20,000 Watt Medical Grow Op Construction

Took the weekend off any construction on the room. Still takes me and Helper D 3 hrs/day just to water and tidy up. We are now using 50 gallons of water per day to water 30 big plants, 25 1 foot plants, and 40 clones. We need that 250 gallon tank tomorrow.


The leaves on the flowering plants are just huge. It's a shame that I have to cut some off to let the light down into the middle. I leave all the outer leaves on, and just remove the ones shading big tops.


This plant recieved one round of bending prior to going into flower. Some leaves have been removed.


This plant recieved 2 rounds of bending prior to flowering. Notice how much shorter and wider we got her. She has only been in bloom for a week, so the stretch hasn't happened yet. This is exactly the shape we were looking for. The pot is 10 gallons, but still needs at least one watering per day.


Check out the stock on this nasty girl. This is the biggest stock to height ratio I've ever pulled off. I'm really liking this one top and bend method. I used to top several times, but every topping stopped growth for a few days. I decided to try just topping once and then bending just short of breaking at every transplant. There is no growth slowing with bending. Also, you have total control over the shape of the plant. It is necessary, though, to remove some leaves. I hate doing it, but once you start manipulating the shape this much, it becomes necessary to keep most of the tops in the light stream.

I have a few leaves that size (8"-9") and they are just over 3 weeks from seed....lucky I guess.. they are being sexed right now..I have only one tent but I have put in a dark out curtain...from a friends hotel.. around them...the delima was I have 15 auto's running with them and had no other way to trigger flowering... I have to be here at 7am and 7pm to cover and uncover. Anyone ever done this...any idea of if this will work or not. In my opinion the light is 98% out during the sleep time for them( just a little on the edges) Is that enough to stress them and cause hermies? I am used to outdoors planting 100's in the woods of west Ga...newbie indoors...any ideas from anyone who would know ?

this is all coming along pretty nicely collective. i was wondering about that pump/filter system u have for emptying out the runoff water. what kind of filter is it? im just curious

im talking with some friends about starting a big op soon. not as many plants as yours, but big nonetheless lol. i was thinking about that vertical bulb orientation that someone was talking about earlier in the thread. instead of having like 3 bulbs per row, what if u have one or 2 bulbs on light movers? i dont think ive seen a vertical bulb light mover that just goes back n forth along a row of plants. i guess u would need a lot of them though...

Great setup man, read all 15 pages just now. I'm in the process of working excel magic to finalize my spreadsheet for my investor. Tomorrow we're looking at a warehouse and may be getting my funding!!

I still have 2 models, one in which we actually frame the rooms and build from the ground up...the other in which we use 10x20 grow tents to flower and swap meet canopy tents to veg inside of. The space has 22' ceilings and was a former machine shop. It has 400V onsite with a 300A panel. No AC system in the building however, the owner is open to us adding one and we're looking at covering the entire roof with solar panels.

The reason i'm still at a toss up on building vs just erecting tents is because of how quickly we can get a tent together...or apart for that matter.

We'll be running 4x1000W in each 10x10 area, venting lights with external shop air and running CO2 inside the grow environment.

If we build from scratch i can add A/C's all i like along the walls or get a central HVAC. But my big issue is that we don't own the building, thus constructing inside of it just doesn't seem logical. I agree with your time frame. Know when to get in, how long to stay, and where to go on the way out...

As far as security...the camera system hurts so much...all you can do is watch the video over and over and over again. We tried several things at last years residential grow. Finally after constructing a cage with chicken wire around most of the yard kept people out...that and the 95lb pit bull that was trained to attack anything that came over the wall.

neways...might just flip a coin and decide to build rooms or walk into tent city!!

cheers,

toquer

adamhew77 said:

I have a few leaves that size (8"-9") and they are just over 3 weeks from seed....lucky I guess.. they are being sexed right now..I have only one tent but I have put in a dark out curtain...from a friends hotel.. around them...the delima was I have 15 auto's running with them and had no other way to trigger flowering... I have to be here at 7am and 7pm to cover and uncover. Anyone ever done this...any idea of if this will work or not. In my opinion the light is 98% out during the sleep time for them( just a little on the edges) Is that enough to stress them and cause hermies? I am used to outdoors planting 100's in the woods of west Ga...newbie indoors...any ideas from anyone who would know ?

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Adam, yeah, I've done the cover/uncover deal on several ops...indoor and out. What a commitment, it is. I carried this MONSTER in and out of my garage one summer to get a June harvest. It yielded alnost an lb. The great thing about that grow was that I had early samples to spread around. By the time my main harvest came in, it was all sold. I've had small light leaks without too many issues. Had one get a little hermie on me, but that particular mother was producing lots of hermies, light leaks or not. I tend to think you'll be ok. In my experience with light leaks, consistancy is the key. As long as it's the same basic leak with the same basic intensity every night, thet'll be fine.

Luger187 said:

this is all coming along pretty nicely collective. i was wondering about that pump/filter system u have for emptying out the runoff water. what kind of filter is it? im just curious

im talking with some friends about starting a big op soon. not as many plants as yours, but big nonetheless lol. i was thinking about that vertical bulb orientation that someone was talking about earlier in the thread. instead of having like 3 bulbs per row, what if u have one or 2 bulbs on light movers? i dont think ive seen a vertical bulb light mover that just goes back n forth along a row of plants. i guess u would need a lot of them though...

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Good eye on the waste pump. It's a 12v marine pump mad for a fresh water system on a boat. The filter is a "raw water strainer" made to screen intake water on a boat...like for a wasdown pump. The strainer is great cause it's pretty coarse and easy to empty. The pump will self prime and is a diaphram pump that can tolerate some debris. It's a little too small, so we're gonna triple the size soon. I put in a 12v PWC AGM battery and a small battery charger to power the pump and any other 12v stuff we may want to add. I'm going to start using bilge pumps to water cause they move alot of water for a decent price and last FOREVER.

I'm digging your light mover idea on the vertical bulbs. This is the stuff I need to get my wheels turning on this settup. I'm thinking a rack that hold like 3 lights that move up and down the rows.I can't help but thinking that you'd still want one or 2 overhead lights just to really cook the tops. A 6 foot un-topped plant is going to have a huge main cola worthy of some serious light bombardment.

collective gardener said:

Good eye on the waste pump. It's a 12v marine pump mad for a fresh water system on a boat. The filter is a "raw water strainer" made to screen intake water on a boat...like for a wasdown pump. The strainer is great cause it's pretty coarse and easy to empty. The pump will self prime and is a diaphram pump that can tolerate some debris. It's a little too small, so we're gonna triple the size soon. I put in a 12v PWC AGM battery and a small battery charger to power the pump and any other 12v stuff we may want to add. I'm going to start using bilge pumps to water cause they move alot of water for a decent price and last FOREVER.

I'm digging your light mover idea on the vertical bulbs. This is the stuff I need to get my wheels turning on this settup. I'm thinking a rack that hold like 3 lights that move up and down the rows.I can't help but thinking that you'd still want one or 2 overhead lights just to really cook the tops. A 6 foot un-topped plant is going to have a huge main cola worthy of some serious light bombardment.

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oh my god i didnt even think of having a 3-light rack for the light mover. that would be EPIC. and i also think the overhead light would be needed for sure. without the overhead, i would think theyd kinda grow sideways and not the usual path

toquer said:

Great setup man, read all 15 pages just now. I'm in the process of working excel magic to finalize my spreadsheet for my investor. Tomorrow we're looking at a warehouse and may be getting my funding!!

I still have 2 models, one in which we actually frame the rooms and build from the ground up...the other in which we use 10x20 grow tents to flower and swap meet canopy tents to veg inside of. The space has 22' ceilings and was a former machine shop. It has 400V onsite with a 300A panel. No AC system in the building however, the owner is open to us adding one and we're looking at covering the entire roof with solar panels.

The reason i'm still at a toss up on building vs just erecting tents is because of how quickly we can get a tent together...or apart for that matter.

We'll be running 4x1000W in each 10x10 area, venting lights with external shop air and running CO2 inside the grow environment.

If we build from scratch i can add A/C's all i like along the walls or get a central HVAC. But my big issue is that we don't own the building, thus constructing inside of it just doesn't seem logical. I agree with your time frame. Know when to get in, how long to stay, and where to go on the way out...

As far as security...the camera system hurts so much...all you can do is watch the video over and over and over again. We tried several things at last years residential grow. Finally after constructing a cage with chicken wire around most of the yard kept people out...that and the 95lb pit bull that was trained to attack anything that came over the wall.

neways...might just flip a coin and decide to build rooms or walk into tent city!!

cheers,

toquer

Click to expand...

Personally, I like to build the rooms. All of our framing and sheeting took me and Helper D 4 days. Both of us have serious construction backgrounds, and we're pretty tooled up. All of the framing was screwed together. I figure we could break the whole thing down in 2 days, using just screw guns.

Have you looked at the cost of solar? It's REALLY expensive, man. A 130 watt panel runs about $500.00. That works out to $5,000.00 to run each light. Each 1000 watt bloom light costs you about $600.00/year to run if you're paying 15 cents/kwh. To me, they just don't make financial sense.

Have you thought about how you're going to keep the atmosphere right in all of these tents? With framed construction, all you have to do is essentially dial in one bog room. I treat both rooms as one in respect to atmosphere and move alot of aire between them. You can then lower the humidity in your bloom room, if you like (I do), by adding a dehumidifier inside the room.

Another consideration is what is it going to look like when you open up the roll up door? We open ours all the time, and all that is seen is a big wall of shelves. You can't tell with a casual glance that the shelves are actually a wall.

Whatever way you go, you'll want to install at least one big fuck-all 2000+cfm exhaust fan in the main warehouse. This is essential. I've found that the bigger this fan is, the more options I have for cooling the grow room. Ours is currently 1500cfm (was here when we moved in), and I just ordered a 3500cfm fan from Grainger. Without this fan, the warehouse just gets hotter and hotter. Also, and even more problematic, the humididty gets really high...like 85%.

Of course, all this is about to become a moot point. I'm sealing the room this spring. In an op this size, with so much at stake, a sealed room makes the most sense.

I threw up a couple cheap wings so I could move 4 more plants into bloom today. I have 4 air cooled reflectors arriving any day now to replace the wings.


These 8 Bubba Kush plants are fully rooted and ready to go into some 5 gallon pots. As soon as we move some more plants into bloom, we'll have room for these on the Daylight Blue table.


These "Lavander" plants were put into the 5 gallon pots a little more than a week ago. They already have roots showing at the drain holes. These are the plants that I'm not going to top or bend. We're going to try the vertical bare bulbs on these.


The 4 plants that we moved into bloom today came from this area in veg. Now these girls have some more room. Tomorrolw, I'm going to tie them down some more to get em wider.


Top view of flowering plants. The wood spreaders on the lights help keep the lights straight against the pulling of the ducts and cords.


Another top view of the flower room.

regarding the solar...were only doing it because of the rebates, tax incentives, and one of my investors sells the crap so it makes it financially viable. As far as atmosphere i'm thinking of using split A/C units for each tent as well as a dehumidifier inside as well. The ducting for the lights i've posted up in another post. I don't want to run my air cooled lights in series as it seems like a waste of everything, but running them each individually into an exhaust vent seems almost impossible unless i build and frame each room. I'm not as good as you and Helper D at construction...only been doing it a few years. Was a bank manager for the longest time...can't get back into the rat race...neways....
View attachment 1455870
that is what we're thinking of doing for lighting venting. Utilizing solid ducting run a 12" along the top corner/sides of each tent. One is open to the outside on both ends, the other is sealed on one side and has a 12" inline sucking 1140CFM. in theory this should allow for 570cfm coming through each pair of lights. Running insulated ducting should prevent radiating heat thus allowing the since split A/C to cool 600cuft. We'll be running CO2 so the need to have a sealed environment is key. is the 12" overkill? We'll be planning on expanding the 10x10 to a 10x20 within a few harvests and i'd rather just extend the length of my 12" intake to cover the entire 20' run. I may have the exhaust doubled so that each 4 lights is vented with 1 12" althought vortex does make a 12" with 2050cfms.

and for the roll up door. we won't use it at all. at least the one in the front. we've got an office entrance in the front and another roll up through the back.

thanks for the info about exhausting the main warehouse...have to think about that now too!

-Thanks for the feed back ColectiveGardener, I really appreciate hearing from one with experience in commercial instead of the "smaller timers" just growing to smoke free.

-Have you seen the growbot Toquer? my plan is to rent a warehouse and possibly buy a couple of the large shipping containers or even a Semi trailor.. (down the road) that way it is double secure and mobile in a few minutes with little to no disruption. For that matter an old moving truck or .... well you get my point. I used to cook meth( before I found God and changed my ways) I had 2 school buses hollowed and set up with ventilation, light and air tight and I did that for over 15 years "commercially" with out being discovered..... the same security measure and mobility could work out well .Just an idea. As far as temp and humidity control it would be isolated and easy to control with the right equipment. Plain and simple is how much do you want to spend.

-Another thing Collective, have you seen some of the vertical lighting set-ups on youtube? Dude you have got to see some of them...you get 360 degrees of your light..i am considering instead of crowding mine together under the light to surround the light with the plants. ....I have the cool tube so it would be easy to take the batwing off and just invert it. I will let you know how it works..I am gonna have to tilt them and do some bending and training but I feel it may be beneficial to optimizing my use of my lighting

adamhew77, i took a look at those as well as a tow-n-grow. Really like the looks of those and can imagine walking into my warehouse with like 10 shipping containers. Would be such an awesome sight. and in the middle a 10x30 swap meet canopy as my veg station. Just power running to each individual unit ready to move in a moments notice if necessary. but i'm in Cali and this is all legal so it's not a matter of having to worry too much about moving. with the forcasted cash flow we'll have a downpayment on our own building by next year and then we can build and frame and do things just as we desire. actually i'd much rather purchase a greenhouse or build one. i'm an outdoor grower...loved my tree last year, she gave me 6lbs dried & cured and was fed maybe 100 bucks worth of guano, i had probably the same out in trim/shake and was set for...well i've got a small nug left and that's all she wrote!!

Toquer.. I too am in Cali(SB) and love the tents.. I am more stuck on the security and the tent-like convenience of multiple strains in multiple phases and multiple environments. I am not worried about local cops but the feds. since I got my recommendation and started going to dispensaries I have been to 4...2 of those have been raided and shut down by the Feds. So just some advice from a friend ..DONT GET TOO COMFORTABLE. Thieves are just as dangerous...so as you know loose lips sink ships. I am just getting started indoors. I am new to this but have grown outdoors for nearly 20 years. I hate the wait but love the yield of outdoors. I am also a guano user(outside) it is like freaking steroids lol. Like I said I am new indoors but loving it...I am running some auto's and believe it or not some reg/photo in the same tent . I am on day 30 and over a week ago I had leaves bigger than my hands..gotta love indoor hydro. they have just began to flower...though these autos put out an oz or 2 each they do it really fast. I will definitely be moving into probably half and half eventually but for now with my space restrictions I gotta do what I gotta do. Let me know how it works out.
I believe Collective is right we should all get together and sample each others stuff

Nice pics Collective they seem very uniform and healthy where did you get the seeds(or clone) from? Definitely good genetics there

collective gardener said:

Thanks for the link. That's some settup. It seems like alot of the big ops are going this route. How far does it look like he has the lights spaced? 5 feet? I have to imagine the per sq ft yield is over 2 ozs with that settup. Those plants look like about 1 lb/plant. What do you think? If I could get that with 40 plants in bloom I would cream myself. Damn...my room is too small. LOL

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Yea i dont like the hash plant strain. here is another link to a smaller one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fNHJcBx6co . bigger plants tho. Im pretty sure they were getting 2 a light. No waste of light just space. If you have enough space you dont need to worry about it.
We all have are ways of doing things. Just have to find out what works best for your place.
You should have a charcoal filter,blower and a thermostat. Dehumidifiers. Sulpher burners. Intake vents or a intake fan? You have to control your climate.
You should be buying 5 ton a/cs and co2 burners.
I only do sealed rooms. http://www.cannabisculture.com/v2/node/8917 i learnt from the best
http://www.cannabisculture.com/v2/articles/3268.html
http://www.cannabisculture.com/articles/3368.html
Good luck with the show. I subbd to it so ill stay tuned.
Read those you might learn something.

mr.smileyface said:

Yea i dont like the hash plant strain. here is another link to a smaller one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fNHJcBx6co . bigger plants tho. Im pretty sure they were getting 2 a light. No waste of light just space. If you have enough space you dont need to worry about it.
We all have are ways of doing things. Just have to find out what works best for your place.
You should have a charcoal filter,blower and a thermostat. Dehumidifiers. Sulpher burners. Intake vents or a intake fan? You have to control your climate.
You should be buying 5 ton a/cs and co2 burners.
I only do sealed rooms. http://www.cannabisculture.com/v2/node/8917 i learnt from the best
http://www.cannabisculture.com/v2/articles/3268.html
http://www.cannabisculture.com/articles/3368.html
Good luck with the show. I subbd to it so ill stay tuned.
Read those you might learn something.

Click to expand...

+ rep for you sir, thanks for those articles lots of info in there, just wish they had more pictures of the rooms them selves

If you ever need a 5K capital infusion and someone to live in ur shop and work let me know haha. Thanks for letting us tag along on this amazing ride. The idea of being legal is amazing to me. I just read this whole thread. Subbed for sure +rep. please keep us posted

mr.smileyface said:

Yea i dont like the hash plant strain. here is another link to a smaller one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fNHJcBx6co . bigger plants tho. Im pretty sure they were getting 2 a light. No waste of light just space. If you have enough space you dont need to worry about it.
We all have are ways of doing things. Just have to find out what works best for your place.
You should have a charcoal filter,blower and a thermostat. Dehumidifiers. Sulpher burners. Intake vents or a intake fan? You have to control your climate.
You should be buying 5 ton a/cs and co2 burners.
I only do sealed rooms. http://www.cannabisculture.com/v2/node/8917 i learnt from the best
http://www.cannabisculture.com/v2/articles/3268.html
http://www.cannabisculture.com/articles/3368.html
Good luck with the show. I subbd to it so ill stay tuned.
Read those you might learn something.

Click to expand...

nice links. they were a good read. but they seem to be advertising AN products in every paragraph lol

Luger187 said:

nice links. they were a good read. but they seem to be advertising AN products in every paragraph lol

Click to expand...

Not advertising just telling you whats up about them.
Did you like the test they did against GH
1.2 a light vs. 1.9 a light. same clones in the same room.
I have done 19 grows so far and use both.
I feed at 800 ppm connossuer plus additives (1100ppm) and the next watering i use a 1/4 gh 400ppm with no additives. That is considerd heavy feedings for one week
my co2 is 1800 tho and 30c under the lights

Any advice for us would-be collective startups?

toquer said:

adamhew77, i took a look at those as well as a tow-n-grow. Really like the looks of those and can imagine walking into my warehouse with like 10 shipping containers. Would be such an awesome sight. and in the middle a 10x30 swap meet canopy as my veg station. Just power running to each individual unit ready to move in a moments notice if necessary. but i'm in Cali and this is all legal so it's not a matter of having to worry too much about moving. with the forcasted cash flow we'll have a downpayment on our own building by next year and then we can build and frame and do things just as we desire. actually i'd much rather purchase a greenhouse or build one. i'm an outdoor grower...loved my tree last year, she gave me 6lbs dried & cured and was fed maybe 100 bucks worth of guano, i had probably the same out in trim/shake and was set for...well i've got a small nug left and that's all she wrote!!

Click to expand...

Greenhouse grows are the way to go. Our next op will most likely be a greenhouse. My partner (money guy), just wants a tad more legality before incurring that kind of exposure. I have grown 2 greenhouse ops...one just ok, and one out of this world. I feel the key is 2 rooms with 100% light control and sup. lighting. My "out of this world" op was a light controlled settup, but just one room. We paired it up with a garage indoor settup. We did soiless, but I Built a 50 sq ft aeroponics rig in it for fun. Holy shit. Just holy shit. What folks need to understand is that to compete with high grade indoor meds, the greenhouse will probably cost more that the same size indoor op. You still need 100% climate control. Ever try and cool a 700 sq ft greenhouse in 100 degree weather? I'm talking 3 phase air conditioning to the tune of $20,000. And then there's the 24/7 security...