20,000 Watt Medical Grow Op Construction

dankog said:

That's cool that you're thinking about the dogs--maybe just an automatic taser gun to go off if anyone trips the alarm. Stun gun them on the spot--

Thanks for sharing--it's very informative. What do you do about exhaust? (Are there windows?)

I'm really glad it's working out good

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Exhaust and atmoshpere control is very near and dear to my heart. So many people get caught up in these crazy nutrient blends (Advanced Nutes..."with just 37 bottles of stuff, you too can grow'), that they overlook the ever important atmosphere.

My last op was a sealed room. It's the best, no doubt. Eventually, this op will be sealed with a 5 ton ductless split AC system. We were planning to do this right off the bat, but the early arrival of 29 - 12" plants demanded a quick fix. The building came with 2 - 12" direct drive exhaust roof fans. Fortunately, they were directly over the flower room. I left one just exhausating the main warehouse, and built a manifold box around the other. I ducted 2 - 8" ducts directly into the bloom room. We feed air into the veg room and have 4 light proof ducts allowing air to flow from the veg room to the flower room, and then out the roof. The lights and portable AC exhaust is ducted out the roof of the bloom room into the main warehouse. This must all change soon.

The lights can exhaust into the main warehouse because there is no odor in that air. The AC exhaust, however, does pick up some odor. So, in the next couple weeks i need to either buy a couple more AC's and carbon scrub their exhaust, or, bite the bullet and install a ductless split system and seal the room. Of course, once we seal the room, I'll have to start adding CO2. In my opinion running CO2 in an un-sealed room is a waste of money. On the other hand, in a sealed room, you end up using so little CO2 that the smallest of burners (or even tanks) do the trick. All you are adding is what the plants are using and whatever is spilled when you enter the room. I am leaning towards the ductless and CO2.

For humididty, I've found that a powerful ductless split system does most of the work. I will probably have to add a 70 pint dehumidifier in the bloom room. I like to keep the bloom room at 40%. Anything higher invites powdery mildew. Once I reduce the humidity to 40% I also reduce the nutrient strength to around 800ppm. The plants will use alot of water at 40% RH. I basically adjust the nute strength till I get around 1200-1300ppm on the waste water.

It is just so interesting how changing one thing in the op affects everything else. It's taken me many years for all the variables to gel in my mind. There is no instruction manual to really do this stuff great. People just need to get out and do it, make mistakes and see the results, and never be afraid to try new things. While I use a very basic growing style, it always keeps me interested. My latest curiosity is seeing the effects of various training techniques. Medical grows often require limitted plant numbers...but no limit on how big the plants can be. This, I believe, is where new innovation is needed. What is the best way to get maximum yield from each plant. This harvest will be around 6 - 8 ounces per plant. I am hoping to get that up to over a pound per plant. Anyone with new ideas is welcome to share here. Let's hear some innovative ideas.

Nice setup man thanks for directin me here. I'll keep an eye on this one.

We finally found a good HVAC supply house in our area. I bought a bunch of ducting fittings and ducting to get the lights setup for the coming smell. The original settup was a temp deal just to get us going. Now that we're a couple weeks away from major odor, I felt it time to get the lights drawing air from outside the room and increasing the cooling air flow while we're at it.

I'm using 1 - 8" inline fan that's 745 cfm to exhaust every 6 lights. The system involves an 8" main line that tee's off into 6" lines connected to the lights. Each tee'd off 6" section will only service 2 lights. This way we avoid the heat build up that occurs when you daisy chain several lights in a row. We have about a 20 foot run to get to the fresh air that will supply the lights. I'm thinking of using a booster fan in that run.

I hooked up the exhaust section yesterday and it works great. The light reflectors are just slightly warm to the touch. This is with them drawing air from the grow room. Once we route the supply air to the main warehouse, it should be even cooler. The warehouse is almost always cooler than the grow room.

We chose 8" because 10" only gives you about another 50cfm. It seems like the most bang for the buck is 8". When all is said and done, we'll have 3 inline exhaust fans and 3 inline booster fans cooling a total of 16 - 1000 watt lights. We will continue to use the 2 Adjust-a-Wings over the veg table for small plants. We also are trying to figure out how we want to set up an area for vertical hanging bare bulbs. We have a 12' x 8' area designated for some bare bulb tall plant growing. Any experience anyone has with this type of lighting would be great to hear about. I'm thinking we can hang around 6000 watts without running into a cooling problem.


Section 1 of the new light cooling equipment. Since this pic was taken, I have fixed the obvious kink in the duct as it enters the exhaust fan. The 6" duct just hanging there is for the next pair of 1000 watt lights going in tomorrow.


Helper D doing what he does. As you can see, he likes to eat, too. The tiny plant in front of him is some un known strain that slipped into the 29 plants that my buddy gave us originally. Helper D wants it gone, but I want to see what it is. Who knows...could be some killer head stash.

There's a little smell starting already. Even though we are just showing some hairs, it's noticable. I thought I'd have some more time. It looks like it's time to go drop a couple grand on carbon filters and fans. I would rather be buying and installing more lights. Oh well...security first. Damn.

Any ideas on that vertical bare bulb method for growing trees would be appreciated.

this grow looks great and +subbed. really glad to have ppl like you sharing your knowledge and experience.
Happy Growing

awesome set up collective everything is lookin awesome and your giving me some great ideas for my next setup, the dogs i could prolly help you out with as far as what training methods to use for them to keep your place secure

oooo great! awesome thread, it 's THE place to be! if it has good alarms, then thieves will not have time to chop everything down cuz alarm will set off at entry. but they will screw the grow and get you problems, try to show the place as secure, place cameras for the customers to see them clearly, place iron bars on outside of windows, thieves will avoid secure places, theyr looking for gaps.

lochem said:

this grow looks great and +subbed. really glad to have ppl like you sharing your knowledge and experience.
Happy Growing

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Thanks for the kind words. We're more than happy to share what we're doing. I know that most larger ops are pretty secretive and will not post. Maybe I should be too. But, we paid a lawyer alot of money to keep us legal, so what the hell. We also feel that small private collectives, like ours, are the wave of the future. Our op is truly within the letter and spirit of the law. We do not operate like a dispensary. There is no profit here. Growers are paid for their time, and recieve IRS 1099 forms at the end of the year. With this type of collective, our members can expect to pay less than $200/oz for top shelf medicine. They can also request specific strains be grown. It's their collective and they have rights in our bylaws. We're probably going to cap it at around 50 members.

newstrainnewrules said:

awesome set up collective everything is lookin awesome and your giving me some great ideas for my next setup, the dogs i could prolly help you out with as far as what training methods to use for them to keep your place secure

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Ok...that Beavis picture is too disturbing. Damn, it's freaking me out. Look at all that head.

Thanks for the dog training offer. I'm gonna take a pass. I wouldn't want them to be shot or stabbed or poisened (although I know we can train them not to take food from strangers). Honestly, I'd rather be ripped off than have a dog killed or badly injured.

I'm glad we can inspire your next grow op. I'd be happy to go over with you via PM any specific things you'd like to discuss regarding your next op. There's a ton of considerations that I don't post here. Even though this is like my 10th 10 light+ op, there's still things I would have done different on this one if I did it over again. Just let me know what your goals are and I'll throw in my 2 cents.

zem said:

oooo great! awesome thread, it 's THE place to be! if it has good alarms, then thieves will not have time to chop everything down cuz alarm will set off at entry. but they will screw the grow and get you problems, try to show the place as secure, place cameras for the customers to see them clearly, place iron bars on outside of windows, thieves will avoid secure places, theyr looking for gaps.

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Thanks. I like the idea of showing the place as secure. I have to balance that with not tipping my hand to the neighbors. Our cameras and motion detectors will be in plain sight. I also want a big ol' spot light to blast them if they tamper with the door. Just to let them know that they tripped something before they even gained entry. I'm hoping that will run them off. If, for some reason, they can get by the polar bear gate, there's now 4 more locked doors they have to breach before they are in the bloom room. That's gonna make noise, and my neighbor lives in his shop. He's old school armed and dangerous, doesn't like little theiving thugs, and doesn't care for any government agency much...including the Man.

collective gardener said:

Thanks. I like the idea of showing the place as secure. I have to balance that with not tipping my hand to the neighbors. Our cameras and motion detectors will be in plain sight. I also want a big ol' spot light to blast them if they tamper with the door. Just to let them know that they tripped something before they even gained entry. I'm hoping that will run them off. If, for some reason, they can get by the polar bear gate, there's now 4 more locked doors they have to breach before they are in the bloom room. That's gonna make noise, and my neighbor lives in his shop. He's old school armed and dangerous, doesn't like little theiving thugs, and doesn't care for any government agency much...including the Man.

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LOL hell yeah man sounds like you've got it good and covered

That's an awful lot of trouble just to get some weed. 4 locked doors? And that huge gate?

Yeah I'm not seeing an axe get through that

Really like this post and your build journal. Thank you for sharing. I am in the planing stages for a "legal commercial grow" . That 99 plant thing is hard. To recover costs and put out consistent good product for our members is tough as we have to allow for 'bad plants'. I like your less is better nute statement, works for me. Although some additives I have tried over the past few years have actually improved some of my yields, and c0'2 is overrated unless your room is sealed, and ours cannot be. Air, atmosphere is as important as the nutrients. Just wondering why did you not consider coco instead of soil? I've grown in hydro, which I love the best, and soil, and hydro (DWC) is too much of a pain with all the pumps and air on a large scale, so I've made the switch to all coco. Containers can be smaller and my plants still grow huge, I was amazed. Anyways, I am using some of your ducting and ac pics to help design our grow room. I will want to pm you on some other details. Keep up the posts and pics. I am thouroughly enjoying this, as this is my first reply to post after a year of being a lookyloo on the forum.

whtrshn said:

Really like this post and your build journal. Thank you for sharing. I am in the planing stages for a "legal commercial grow" . That 99 plant thing is hard. To recover costs and put out consistent good product for our members is tough as we have to allow for 'bad plants'. I like your less is better nute statement, works for me. Although some additives I have tried over the past few years have actually improved some of my yields, and c0'2 is overrated unless your room is sealed, and ours cannot be. Air, atmosphere is as important as the nutrients. Just wondering why did you not consider coco instead of soil? I've grown in hydro, which I love the best, and soil, and hydro (DWC) is too much of a pain with all the pumps and air on a large scale, so I've made the switch to all coco. Containers can be smaller and my plants still grow huge, I was amazed. Anyways, I am using some of your ducting and ac pics to help design our grow room. I will want to pm you on some other details. Keep up the posts and pics. I am thouroughly enjoying this, as this is my first reply to post after a year of being a lookyloo on the forum.

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Your post is timley. I started using Sunshine #4 because I've been using it for over 20 years with great results. When coco became popular, I piucked up a bag to check it out. Well, it was this really bad coco...total dust. This turned me off to the stuff. So, last week, I'm checking out this new hydro store in my area. It turns out that this guy is the importer of all the coco for most every coco supplier you've ever heard of. He takes me into his 100,000 sq ft warehouse to show me. Holy Shit...he's got several hundred pallerts and a dozen shipping containers loaded with about 10 different types of coco. All in block form. He gives me a coco 101 lesson and I'm transfixed. He shows me his best coco blend in block form. It's a blend of fine and coarse coco. I take a block to the grow, wet it out, and start playing with it. This is the shit. It holds a butt-load of water, but drains super fast. When squezed, it releases its water and re-expands in your hand. My new Indian coco man (we call him Coco Puff Daddy) tells me that I probably won't even need to add perlite. I believe him. He also shows me a little trick for when using RO water. When we wet out the block, we do it with 500ppm of a cal/mag solution. Then we should flush it. Most of the ca and mg will bind with the coco and be available to the plant for a long time. I like this idea.

So, starting with the next batch of transplanting, we will be "Men of Coco", loyal customers of Coco Puff Daddy. It goes to show, the learning is never over with this level of growing. I'm a 20+ year vetran and am just now radically changing my soiless mix. It's one of the many reasons I love to do this.

This should be a lesson to many people. There is some really bad products out there. Because the first coco I saw was a poor one, I wrote it off for many years. I still think Sunshine 4 is a fantastic product. I mean, shit, look at my plants. But, now I believe I have a product that breathes as good, holds way more water, doesn't become hydrophobic if it gets too dry, and is even better on the enviro. Oh, did I mention that I'm paying about 3 bucks/cu ft? I'll be buying is bulk, but who cares. It'll all get used and stores quite easily as blocks.

I'd be happy to bounce some ideas around regarding your new op. I believe 99 plants can put out some serious product. As I have said before, this is the challenge for legal med grows. Currently, they have no laws here on plant size. Just how big can we get these things indoors? What is the best method for doing this? Is it to make em 4 feet in diameter and 3 feet high? Is it to make em 7 feet tall and use bare bulb side lighting hanging in the canopy? Old SOG and SCRG methods are not going to work here. I have found very little information on growing monsters indoors. Hell, I grew SOG for most of my life. I have had as many as 1700 plants going. I know how to do that. But, we're in new territory here.

I'm going to hang 5 or 6 bare bulbs amongst some un-topped plants to see what happens. I may even run one 1500 watt in a reflector way up high to add some overhead light to the mix. I just don't know what the best plant/light layout would be. Rows? Checkerboard?

Anyways, shoot me a pm and we'll talk more.

Vertical bulbs

Did you ever think of hanging two rows of lights may 2-3 lights in each row, then having rows of plants between the lights and on the sides
like this P being plants O being lights

P P P P P P
..O .O .O
P P P P P P
..O. O. O
P P P P P P

Of cousre you would have to rotate the two outer rows quit often but then again helper D needs more work LOL. Maybe even add a couple lights over the top on movers. I've found in verticle lighting you dont want the plants too tall, as the bulb only covers maybe 3 feet verticlly. It makes it hard to get good coverage without stacking bulbs on top each other. one thing i do know is that you get solid dense good quality bud top to bottom and It can really help yeilds if done properly.

mrduke said:

Vertical bulbs

Did you ever think of hanging two rows of lights may 2-3 lights in each row, then having rows of plants between the lights and on the sides
like this P being plants O being lights

P P P P P P
..O .O .O
P P P P P P
..O. O. O
P P P P P P

Of cousre you would have to rotate the two outer rows quit often but then again helper D needs more work LOL. Maybe even add a couple lights over the top on movers. I've found in verticle lighting you dont want the plants too tall, as the bulb only covers maybe 3 feet verticlly. It makes it hard to get good coverage without stacking bulbs on top each other. one thing i do know is that you get solid dense good quality bud top to bottom and It can really help yeilds if done properly.

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This is similar to what I have in mind. I like the idea of one light overhead to hit the tops. Was even considering a 1500 watt HPS mounted pretty high to cast a nice wide patch of light. A circular light mover is a good idea, too. With that, I could cover some area and the plants could still be close to the light when it passes over them.

So, if the overhead light picked up the top 1.5 feet, and the verticals hit 3 feet like you say, we could light up about a 5 foot tall plants (bottom foot is useless).

The only thing I don't like about the row design, is the wasted light directly between the bulbs. I'm going to cut out some little squares and circles out of paper and play with some shapes. I'm really looking for OVER 10oz/plant.

Thanks...keep thinking and report back.

Collective Gardener:
The op looks awesome, I'm seriously jealous. One thing I notice when looking at your setup though, is that I think you're either going to have to add a lot more airflow between the veg and flower rooms if you've chosen to route your airflow that way. Either that, or you almost have to add co2 and an AC in there. Keep up the good work!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTVYKNmk-uo
that will give you some ideas

If you want to see some vert light in action here's mine. i wanted to add a diamond shaped reflector inbetween the lights but never got around to it. I do really think if you had more room this would make for a effiecant grow style as thebuds are pretty uniform top to bottom. Mine is just a bit too small being only 10x7 and 7 feet tall

https://www.rollitup.org/indoor-growing/391403-dukes-3000w-purple-stadium.html

Wolverine97 said:

Collective Gardener:
The op looks awesome, I'm seriously jealous. One thing I notice when looking at your setup though, is that I think you're either going to have to add a lot more airflow between the veg and flower rooms if you've chosen to route your airflow that way. Either that, or you almost have to add co2 and an AC in there. Keep up the good work!

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Thanks! The current airflow between rooms is temporary. However, it's 4 x 6" ducts blowing enough air to part your hair. I'm going to seal the rooms after our first harvest and install a ductless 5 ton split AC unit and CO2. We just need to get through this first harvest on our existing capitol. I wanted to seal the room from the beginning, but we got the plants early and is was raining all hell, so roof work wasn't going to happen. Good eye on the air flow, though...it's probably the weak link.

mr.smileyface said:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTVYKNmk-uo
that will give you some ideas

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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

mrduke said:

If you want to see some vert light in action here's mine. i wanted to add a diamond shaped reflector inbetween the lights but never got around to it. I do really think if you had more room this would make for a effiecant grow style as thebuds are pretty uniform top to bottom. Mine is just a bit too small being only 10x7 and 7 feet tall

https://www.rollitup.org/indoor-growing/391403-dukes-3000w-purple-stadium.html

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Duke,

Very nice system. It's tight and clean. Love the heavy air flow for the lights, man. Makes the AC have an easy time of doing the rest.

Unfortunately, the plants are too small for our op. Our goal is to fill our 24 foot x 16 foot flower room using only 45 plants. We vegetate another 45 in the veg room, and have 9 plants left over for trial plants, different strains, nutrient tests, and the like.

What is your total yield in 1 cycle?

Thanks for sharing, and I'll be following your thread...it's great.