20,000 Watt Medical Grow Op Construction

collective gardener

Well-Known Member
What is the highest bill that you have seen with a 20 light grow in the past?I am running a similar setup but my bill fluctuates around so much..Are you seeing a drastic overall difference in price from aircooled to non-aircooled hoods?Also about to introduce the predators for my spidermite problems,,,,are u still 100% happy with the outcome from that?

20 - 1000's would run about $1,500/month max. This would be with bair coooled hoods. They are the most efficient dollar wise. Otherwise, you're running big A/C gear to keep things cool. BUT, I'm a huge fan of bare vertical bulbs. That would probably be close to a $2,000/month bill due to increased A/C.

I'm on the fence with the predators. At first they seemed to be working....now I'm seeing new webs. I'll give my final opinion in a couple weeks.
 

TheLastWood

Well-Known Member
I'm not trying to derail the topic but if I could ask the following...


Are there any "legal" fees outside that of a lawyer's, such as the cost of state licenses affiliated with running a medical grow. If so what are these fees?

$100,000 upfront seems like quite a bit for employees/labor, supplies, rent/lease, etc. I read on page 93, you said the electricty is cheap in relation to the ounces you produce, so that's not a "major" expense then?


I believe you said labor is the major expense? I can't wait till medical marijuana comes my way. I got connections to some cheap mexican labor, and some of the cheapest electric in the USA.
Great, just what we need, more corporate involvment and monopolizing of the mmj industry.

These always sound like great ideas to greedy ppl
 

collective gardener

Well-Known Member
Finally, some pics:

Bloom Room 1.jpg
The bloom room. The 2 lights on the right are the new 1000's. The original plan was for all of that space to be a walkway. Greed got the better of us and started adding lights. Helper D wants us to add 2 more where the wing is. I think we'll be puting in another electrical panel to facilitate this and a couple more air conditioners. Who needs walking space.

Diesel and DWC Bubba.jpg
There's the NY Diesel and Godzilla in the DWC bucket. I like the diesel look. Helper D treated it with Bushmaster to prevent it from getting 10' tall. Godzilla is looking pretty good. We didn't top it or train it in any way. For the small amount of space it occupys, it seems like the yield will be pretty good. The average bud size is bigger than the soiless plants, and the growth rate in veg was much faster. It still has a few weeks to go. We want to taste the product prior to commiting 100% to the RDWC idea. I'm sure it will taste just fine. After all, it's the same nutes, just different delivery system.

Drying Buds 2.jpg
Fruits of our labor. Most of these buds are smaller than the average. We first took all of the big buds, then let the lower buds get good light for a few days. The big buds have since been jarred. Once these are done, all of the buds will be tossed in a big salad. Any bud smaller than about 2 bong hits is set aside for personal use, gifts, etc...

drying buds.jpg
You'll see the de-humidifier on the bottom left. We love the climate controlled drying shed. When it gets dry here we have a small humidifier we use.

first laughgani.jpg
The first Laughgani to be harvested. I believe we pulled it a little early. I just had to look into those buds to know for sure. We'll let the rest go 10 more days. I have trimmed fan leaves on this plant 3 times. It's totallt needed with this strain. It gets so dense that without trimming, the inside would just me a mass off underdeveloped buds and powdery mildew. This strain is a great example of how aggressive leaf trimming can not only help, but be necessary sometimes.

Laughgani buds.jpg
Laughgani buds trimmed. I believe 10 more days and they'd be solid purple. These things are a total bitch to trim. I'm picky on how our buds look, and getting that perfect look is very time consuming on this strain. The leaves are just packed tight into the buds. It requires lots of digging the leaves out to cut them. I just wish you guys could smell these things. Without doubt, the most pugent plant I've ever grown. 3 other people were trimming Bubbas, yet all any of us could smell was the Laughgani. I will not be cutting any corners with the cure on this one. It's going to be a while before our members get a taste of these.

New DWC T-5.jpg
The first of the new all RDWC grow op. These have already been rooted in another tray. The T-5 gets them ready for the 1000 watter. From here they will go into buckets and onto the veg room table.

NY Diesel.jpg
The Diesel plant. Helper D really did it right with the Bushmaster. He has a real eye for that stuff. He only uses it as a foilar spray, feeding with plain water on application days. I can tell him how tall I want a plant to end up, and he'll hit it within a couple inches. We only use it when it looks like a plant will end up too tall. I know that some folks use it all the time. We were thinking about trying it on a few plants in a side by side. I Dlively11 (RIU member) uses it to make his plants more compact and get more plants in a given area. He has some very impressive pics posted of side by side tests if anyone is interested.

Veg Room Floor.jpg
The veg room floor. The 10 gallon plants will go into bloom in a couple days. The 5 gallon plants first get transplanted into 10's for a week, then go into bloom. All of these plants have already spent several weeks on the veg room table under a Hortilux Daylight Blue. The bulbs seen here are Pulse Start 6.4K. The plantb on the left is a Laughgani that has had its fan leaves trimmed once (hard to believe given how bushy it is). The leaves will be heavily thinned again week 3 of bloom. We are looking to see distinct braches with that thinning. At week 5 most of the remaining fan leaves are removed. We are looking for just buds. This seems to be the only way to fully ripen the buds that are in a mass of leaves.

Veg Room Table.jpg
The veg room table is really the key to big yield. The Daylight Blue bulbs are not as bright as a Pulse Start, but do a better job at node spacing. Here, we are trying to train the plant out a little, and stack the nodes very tight. Once in a while a plant will get crowded, or spend too much time against the wall. When this happens, we throw the plant away. No plant leaves the table unless it is as perfect as we can get it. This is why I'm a fan of extra large veg rooms.

Hope you all enjoy. It's nice to get back to the grow. I ventured out into some other threads and just got pissed off. LOL.
 

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growmomma

Active Member
I've been sub'd to this thread for a while now, for some reason never commented lol. Great update man :) You seem like a genuinely nice guy, and as you know have one helluva set-up! Keep it up, I really enjoy your thread.
 

TheLastWood

Well-Known Member
Wow cg. That laughgani is just beautiful... what a great hash plant.

Speaking of hash, u gonna buy some 30 gallon baggs n make some hockey pucks?
 

chief blunts

Active Member
this whole thing is absolutely bonkers, i love all of it! the world needs more people like you cg- helping out those in need and getting paid under the radar....... well thats A+ in my book....

just remember in most states herb may be legal but concentrates are not... just a friendly reminder.
 

Wolverine97

Well-Known Member
this whole thing is absolutely bonkers, i love all of it! the world needs more people like you cg- helping out those in need and getting paid under the radar....... well thats A+ in my book....

just remember in most states herb may be legal but concentrates are not... just a friendly reminder.
That's not true. The only concentrate that is illegal in CA is BHO and its derivatives. In Michigan they're all legal.
 

collective gardener

Well-Known Member
We love it. My husband just converted it to an under current system. Hope to expand to an 8 bucket soon, moving it to a bigger space.
The system we're building is a ripoff of the UnderCurrent. We're using flexible smaller hoses linking the buckets. I need the ability to move the plants around. Hopefully, this will save us a ton of time watering and draining waste buckets. Any improvement in grow speed or yield will be a bonus.
 

SCCA

Active Member
The garden is looking beautiful CG! i hope those predators do their job. have you considered targeted applications in the places you see webs? i believe thats how they handle them in some dutch greenhouses.


That's not true. The only concentrate that is illegal in CA is BHO and its derivatives. In Michigan they're all legal.
im not sure, but i thought BHO was legal if it was processed in a certified laboratory. Supercritical CO2 extractions fall into this same category. i think the law in California is more in regard to the use of dangerous processes and chemical solvents than the actual concentrate itself.
 

collective gardener

Well-Known Member
According to our attorney, California prosecutes Butane extraction with the same zeal as a meth lab. So, that's a big no go. Supercritical CO2 is fine, but the gear is very expensive. It's funny this came up, as today I sent several lbs of sugar trim through the food processor. Personally, we like keef. Nothing makes me as happy as vaporized 120 screen keef. So, I made about a 1/4 oz of that today. I'm not into the oils. We'll probably invest in a small water hash machine. But, I have my reservations. No one around here seems to like hash too much. My wife always needs stuff for her edibles collective, but insists it be 100% organic. So, Helper D tends to 4 organic plants each month for her. We just give her the whole plant. Edibles made with the buds are better, anyways. Honestly, I haven't figured out what we want to do with all this trim.
 

Ontheball

Well-Known Member
LOL....why oh crap???
View attachment 1429267
Here's my rec

We could grow over 1000 with all of our members, but we're trying to play it real safe. Problem is, I'm going to have to learn to grow some serious trees. I've always grown SOG, and have little experience with the big girls. We'll be trying several methods. Including: topping and bending to get a plant about 3 feet around and 2-3 feet tall, and growing 5-6 foot plants and using bare bulb side lighting. Over the next few months we'll all find out together whats works best first hand! My goal is 1.5lbs/light. That's a tall order with Bubba and the other high end strains we'll be growing.
that is the most insane sexiest bit of paper ive ever seen in my life ! fuck my country. Fuck sake takes the piss lol i wish i could smoke without dodging a caging >.<
 

collective gardener

Well-Known Member
that is the most insane sexiest bit of paper ive ever seen in my life ! fuck my country. Fuck sake takes the piss lol i wish i could smoke without dodging a caging >.<
Now if we could just convince all cops to see it that way. Some law enforcement do not recognize any rec over the original 6/12 plant limits. They lose in the end. But, it still costs the grower all his crop, legal fees, bail, etc...There are 3 cases currently in my county where the growers are suing the County for the costs of their crop and gear. Our lawyer is the attorney for all three cases, so we hear the progress weekly. IF the county is made to pay for crops they tore out illegally, it would be a HUGE victory for our cause. Police would be far less likely to rip out plants if the County has been forced to pay for them. Anyways, this paper is nice, but no where near what many people think it is.
 

collective gardener

Well-Known Member
We're going to keep all the res's in the main warehouse and run tubing to the bucket sets. Thbis should help keep the water cool, because the warehouse is cooler than the grow rooms. I could install a cooler in each set of 8. But, it would get expensive. I want each set of 8 to be totally isolated from eachother, which wouyld require a cooler for each set of 8. We plan on 12 sets. I thought about some sort of heat exchanger system, where copper coil filled with frozen coolant would be run through each res, cooling the water without mixing water between bucket sets. This would be ideal. However, with enough air delivery, water chillers shouldn't be needed.
 
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