Coli flowers?

Sooo i bought a storage unit full of goodies from a guy on craigslist. Got like 10-15k retail worth of stuff fer 2 gs. Included in the lot, among many other tresures, was 2 vertical systems, the Azteca (or some shit?) and the holy grail... DUH DUN DUHNNNN... the COLISEUM!

I got so much shit i will dedicate my next post to listing it all.

Heres the deal. I suck at hydro. I am great at soil, and if it were not for some very unfortunate circumstances, i would not have ever changed from my tried and true methods.

Good news? from the looks of it, the guy who owned this shit previously knew what he was doing. pretty much everything i need plus a bunch of other luxuries were included in the lot.

Bad news? i have boxes and boxes of shit to sort through, i am inexperienced in hydro, and who knows wtf i am missing?

All i know is... I WILL PREVAIL!

OFF WE GO!

Sounds like a good deal.

im here bro

So my plan is to run the coliseum once, and hopefully be able to yield a years supply of veggies for my dad and uncle before i move.

They were both debilitated by MS and for a long time really had no quality of life. Fortunately through years of research and experimental treatments life has gotten significantly better for both of them. Unfortunately it is still very difficult, if not impossible for them to maintain a garden. Especially year round. I will be moving, for atleast a year, and i want to make sure they do not have to resort back to the black market to find relief from there painful disease.

That being said, i need to get this done, and i need to get it done fast. I need to be half way around the world by Feb 1.

So heres the plan...
I got the "big" coliseum, the one with the 2 big sections, rather than the 6 or 8 (or whatever) little ones. I believe it is a 300 site unit, although i may only fill a fraction of the available sites.

From what i have researched the unit can be ran with several different configurations as far light, media etc.

I think it is rated from 1600-3600 watts of light, with a variety of options. i think i have settled on running 4 or 5x600w's in cooltubes. The makers say max 4x600w on one website, and 5x600w on another. In high times they have an article on one running 6x600w. I would like to run the maximum wattage possible without creating unmanagable heat problems for myself, or creating a hazard.

Included in the lot was 2 cooltubes, and 3 600w ballasts (which i will get pics and name brands of soon). My question is.. Should i just go out and buy 5 new 600w ballasts and 5 new tubes, this way i will have everything matching nice and uniform... Or, (assuming all the equipment is in good working order) will i be fine just using what i have and buying 2 more ballasts and 3 more tubes? I've never actually used a cooltube personally and dont know if, or how, they will all fasten together, or how well they will cool multiple lights. I know i gave up on air cooling my old hoods a long time ago and just invested in good air conditioners, but in the coli im gonna need to move that hot air. Can i even run 5 lights or only 4?

What medium?.. The guy i bought it from had bags and bags of Fox Farm perlite, and bags and bags of hydroton pebbles. I've seen pics of both being used. The manufacturer reccomends a 70/30 perlite/peat or 50/50 sunshine #4/perlite. I like Hydroton for some reason. The guy also had the little net pots that fit into each site. Why and what do i want those for?

I guess first things first... Lets figure out the lighting and medium and get the equipment needed before we proceed further.

Any suggestions?

I have so many questions... Heres a few i can think of off the top of my head now..

I dont know much about hydro systems. I do know my futile attempt at hydro years ago was abruptly ended after about 2 weeks and massive salt buildup everywhere and warm nasty ass water.... I think i have a better understanding now, and if i am correct i may already know the answers to many of my problems.

Bare with me please, i get a little long winded at times....

How will i control res temps?
I have a 1/10th HP chiller.. will this work?

Is my planned nutrient regiment ok?
Full Canna line w/ HG Roots excellurator in veg instead of Rhizo. Rhizo for flowering.

Salt Buildup Prevention and Mantenence
Can i use HG Drip Clean in conjunction w/ the Canna line, and in the coliseum? Would this help?

Also, what should i do daily, weekly, monthly to prevent from having salt buildup problems?


Airstones, Pumps(for circulation), H202 and resiouvors in general?
i'm not sure i have a firm understanding of how to maintain my res in general as far as aeration, temperature, and disease/pathogen control and this is why i ask this question. Can someone please help me to understand?

Ohhh i got so many more... I have this Plant Pro climate controller w/ like a million attachments and no instructions and it does like a million things.. anyone familiar with this unit? Its expensive as hell thats all i know..

Just busted open a box and it had like 15L of HG Aquaflakes, 15L of something (i wanna say Aarde A&B), 50 packs of shooting powder, 3 gallons h2o2, and 7 big bottles roots excelurator ($120/bottle at the local shop), which i was very happy to see. ALL BRAND NEW AND SEALED AND STORED IN A CLIMATE CONTROLLED STORAGE. I got so many more boxes to go through i cant wait.. im like a little kid in a candy store right now..

i'll make a full catalog of the useful stuff tommorow.

So like i had mentioned before i had some "unfortunate" circumstances. One of my friends got greedy and decided to steal from me. It's a real shame because anything he would have needed, i would have given to him. He could have just asked me and i would have given him the shirt right off my back. Now what happens? We both lose a friend, he ruined what would have been a nice crop, and i lost all of my equipment and had to move my setup. Stupid fucker didnt even come at the right time. Must have been pissed because there was nothing but vegging plants, so he went and stole almost all of my NICE equipment.

Sooo.. fast forward and here we are now...

Obviously i had to frantically clean and destroy my whole op. As you can imagine this put a little damper on things, and to say the least, set me back a little bit. I was left with 3 cuttings. One querkle, one heavy duty fruity, and one unidentified supposed "diesel", which was a donation from a friend.

I'm thinking the querkle is the one to use for coliseum for a number of reasons. It is the indica-dom pheno and stays nice and short and sqaut. It also finishes relatively fast (9 weeks), it's purple, and its really funky. It also grows painfully slow so things wont get too unruly, too fast inside the coli.

I've already ruled out the heavy duty because it is the sativa pheno which grows like a maniac and stretches like 100% in flower. The "diesel" is a much quicker vegger than the querkle but i have no idea what to expect from it, or if it will perform well in the coli? I never was able to flower one.

I have some querkle mums going but the bad news is if i do settle on querkle they grow so fking slow i'll probably have gray hair before i could pull enough cuttings to fill up the coli all at one time. Oh well. Until then im gonna start putting together the system and try to figure out what parts are missing and what i need to buy. I will begin taking pics of the coli and materials etc.. soon.. they are stored in a storage unit right now far away so it's kind of a pain in the ass to get over there.

Here is the blue print:

1. 1 Large Coliseum 300 site
2. 5 600w (3 HPS, 2 MH) in cool tubes
3. ??? CFM blower for cool tubes
4. HGC-2 Plant Pro Controler w/ co2 sensor
5. Sentinal Co2 burner or bottled?
6. 1/10th hp Eco Plus chiller
7. Canna aqua A+B, Cannazyme, PK 13/14, CannaBoost, H&G Roots excelurator, H&G Drip clean.
8. Nutradip tri-meter for ph/ppm
9. ??? for Medium

So basically, anything with a joint next to it means i am uncertain. I really need some help here from anyone with any experience with a coliseum or even vertical gardens at all. Here are my questions matching with the numbers. Please include a thorough explanation for any of your suggestions.

2. Should i use 4 or 5 600's? Why?
3. How big of a blower should i use to cool this sufficiently?
5. I have both. the generator scares me, the bottles are a pain the ass. haven't decided.
6. Can this keep my res at 65f if my room is running at 80f?
7. Can i run the HG Drip clean in this system with Canna nutes?
8. Should i get the one that does EC rather than PPM? Canna nutes are measured by EC. I am more familiar w/ ppm.
9. Any suggestions? I have gotten a few conflicting suggestions. Hydroton? Perlite/soilless?