believe alot of the potential increase has to do with how the rest of the system is being ran. A fine tuned aeroponic settup will probably see good growth increases right up to the 1500ppm max. A soil grow in average sized containers will probably max out around 500ppm. It just goes back to "you're only as strong as your weakest link". Light is obviously a major factor. Clearly, 70 watts/sq ft can take advantage of very high CO2 levels. 40 watts/sq ft can probably only utilize the addtional CO2 up until the light becomes the limitting factor.

Given that we run 62 watts/sq ft, and grow in rockwool (what I would consider a fairly "powerful" growing medium), I feel that 750-1000 ppm will be a nice balance between strong growth, and not overloading finishing plants. But...like all new grows...we won't know until we fire that fucker up and start jamming the gas down their throats.

Whatever we do, I fully intend to stay on a 20 day schedule. Since we have 3 - 8x8 trays, we harvest 1 tray every 20 days. This schedule is very comfortable for us. There's no way I want to be stuck trimming all three trays at once. Even with a mountain of people, it would take way too long. My plant count also stays lower with the 20 day schedule. With a batch schedule, you end up with double the amount of plants that fit in the bloom room for more than half the time (5 weeks out of every 8 weeks). I need to do whatever it takes to remain on the 20 day harvest schedule. If it means only running 500ppm CO2 to avoid problems with ripening plants, then that's what we'll do.

The remodel begins Tuesday. There's currently about 60 plants in the bloom room that we have to work around. But, hell...that's better than 200!

KocfOwned said:

is there a reason you always seem to have a attitude? it was a general question if he doesn;t want to tell me thats fine.

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I'm just realistic.

Good luck on the Co2 program CG,
I love your mom & pop attitude.

Tell me if this is more of a pain that a benefit;
Could you partition off a 10x10 room inside your flower room, for just the plants on day 40-60?
That way you could give them 500ppm, and keep all other growth in the 1000 range.

But this would probably be a matter of inefficiency, knowing you.
Just thoughts

The problem with that is you need, seperate ac, seperate exhaust (ducting and fans), more moving around of plants.

If I ever had to start over from scratch, and was doing a commercial op, and had lots of room and money it would be one thing, but I am happy with my current setup.

Its much easier to plan ahead and build it the right way from the begining than tranforming your op to conform to efficient co2 usage.

If you have no problem w/ ripening running a constant 700ppm then that's the best way, but if your trying to max out and then ween them off, the best way is to build a series of rooms, with the exhaust from each room dumping into the next room, in each room, there is less co2, and every 2 weeks you rotate the plants. This way ur only using 1 co2 tank/burner and its not running 24/7 and you have seperate rooms with seperate ppms.

Its such a hassle having 2 exhausts, one for lights and 1 for temp control, but with your ac units you will be alright,

Gardener do you have a natural gas hookup or propane hookup in ur warehouse?

That would be cool, I've seen one thread on here were a tankless water heater was turned into a co2 burner and plumbed into the house.

If the 700ppm becomes a problem ripening, I'll add a ripening room. Since not alot of light is needed for ripening I could just run 4 - 600's in big reflectors. This would also increase my total bloom space. We have plenty of room in the warehouse to do so. Truth be told, I'm not too worried about some CO2 during ripening. What exactly is everyone's concern with high CO2 ripening? Is it poor trichome developement?

We do have natural gas in the warehouse. Unfortunately, the gas company would need to come out for the in initial line purge and fire up. Well, that ain't gonna happen. Just one more thing I should have done when we first moved in. So, I'll be getting a couple very large propane tanks.

On another note, I scored a very nice G-Dawg cut tonight (Star Dawg x G-13). I believe Star Dawg is Chem Dawg X Afgahni x Chem #4. Anyways, this cut is a really nice pheno. The guy gave me a few grams with the cuts so I could see what I'd be growing. The bag appeal rates a solid 9.5. It's not a super powerful high, but the bag appeal and the aroma make it a sure fire hit at the dispensaries.

It seems like the quality of the high is becoming second to bag appeal and scent these days. Our Bubba doesn't have a ton of bag appeal, and a good yet mild smell. It took me some time and several free samples given before the dispensaries realized just how good it was. Fortunately, the high is extremely powerful...almost too much sometimes. This keeps the patients coming back and specifically requesting our Pre-98 pheno.

I think this G-Dawg could be a hit. It was given to me by Commercial C (don't think I've mentioned him). Him and his partner bought the entire Oaksterdam clone selection when they were selling to the public. According to Commercial C, the G-Dawg was the best of the lot, and, you guessed it, the smallest yielder! They gave me the cuts to see what kind of yield I could get out of it. These guys have a nice 15k grow op, and have always turned out real quality smoke. But, they've been having a hard time getting a decent yield. I'll play with the strain a bit to see if I can make something better happen, and then show them what to do. They're in their early 20's and don't have the patience to methodically try several tactics for improving the yield of a given strain. I was the exact same way when I was that age. They are good kids and I'm happy to help them out...especially since I scored a very nice new strain out of the deal. Anyone out there have experience with this strain?