Setting Up New Room, need advice!

So I'm kicking my buddy (and all his equipment) out of my veg and flower rooms.... I want to set up the following and want to see if any of you have any experience with it. Any tips or advice would be greatly appreciated too!!

Parts List:

*4'x8' Grow tent
*(2) Rainforest 66 aeroponic 6 site units http://www.horticulturesource.com/product_info.php?products_id=1750
*(2) dual system lights, (400w MH/ 600w HPS in each hood and ballast)
*yo-yo's to adjust the light height
*6" jetfan to remove hot air and draw fresh air via negative pressure
*little fan inside to blow on the girls
*6 Blue Dream clones, topped multiple times
*chicken wire for SCROG method



Basically I want to start one unit now, and another in a month or so.... that way I can have somewhat of a perpetual harvest! What do you guys think? I'd like to get at least 1lb per unit, that's on;y 2.67 oz per plant.... and if I'm training the plants through the screen, I should get the maximum out of them right?

The results your trying to achieve are obtainable. You could probably even achieve a bit more than 1lb depending on how well the environment has been dialed in and how long you have Vegged your plants for.

However, using that system with 2 600W lamps in a tent could pose a few issues with temps and the nutrients below the plants getting quite warm and could lead to some issues with root problems leading onto dissease and plant deficiency so thats the main thing to take into consideration. One way in those systems to keep the nutes cool is to have a rez outside of the tent with a pump recirculating the nutes. This is also helpful to have the rez external so you can make changes to PH and EC easily. Can you imagine having to check PH and EC in that system when its full of plants that have been scrogged? eek Nightmare..

Your also going to want more then 1 little fan in there blowing on the girls. Preferably have 1 fan per light or if you have ventilated light hoods you could probably get away with 1 decent sized fan blowing across your ladies but ideally 1 per light.

I am not sure on the genetics if the strain your using so cant really say if it will respond well to topping and training or even if it will be happy in that type of hydro system.

All in all they are great systems as long as you can keep on top of the Temperature issues and management of the Nutrient solution.

Good luck.

I was actually planning on having all 4 bulbs on in there.... I read somewhere that flowering with both the MH and HPS lights will result in a denser bud, plus that make 1000 watts each, and the hoods are air cooled....plus I plan on having an a/c unit in the closet that the tent is in. The rainforest website says that it has a 17 gallon reservoir, which I thought was separate....but maybe I'm wrong? I was planning on keeping that outside the tent for sure.

Can anyone recommend an alternative hydro system for 6 plants that will fit in a 4x4 foot section in the tent, it would have to work with scrog method... and I can't spend more than $200-ish on this part of the project. anything flood and drain, with a res that can be outside the tent.... or can I build one?

Well I've got about 95% of my equipment sitting here, just setting it up now... made a few changes though! Here's the new layout:

4x8x7 Grow Tent
(2) 4x4 flood trays and separate reservoirs so that I can alternate 1 month harvest cycles
(24) 2 gallon net pots filled with hydroton (maybe some coco and perlite too)
(2) dual system lights (400MH and 600HPS in same hood)
4"vortex fan to evacuate all hot air from lights and portable a/c unit
6" vortex with thermometer to replace the air in the room as it heats up
lots of fans

so here are the thing's I'm still pondering, let me know what you think:

*I can fit (24) 2 gallon pots in each 4x4 tray, so should I do a SOG method and grow only the main cola's? or should I lay a screen over them (scrog) and weave the growth through it? I guess my question is: which one will yield more, and which one is easier to maintain?

*should I place a coco mat underneath the pots in the flood tray?

*should I get an additional pump to recirculate the nute solution?

**oh yeah... I'm doing half Blue Dream, and half Green Crack!!

Finally! it's all together.... no thanks to all you looky-loo's who have read this thread and decided to not comment LOL

I have attached a pic of my tray's and reservoir for your viewing pleasure! Now I have a serious question that I really need someone to answer ASAP!

I have 24 plants in 2 gallon pots with (1) 600w HPS/400w MH, would it be smart for me to add another one of those? will it yield that much more? Or will it be a waste of electricity?!<br>
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Its very easy to build your own ebb n flow system or even cheaper to build a dwc system.For the dwc all you need is a 30 gallon res,net cups,hydroton some air stones and air pumps simple as that.I woudnt go wasting all that money on it.On this forum you can find a bunch of diy hydroponic systems check it out.

refiGuy said:

Finally! it's all together.... no thanks to all you looky-loo's who have read this thread and decided to not comment LOL

I have attached a pic of my tray's and reservoir for your viewing pleasure! Now I have a serious question that I really need someone to answer ASAP!

I have 24 plants in 2 gallon pots with (1) 600w HPS/400w MH, would it be smart for me to add another one of those? will it yield that much more? Or will it be a waste of electricity?!<br>
[/ATTACH]

Click to expand...

If you are just veggin right now then you dont even need that you can just use the 400 or the 600.When you flower thats when you want to add the extra lights.

really? i've heard that the bigger I can get the roots and stems prior to flowering, the larger the buds will be... am i mistaken?

refiGuy said:

really? i've heard that the bigger I can get the roots and stems prior to flowering, the larger the buds will be... am i mistaken?

Click to expand...

That is true but you can use the 400 to veg them big enough then flower them with the 400 and the 600.But hey if you dont mind the extra wattage then go ahead and use it.

I'm about to setup my own scrog, but I have a 10'x10' space. And was wondering what i should do about lighting, you say you're using a 400w\600w mh\hps combo, is that under the same hood? or two different ones? or have any pics? Any thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated. I'm just getting started and am eager to learn.

here are a few pics for ya:



I went ahead and put both hoods in cause I'm really hoping I'll get more dense nugs and 2x as much weight!

I reallllly want to get a CO2 setup in there.... whats my best option?

That looks nice.You will definately get some dense nugs multi spectrum from 2 lights.

so here I am a few weeks into flowering my clones still, I really wanted to flip them to 12/12 by now, but I'm over schedule b/c of the following: (please help)

*with all 4 bulbs switched on, the room gets up to 100 degrees within 20 minutes, even tho the hoods are air-cooled

*when I seal up the grow tent and only have 2 of the 4 bulbs on its maintaining 92-95, but the plants seem verrrry healthy, I want co2 bad but I can't afford the setup!

*I haven't bought any blooming nutes yet, again tight on cash... but I'm going to the hydro shop today to get a cheap 2 part bloom.... which brand should I go with tho?

*I installed an a/c unit in there, but it's not lowering the temps enough to justify the extra 900 or so watts it's prob using

*so I guess I'll just use the 2x600 hps bulbs for now to keep the temps as low as possible.... but I really wish there was a way to use the MH in there for flowering too! any ideas?

Use 1 hps bulb and 1 mh bulb.That would be full spectrum .

the light won't be spread evenly thru there then tho... i guess I could just remove one of the hoods all together, but I think i'll just run the 2x600 hps side by side for now.... anyone got any other help on my other items?

I went to the hydro shop and picked up some nutes, got Dynagro: bloom, magna grow and pro-tekt silca mix. plus I'm using a cap full of superthrive, and 150 ml each of my H&G aqua flakes A+B..... ALSO my res is about 30 gallons. does anyone foresee a problem with this regiment? also picked up some root riot pellets today instead of my usual grodan cubes, i'm sick of the algae growth and mold on all my clones! plus i'm only getting a 70% or so success with grodan, and these pellets (while costing twice as much) claim a 100% rooting success and no algae so I'm hoping they work well!

I'm planning a 4x8 tent in the next few months and was planning to go with 3 600w HPS but after seeing your thread it looks like it could be too much...

Good luck figuring out those temps, if you can pull it off you will have amazing plants