ThorGanjason
Well-Known Member
OK, so my old setup was quite frankly, awesome. I definitely plan on using my drain tray with the heating pads underneath it for babies or something, I'm thinking of setting up a mother room maybe I'll germinate seeds with it or something. The problem with it was, tho, that it was just too small for any decent number of plants.
So I started to think of a way to maximize the space that I was working with, which is a long skinny closet-- its like 5' x 20" x 7 & 1/2', but it has a shelf up top which I could remove if I had to. I've got a 400w metal halide for veg, and I'm running soil (ffof + perlite). Here's the old set up with the heating pads under:
It worked great for watering and not having to worry about collecting the run off.
I knew the big problem I was going to run into, was getting enough usable light into the far sides of the closet once they are bigger. I figured I could fit 4 good size plants in here, everything else I have is going outside.
So, I figures maybe my best bet for the biggest yield would be a vert style grow. I hand wired my ballast and light so it was basically ready to be hung, and by hanging it I could not only put plants in my closet but maybe even a couple in front of it.
So, I've started working on some shelves. They aren't completed yet, I only have the bottom two but I have plans to put another shelf above the ones I have now, and have them a little farther out and at more of an incline. The idea for my setup is to have my light hitting every one of my plants, directly from the top of the plant. Here's what I have so far:
Here are the shelves under construction
And here's a render that I paid an engineering firm to create for me for the final vision, complete with the top shelf and the water drainage control system:
So anyways, for the time being the plants are smaller and fit on what I have so that gives me a little time to work on the frame and get the angle right on the higher shelves. Plus I'm still working on a good system for figuring out how to adjust for growing plants; I can drill as many holes as I need to move the rods that hold the shelf and change the angle, but i might not be able to get around having to replace a few pieces of PVC with something longer when they get bigger. The plants on the top shelf will be leaned over at a pretty extreme angle, so the bottom is gonna have to be fairly far away.
One problem that comes up with changing the size of the shelves, is that I would also like to incorporate a scrog into this grow. If i decide to do it, the screen would basically be a semi circle that followed the u shape of the plants. I'll have to get my watering system down first too, BC I won't be able to move things around once I start the acrog, the screen will have to stay fixed.
Anyways, so I hope this way I can at least fit 5 good size plants in there (I could even make some more of these shelves and set them in front of the door and possibly fit another 1-2 plants around the bulb, and hopefully each plant will get full coverage light from the top. If the scrog works out for me, I might try adding some main-lining style technique before it grows through the screen. Anything to try and help my yield without affecting quality.
So now I sit and wait for the light to cut on and see how they respond to the new light setup and angle.
So I started to think of a way to maximize the space that I was working with, which is a long skinny closet-- its like 5' x 20" x 7 & 1/2', but it has a shelf up top which I could remove if I had to. I've got a 400w metal halide for veg, and I'm running soil (ffof + perlite). Here's the old set up with the heating pads under:
It worked great for watering and not having to worry about collecting the run off.
I knew the big problem I was going to run into, was getting enough usable light into the far sides of the closet once they are bigger. I figured I could fit 4 good size plants in here, everything else I have is going outside.
So, I figures maybe my best bet for the biggest yield would be a vert style grow. I hand wired my ballast and light so it was basically ready to be hung, and by hanging it I could not only put plants in my closet but maybe even a couple in front of it.
So, I've started working on some shelves. They aren't completed yet, I only have the bottom two but I have plans to put another shelf above the ones I have now, and have them a little farther out and at more of an incline. The idea for my setup is to have my light hitting every one of my plants, directly from the top of the plant. Here's what I have so far:
Here are the shelves under construction
And here's a render that I paid an engineering firm to create for me for the final vision, complete with the top shelf and the water drainage control system:
So anyways, for the time being the plants are smaller and fit on what I have so that gives me a little time to work on the frame and get the angle right on the higher shelves. Plus I'm still working on a good system for figuring out how to adjust for growing plants; I can drill as many holes as I need to move the rods that hold the shelf and change the angle, but i might not be able to get around having to replace a few pieces of PVC with something longer when they get bigger. The plants on the top shelf will be leaned over at a pretty extreme angle, so the bottom is gonna have to be fairly far away.
One problem that comes up with changing the size of the shelves, is that I would also like to incorporate a scrog into this grow. If i decide to do it, the screen would basically be a semi circle that followed the u shape of the plants. I'll have to get my watering system down first too, BC I won't be able to move things around once I start the acrog, the screen will have to stay fixed.
Anyways, so I hope this way I can at least fit 5 good size plants in there (I could even make some more of these shelves and set them in front of the door and possibly fit another 1-2 plants around the bulb, and hopefully each plant will get full coverage light from the top. If the scrog works out for me, I might try adding some main-lining style technique before it grows through the screen. Anything to try and help my yield without affecting quality.
So now I sit and wait for the light to cut on and see how they respond to the new light setup and angle.
