Boomer's 2400w Sour Grape GrowOp w/ ScrOG & CO2

BooMeR242 said:

so i finally busted out my new digi pH and PPM reader and tested my filtered water and our reg tap water. the reg tap water actually had les PPM then the filtered water. lol go figure.

anyways the pH of the water was high; 8.5 or so. the PPM is like 300 as well.

So i mixed up sum water and pH downed to 6.8 and things should work fine now. PPM is still gonna b at 300 or so until i move out and upgrade to a R.O. system. im not sure if the new pad has filtered water but i think its safer to just invest a few hundy into a reverse osmosis setup and start at 0ppm.
this will allow me to increase my feedings without lockout issues if i understand correctly?
my recipe only calls for 1500-1800ppm total anyways so shouldnt be too big of an issue.

Click to expand...

Man, I never realized how shitty your tap water was by the time you got it. You know I live on one of the biggest lakes/reserviors that feeds southern cal. That is why my lake is half empty right now. So us Nor Cal folks really love shipping our water down to you. lol
Anyway, did you gett the hanna combo meter? If so it stays calibrated for a long time, but I recal my every couple weeks just to be sure.

Drella said:

hey man, we've all been there. good thing your on this site and cool peps like DC are here to help! good luck, you'll figure it out. you got time right now to dial it in, soon it'll be easy and fun! i never thought i would be in day 23 of my first bloom! it really looks likt i have the potential for 1/2lb on my one 600w hps, lets get you there per600w you got!

Click to expand...

good to hear mang ya glad theres cool peeps on RUI to help with shit.
im hopin to pull 1lb/600w but mite take a grow or two to dial it in with co2 and the rite nutes to achieve that

#1Raiderfan420 said:

Man, I never realized how shitty your tap water was by the time you got it. You know I live on one of the biggest lakes/reserviors that feeds southern cal. That is why my lake is half empty right now. So us Nor Cal folks really love shipping our water down to you. lol
Anyway, did you gett the hanna combo meter? If so it stays calibrated for a long time, but I recal my every couple weeks just to be sure.

Click to expand...

ya thats exactly wat i picked up. my buddy at the shop said just bring it in every month os so and he will recalibrate it for me so its easy on me. hes got unlimited ph test packs to calibrate with so svaes me sum cash and time

So what did that distilled water pH out at boomer? Oh and which meter did they recommend to ya? I just got a bunch of distilled water because I think I'm having the same issues. I bet my tap water is bordering on toxic.

slabhead said:

So what did that distilled water pH out at boomer? Oh and which meter did they recommend to ya? I just got a bunch of distilled water because I think I'm having the same issues. I bet my tap water is bordering on toxic.

Click to expand...

ya im pretty sure my water is wat helped fuk up the clones.

i killed one basically by breaking the damn stalk so im tossing it. it was a weakling anyways so good ridiance.
then the other weak one still appears stunted and not growin at all so prob gonna toss it as well.

the remaining four look green and healthy and already recovering from the FIM job.
only issue i see with the healthy remaining four is sum of the fan leafs are mutated and curled up all funky. ill load sum pix when i get a chance. not sure if i should trim them off or let them die on their own.


the distilled water was a pH of 7.5ish and ppm was around 75-100.
so im using that for now til i get my RO system.

BooMeR242 said:

good to hear mang ya glad theres cool peeps on RUI to help with shit.
im hopin to pull 1lb/600w but mite take a grow or two to dial it in with co2 and the rite nutes to achieve that

Click to expand...

yeah, idk if you got youre CO2 techinque your gonna use yet. im gonna try it next round. as long as my room is sealed, and i can keep temps down, ill be good!

hey mang, im no vetran, but i ph my water to 6.5. i dont know if 7.0 is too hot, or cold. i just wanna see your ladies green and mean, anything i can do to help. by the way, PH ing my water was the most frustating thing for me, once i figured it out, for me, i dont stress at all any more, and either do my ladies. good luck bro, on some thriving mothers!

Drella said:

hey mang, im no vetran, but i ph my water to 6.5. i dont know if 7.0 is too hot, or cold. i just wanna see your ladies green and mean, anything i can do to help. by the way, PH ing my water was the most frustating thing for me, once i figured it out, for me, i dont stress at all any more, and either do my ladies. good luck bro, on some thriving mothers!

Click to expand...

im doin good with the pH. its not complicated for me i mean ive known about it all along i just never needed to pH my water when i started my clones last year indoors then moved them outdoors. my plants never had an issue but white widow mite have a higher tolerance for it as well who knows. but i appreciate the support brotha.

about the c02 method im using the tank with my sentinal digi reader and regulator. @ 1500ppm during lights on. my room will be completely sealed

BooMeR242 said:

ya im pretty sure my water is wat helped fuk up the clones.

i killed one basically by breaking the damn stalk so im tossing it. it was a weakling anyways so good ridiance.
then the other weak one still appears stunted and not growin at all so prob gonna toss it as well.

the remaining four look green and healthy and already recovering from the FIM job.
only issue i see with the healthy remaining four is sum of the fan leafs are mutated and curled up all funky. ill load sum pix when i get a chance. not sure if i should trim them off or let them die on their own.


the distilled water was a pH of 7.5ish and ppm was around 75-100.
so im using that for now til i get my RO system.

Click to expand...

75-100 is low for tap water. I think you'll be fine. You could do RO to be safe but the difference from 10ppm to 100ppm is minimal. I say roll with it.

Waiting to fill up barrels of RO water sucks. I have a 70 gal res and it takes forever. I really need a reserve barrel though...then you just fill it up till the float rises from being full and it turns off the RO.

DubsFan said:

75-100 is low for tap water. I think you'll be fine. You could do RO to be safe but the difference from 10ppm to 100ppm is minimal. I say roll with it.

Waiting to fill up barrels of RO water sucks. I have a 70 gal res and it takes forever. I really need a reserve barrel though...then you just fill it up till the float rises from being full and it turns off the RO.

Click to expand...

7.5 pH is a little high so if you are in soil it should be 6.5. You will start to lockout some ions like iron. The tds is fine at 75-100 but account for that in your nute feedings. RO is nice but be careful when you select your unit because alot of units waste tons of water and as mentioned take forever to fill 10-20 gal reservoir. Also make sure the replacement filter mediums aren't too expensive or frequent. The cost of replacing the filters could justify buying a better model. Lastly make sure you know what your tap water TDS is because this will determine the frequencyof filter changes and rate of flow through (water production).

DubsFan said:

75-100 is low for tap water. I think you'll be fine. You could do RO to be safe but the difference from 10ppm to 100ppm is minimal. I say roll with it.

Waiting to fill up barrels of RO water sucks. I have a 70 gal res and it takes forever. I really need a reserve barrel though...then you just fill it up till the float rises from being full and it turns off the RO.

Click to expand...

the tap water is high its like 300+ ppm
the distilled water is around 100ppm cuz i switched to using distilled water for now til i get the RO setup. but ya i agree waiting for the rez to fill up isnt gonna be fun

greenthumb111 said:

7.5 pH is a little high so if you are in soil it should be 6.5. You will start to lockout some ions like iron. The tds is fine at 75-100 but account for that in your nute feedings. RO is nice but be careful when you select your unit because alot of units waste tons of water and as mentioned take forever to fill 10-20 gal reservoir. Also make sure the replacement filter mediums aren't too expensive or frequent. The cost of replacing the filters could justify buying a better model. Lastly make sure you know what your tap water TDS is because this will determine the frequencyof filter changes and rate of flow through (water production).

Click to expand...

thanks GT thats a good point to consider. i believe theres only two diff models at greencoast hydro so ill have to go over all the filters and replacement shit with them and see wats more cost effective in the long run.

but i am PHing my water down to 6.5

FWIW, I have a Stealth 100 that I've simply stopped using, as it's just too much of a pain in the ass for me to fill up my reservoir (and I have a "spare" 50 galllon that gets filled up).

If you're handy with a float valve and trust your craftmanship, you'll be fine, but I'm not and don't, so I would have to monitor each time I turned it on.

Flooded my garage once and ruined my 1000W digi ballast, and another time had to sprint out there in my underwear at 2:00am because I remembered I'd left it on.

Lucky enough for me, my tap water is 125-150PPM and 7.5pH, so I just said "fuck it".

Bob Smith said:

FWIW, I have a Stealth 100 that I've simply stopped using, as it's just too much of a pain in the ass for me to fill up my reservoir (and I have a "spare" 50 galllon that gets filled up).

If you're handy with a float valve and trust your craftmanship, you'll be fine, but I'm not and don't, so I would have to monitor each time I turned it on.

Flooded my garage once and ruined my 1000W digi ballast, and another time had to sprint out there in my underwear at 2:00am because I remembered I'd left it on.

Lucky enough for me, my tap water is 125-150PPM and 7.5pH, so I just said "fuck it".

Click to expand...

haha thats a crazy story. i sure hope i dont run into many issues. but knowin my luck i will have my own fair share of stories to tell soon enough.
i wont know the tap water contents til we actually move into the house but i guess i could drive by and take a sample from the hose water and just see how it is. so maybe ill do that when i get a chance. were serving the renter a final notice of eviction so should be soon hes out next month.

So i have a meeting for consultation this weekend with my buddy who runs the collective in westminster and has been growin for years. hes been helpin me out with my nute recipe and setup. (as well as everyone on here) so i decided to sit down and draw up a design for myself to understand where all everything is goin and see wat im missing. also helps demonstrate my ideas to him and u guys. so hope u have the time to review the pix and see where my head is at with things.

so as i said before im working with 2 10'x10' rooms. standard bedrooms. each with a closet and a window. i will be sealing off the window completely but not make it appear boarded up.

(all these plans are subject to change and i am posting on RUI for discussion and criticism to help me maximize my potential)

we will start with the details and ideas for the veg room;

Floor; pond liner for protection

Walls; white paint for reflection

A/C; 8,000 BTU window mounted unit
(not sure about this AC unit but i will need to control temps in the veg room)

Exhaust; none
(not sure i need to exhaust the air other then just daily opennin of the door. plz let me know wat u guys think cuz im not sure im correct)

Intake/C02; none
(from wat i understand plants only need c02 supp during flower when lights are on... but im not sure if i should still bring in fresh air from outside or if openning the door is enough daily. plz let me know wat u think as well)

Fans; (1) oscillating fan

Lights; (1) 1000watt MH conversion kit (can use HPS if i wanted) XL hood puts out a 4'x4' footprint. 8" vent duct.
-advise the blueprint drawing for plant layout and the dotted lines represent the light footprint from the 1000w lamp
(2) T5 flouro lamps for veg and clones
(1) green bulb to replace orignal room bulb so i can work in the dark if needed without disturbin light cycle

Cutting Area; Clones will b taken from mothers which are labeled "M" and are underneath the 1000w MH lamp. Clones will b kept in the humid dome and temps monitored by thermometer. Heating pad will speed up root growth.

Drying Area; In closet; strings will be hung horizontal for branch hanging. thermometer in closet to monitor temps and humidity. Fan in closet to keep dry and air flowing.
I will also prob buy and keep a large safe for storing bud while curing and storage.

Work Bench; this will be my area for trimming and making bubble hash. also any pruning that needs to be done and misc work. will have a TV DVD player and my iHome stereo for entertainment
Oh and a mini fridge to keep the brew and other refreshments

Containers; 3 gallon square pots w/ saucers

Medium; sunshine soilless mix #4 or coco (still undecided)

Supplies; other small supplies off the top of my head; nute lineup, scale, 30x microscope, pH & PPM meter, gloves, cutters, twist ties, ph soil meter and lumen reader, Adjustable sunlifts to mount lights with and lower/raise as needed.

Resevoir; none
- I am not sure if i need to keep a rez in the veg room or if i should try and deal with hand watering and carrying water as needed from the next door flower room which will have two rez barrels. plz discuss the ups and downs.


K that about wraps up the veg room. so u hopefully understand my drawing; the dotted lines where the 1000w lamp is hung represents the light footprint as i said before, then the squares represent the pots and theyre labeled "M" for mothers, and "V" for vegative plant. So i will have 12 plants in veg at all times. Veg will be done til about a month or my desired heighth (which is unknown til i decide scrog heighth)
This perpetual setup will allow me to keep a rotation of plants in veg aand in flower. so i will crop out every month.


Now onto the
FLOWER ROOM;

Floor; pond liner

Walls; white paint

A/C; 10,000 BTU mobile unit

Exhaust; 1075 cfm max fan w/ 10" duct to pull fresh air from outside and thru the light hoods (which will keep them cooled down sum) and will evacuate the air into and thru the roof. This will be a sealed system so no c02 escapes.

Intake/c02; C02 tank w/ sentinal PPM reader and regulator. will be kept at 1500ppm during lights on.

Fans; (2) 16" oscilating wall mounted fans

Lights; (4) 600 watt HPS lamps. Hortilux bulbs. 8" vented hoods.
(1) green bulb to work in dark

Closet; this ideas mite be changed if theres any downside to doin so...
I plan to keep the c02 tank in the closet but i mite just take the clsoet doors off. if will give me 2ft extra to work with and would be good for storage. the c02 tank would fit perfect and maybe the AC unit as well. Im not sure the resovoirs will fit in the closet but ill see wat works out to save room and compact everythng. i will most likely just keep all my nutes and everythng in the closet and tools.

Resovoirs; not sure if i will buy actual insulated barrels or just trashcans for my rez. but i plan to use 2 rez tanks. one for nutes and the other clean RO water for flush and off feed.
-ill use my waterwand and hose with a 1/6 horsepower waterpump to water my plants.
- i will keep a lid on them as well so no algae grows or humidity increase
-do i need an airstone pump in my rez even if im using a waterwand to increase oxygen in my water while feeding?

Water; reverse osmosis system to bring my tap water down to 0ppm and have total control over my nutes. (not sure where the RO system needs to b mounted or kept tho)

Containers; 3 gallon square pots

Medium; soilless mix

Support; ScrOG
- i will build a scrog net with PVC piping for outter design and wire the middle with trellis netting and weave the plants during flower thru the netting. this will support the plants and give maximum canopy exposure.
- the scrog netting will be hung and mounted by the Sunlift adjustable strings i will hang from the ceiling just like lights. this will allow for easier use when done flowering that table.


Hope i didnt miss anything but if i did plz add in suggestions.
The flower room break down is kind of hard to explain since i can only draw well in 2D and theres many layers in the room with shit goin on.
Basically im considering building a drain table and wrap it with pond liner and set the pots inside it. each table will b 4'x7' and house 12 plants. this will be a total of 24 plants. (6 plants under each light)
By building a table it will allow run off water and in case not all the water hits the pots it wont make that big of a mess.
Im thinkin about building the table with a drain setup so its on a slight angle and put a hole on the end with a bucket or drain waste pool for runnoff water. this will be easier then dealing with saucers and shit.
Then the next layer on the tables would be the pots themselves with the plants in them. once vegged to 12"-18" (or desired heighth) i will move the veg plants from the veg room into this flower room and under the scrog netting. the lights in the flower room will always be 12/12. once in flower i will be weaving hte plants thru the trellis for support and open up bud sites. the trellis netting i am not sure how tall it should b above the actually pots (not the plant canopy) so i need sum advice with this... i will be able to raise and lower the scrog netting until plants have been weaved into it. the sunlift cables will b mounted to the cielign just like lights and easy to manage if need be. once weaved thru i plan to trim and prune below the netting and canopy where light will not penetrate or reach. this will increase air flow and lower humidy from wat i understand. the minor stress will be worth it considering the downside of leaving below the canopy a mess (IE; pests humidty disease fungi etc) it will make watering easier as well. During veg i will FIM plants to promote multple top colas and during flower they will reach out wide as i train them to the edges. i plan to put all 6 pots snug next to each other and weave them outwards to the edge of the table. this will allow less crowding and widen out my canopy.

I think thats it for now im rambling again hahga. plus im tired of drawing writing typing and need to smoke and grub. so hope u guys enjoy this gameplan and let me know wat u think. wats good and possible flaws. any fresh ideas and new concepts are welcome of course. i am limited to my minimal experience and wat ive read. so please give me ur imput. rep for good shit

fallinghigh said:

You got me in there like swimwear subscribed..nice Hard Body..nice colas

Click to expand...

You the freakin' man!!!!!!!

I think you're gonna be needing a good size exhaust in each room. I'm already needing one with just a few plants. That story on flooding my house is what's keeping me away from ro. That would suck.
Nice plans boomer...


man I could never get tired of lookin at her, lol....

slabhead said:

I think you're gonna be needing a good size exhaust in each room. I'm already needing one with just a few plants. That story on flooding my house is what's keeping me away from ro. That would suck.
Nice plans boomer...


man I could never get tired of lookin at her, lol....

Click to expand...

One thing I can see is the power requirement isnt there. If you are using 120v outlets then you may need some beefed up breakers for those runs. If you want to be efficient, which I think you should, you will use 240v for the lights on a separate run.

Your table idea for the watering is good because you will have runoff. I think you will need more V plants to run a perpetual grow.

Another thing missing are the dehumidifiers. We live in a desert but its a humid one and with all those plants indoor and you watering them you will have humidity to deal with. While your AC will take some of the RH out of the air you will need more removed.

Is your hood sealed so you can cool it with outdoor air? Where is your filter for your exhaust?

Check out SOGs thread for the ultimate sealed room to see if you forgot anything as Im just going off the top of my head and did it awhile ago.

Remember all these fans and AC make noise so get equipment that is quiet so when you are in the living area you cant hear the noise.

How things hangin around these parts?? Still talkin or you growin yet??

Jk Boomer <3
Hope all is well brotha..

Holy moly; got too much stuff to possibly remember in one post, but here goes my best...........

1) You're gonna need to get to the other side of each of your flowering tables, so the corners won't work - truthfully, not sure that two 4' tables work in a 10' room - I have the same 10' requirement, and I'm planning to do 3x3 tables, just to be able to leave room around them to work.

2) Having a water source in or near your grow is VITALLY important - I understand you're in shape and don't mind lugging water around, but trust me, that's gonna get real old, real quick. Real quick. BTW, you say that you're going to have two reservoirs in your flower room - how are you going to get the water to them? And have you ever used an R/O system? Not asking that to be a smartass, but I personally had no idea how they worked before I got one - basically, you need a reservoir (drain would be better, but I doubt you have a sink in your bedroom) just to catch the "waste" water, and another to catch the "clean" water - the kicker is, there's about 4X as much waste water produced as clean water.

BTW, if buying plastic trash cans, don't be a moron like me and get one with wheels on it (they tip over). Also, I'd recommend buying two and doubling them up.

3) Not related to your blueprints design, but while I remember it - you should really invest in some calibration solution and learn to calibrate your own meter. In a month the meter can be off by .5+, and what happens if you come home one night and your plants are dying on you? The store's not open, so your buddy can't do it, and then you don't know what you're dealing with............it's cheap and simple, and it's really a necessity, IMHO.

4) I'm assuming the house has central AC in addition to the window ACs that you're going to be running? Because if not, those ACs won't make a lick of difference - even if it does have central AC, those ACs are way undersized for what you need. You always wanna go bigger so the AC doesn't have to run as much - I'd say more like 12BTU for the veg and 14-18BTU for the flower, but someone can correct me if my sizing is off (haven't run a window AC in a long time, in full disclosure).

5) You don't "need" exhaust and intake for your veg room, but it will slow your plants down - without fresh air, the CO2 will drop to ~200PPM and just chill there, which means that your plants are only growing about 55% as quickly as they could if they had an atmosphere of ~350PPMs. Not killer, but something to think about - if you get a big enough AC for in there, I'd just run a propane generator in both rooms - I have one (although currently using bottles right now), but generators are the shit for efficiency - would last you months on one tank of propane.

6) I know you have people telling you that dirt/soil less is the way to go, but that's really, really, really bad info, IMHO - for the amount of weed you're planning on growing, that amount of dirt medium is just not very practical, and just like the lugging water, you're going to get very, very tired of it. I'd HIGHLY recommend just starting out with a hydro system (which if memory serves you plan on upgrading to anyways), so as not to waste any money or time buying "dirt accessories" - it's a more efficient and faster way to grow, period.

Just trust me, buy some flood tables and some hydroton/rockwool and call it a fucking day - no mess, no fuss, and it's as easy as growing in dirt. Okay, done preaching about that.

7) Not sure how tall your moms are gonna be, but I'd be shocked if you could fit 12 18" clones and 4 bushy mothers under a 1K - you're going to need to rethink that lighting setup. Firstly, assuming the moms will be fairly taller, they're going to shade the shit outta the clones - I'd really recommend having the moms under one light and the clones under another. 4 moms would be fine a 400, and leave the 12 clones to have the 1000 to themselves.

For your flower room, how are you planning on pulling air from the outside for your 10" fan? You're obviously aware that ducting coming out of a window arouses suspicion, so what's your plan for that? In terms of keeping all four lights cool, I can't comment with any authority on that, other then to say you're not "supposed" to cool more then two lights in succession off of one fan - I'd guess that the third and fourth lights in that sequence won't be getting nearly as cool as the first two, but someone else could either confirm or deny that suspicion.

9) Again with the CO2 tanks - don't mess with them, get a generator. For a room your size, you'll be going through multiple tanks per week - just like water, gets real old, real fast lugging them to and from the welding supply store.

10) In terms of your question regarding where the R/O setup is kept, it's gotta be at your water source, wherever that may be.

11) I know I said I was done preaching, BUT YOU'RE BUILDING TABLES FOR YOUR FLOWERING PLANTS ANYWAY!!!! Just throw a pump and a reservoir under each table, and put your watering wand and pallets of dirt on craigslist.

That's all I've got for now, good luck.