My vertical grow idea needs a little fine tuning please help the newbie

Ok, so I have 18 - 45 degree coupler's
30 feet of 6 in pvc tubing
6 end caps
plenty of pvc primer and glue.
5 or 5.5 in net pots

I have been growing since I was a child ( my father told me we were growing tomato plants in the basement lol ) , I have experience with indoor and outdoor grows, soil and hydroponics. I am very new to vertical growing, and it is my next big project. I've been looking over the forums for months and finally decided to join up and hopefully get some great suggestions from you all.

My idea for this grow stems from http://www.octagonhydroponics.com, it's a rather expensive grow unit being sold and I want to build something along these lines. My plan is to use a top feed system and hopefully build a 3 level octagon.

I'm a little stuck right now with regards to my next step. I'm wondering if anyone has any ideas? Here are my main questions

How long to do you think I should be cutting my pvc sections? ( I was thinking 18in sections)
How many plant's can I place in the sections and how far apart should they be?
Should I go bare bulb or cool tube and how many lights would be suggested? ( I was hoping to get somewhere between 2400 and 3000 watts total)

hello...anyone out there?

Check out heath's flooded tube vertical. Perfect setup for the things you have, you might need to pick up a few more odds and ends.

Thanks. I've checked out Heath's thread on flooded tube, it is wonderfully informative. It has absolutely helped form the ideas I have about my new system, however i'm going to be doing a top feed system ( i have more experience there, and the flooded tube idea worries me ). All though I have checked his thread out it is also hundreds of pages long and therefore a bit hard to find one specific piece of info.
I think I am going to just go with 3 in net pot's so that I can get more plants in the system, i'm assuming this shouldn't really affect root growth as the roots will have just as much space in the tubes to fill in. I still need some assistance with the net pot spacing, or I'll just wing it! Any suggestions? Thanks again

I'd wing it, I have nothing specific for your dimensions to offer. I'd try to keep the canopy around 14" or so away from the bulb, maybe 16" to increase it's size and keep it as even as reasonable. Octagon for sure.

Bare balb, stacked 600's, muffin fan on low-under the bulbs.Exhaust above sucking heat out... X2 air exchange...keep light's on and off temps within 10 degrees... Be it trees, flooded tube , short, tall.. some thangs stay the same... Verts rock the GPW all day long...
GET VERT-GET PUMPED...

Heath has articles about a lot of types-well worth the reading if you are serious.

This might help [FONT=verdana,arial,helvetica][SIZE=+3]Octagon Layout Calculator http://www.pagetutor.com/octagon_layout/index.html[/SIZE][/FONT][FONT=verdana,arial,helvetica][SIZE=-1][/SIZE][/FONT]

Thank you ! That's fantastic! I have rooted clones from my aero cloner so I'm ready and rarin to finish up this project

So, this is where I am at with the project as of now. I have finished framing in the room, hanging panda film and have one set of my pipes completely glued and in the room. The other set of pipes is getting done today, their glued in 2 sections that I take in the room to do the final connection piece. The second set of pipes will get hung above the lower set obviously. My clones are getting ahead of me so i'm really trying to finish up quickly. (my fibromyalgia put me about 2 weeks behing schedule) So, I need to finish making the room light tight, set up my hoses ( this will be a top feed/drip system) get my lights set up (2 1,000 w is what I'm going with) and set up some ventilation. I'm a little stuck on the ventilation issue, i've been doing a lot of reading. The room size is 7 1/2 by 7 1/2, I plan to use a simple 20 in box fan on the floor pointing up at my lights to keep them cool but I am still unsure about what is better a passive intake or passive outake of air. I have a large window in this room and that is about it, I was considering a 6 in vent fan run from my window to the bottom of the room with passive outflow vent's cut into the top of the room. Any ideas on this? Thanks everyone for the suggestions and ideas!

Great stuff on here. Wow, you guys have thought of everything. I have experimented with Vert grows, but nothing like this. Nice pics

Here a a few pics, they aren't great as I had the lights on and was also trying not to blind myself.

Ok, so I got her all up and running this weekend! No leaks, the water is flowing well and the plants are getting used to the new environment. They are definitely in shock from getting moved out of the aero cloner and into this but everyone is doing great so far. I think my biggest issue was that my roots in the aero cloner had gotten a bit to prolific, I will in the future make sure to remove them much sooner.

I was very happy with my ghetto rigged fan system that I am using to cool the lights and hold the bottom 1000 w up, they are keeping very cool Now I just need to get them flipped and get my nutrient system worked out. I'm using supernatural.

Oh, and quick question for anyone that might be able to help. Do you think a 8 circular in airstone in a 40 gallon res is sufficient, or should I add on to that? I know that it never hurts to have more oxygenation obviously , i'm just on a budget right now and don't need to spend extra at the moment if unnecessary and it isn't negatively affecting my grow. Thanks everyone!

Does your return nutrient have a waterfall effect going back into the res (falling, splashing and bubbling as it returns)? If so, that should provide adequate aeration - especially if your system is 24/7 NFT.

I find bubblers in reservoirs tend to oxidise nutrients so that they fall out of suspension. You will often see a bit of brown sludge or sediment near the airstones in your res when doing this. (It also happens to an extent in DWC bubblers.)

But by far the best thing you can do for your reservoir is try to locate it remotely to keep it cool. Warm water does not dissolve oxygen as well as cold water - that's why so many hydro growers have problems when their reservoirs or DWC buckets get warm. So you need to find a balance between a cool nutrient system for oxygen suspension, but not so cold as to shock the roots or slow down vigour (warm plants grow faster than cold plants).

The general consensus is about 18-22C for optimised growth. Anything much higher than a constant 25C, and you may start to experience problems.

Having said that, NFT systems such as yours - where the roots get lots of air - are more resilient than DWC systems, where most of the roots are submerged. However, the reservoir then becomes the weak point in your system, as this is where any pathogens will start to breed if temperatures get too hot.

Two things are happening in a warm reservoir: bacteria breed exponentially faster in warm climates, and anaerobic conditions (lack of oxygen) are ideal for pathogens, or "bad" bacteria (as opposed to "good" bacteria, which love oxygen).

I hope this helps you, but the short answer is a waterfall will be far more effective than a bubbler, because most oxygen transfer in water happens at the surface, where the water membrane meets the air. That's why large aquariums use waterfalls instead of relying on air stones. Fish need a lot of oxygen.

Thanks Prawn! I actually just finished up a few changes to my return system. I have a good waterfall effect now, I needed to shorten some of my hoses so they are dropping the water in rather than the hose sitting in the res, and not really creating any bubbles or oxygen on it's way back down.

I think now I just need to find the right nutrient mix to keep them happy and i'll be on my way. The temp in the res has gotten a little higher than I wanted at times but i'm finding it fairly easy to control with frozen 2 liter bottles floating in the res.

I might have to revise some of what I said because I just thought of something . . . If you can get an aquarium air pump outside, in a cool space, and somehow pipe cool air into the reservior through the airstones, it may have some effect. Never tried it myself - so not sure how effective it would be - but cold air bubbled through the solution has the potential to keep it a little cooler.

Or you could save fucking around and just buy a res cooler (if you really need it).

I can't wait to see how this turns out! Good info too. Now I need to go see what the optimal water temp is and make sure mine weren't too warm. Thanks for the great post Prawn!

Nice setup, brother.

Subbed.

Ok, so week two after I started flower and the ladies are growing fast! The ones that were a little larger are now getting really big and my smaller clones are well on their way. I look forward to my second grow when I have only one or two strains that I have chosen. Right now this has chernobyl, ripped bubba, white queen, shishkaberry. So far I think the bubba and the chernobyl will be my best bet's for this system.

I'm trying to figure out from the more experienced vertical growers what your pruning, techniques are? I was thinking of removing the lower branches from the larger plants.

I also have this special lady here. I've seen plants do some strange things, but this one is new for me. Not sure if the pics will really show what the plant did , and how the stem and "top bud" changed completely. My guess is that as I said , I believe my plants spent to long in the aero cloner. Several plants were overgrowing the others, and I think perhaps this what my plants reaction to being too close to those large plants was. Check it out, it's entertaining.