Ttystikk's vertical goodness
- Thread starter tystikk
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tystikk
Member
Yuponly need to cool one light at a time (or half of any given setup, in my case= 1 light) AND you get 24hr plant gazing time! I really like being able to spend time with flowering ladies more than just 12 hrs a day
edit: just realized I've mentioned this twice here,,, cant remember where I post!
You had me laughing out loud, because I'm gonna confess, I space out and do this same thing all the Damn time! Oh well, at least I'm consistent, lol!
So I do the same thing, stagger my bloom rooms on a defacto flip schedule. This never overloads my breaker box, and not only am I able to spread out my cooling, but because I run water chilling, the same chiller cools everything- and only has to keep up with half the op at any given time. I just saved myself half off both purchasing cooling capacity and operating costs by never needing to cool more than half my op!
Here's where it bit me in the ass during our current cold snap, so it's good for a laugh; I just took my last horizontal trellis room down to turn it into a vertical room. This process takes a few days, all in the meantime, I have no room running overnight. In February. In Colorado. Today's high temperature was 3. With a number like that, quibbling about plus or minus seems pointless...
I'm running my chiller in my office, which is also the air intake for the house and the op. The chiller runs and warms up the incoming air, which then travels through the house and the op and keeps everything comfortably warm. Unless of course, there is no room to keep cool, in which case the chiller just sits there. Chilling. And so does the rest of the house. And my 'nads!
So the workaround is every few hours overnight I go and reduce the temperature setting by a degree or two, and then it spends the next hour pulling that heat into the house. It turns out that each full RDWC is basically a thermal reservoir, loaded with up to 100 gallons of solution. That takes some effort to heat or cool, and thus acts well as a buffer for when I need a little extra heat upstairs overnight.
In other words, I'm using my op as a source of recycled home heating, complete with a built in thermal storage system. That's about a trip, isn't it? This heat- or lack of it- is plenty useful in building up enough excess capacity that my chiller can effectively operate beyond its full capacity for at least part of the next day. So I'm heating my house and at the same time putting 'coolth' in the bank -my RDWC systems and the cooling system reservoir- for use in boosting efficiency tomorrow.
This is no idle pot head theoretical exercise with no real world gain either; because I'm managing- arbitraging, even- my temperatures like this, I save the cost of using natural gas to run a furnace to heat my home. That's money in my pocket, just for using water to cool my op!
MedScientist
Well-Known Member
Thats AWESOME!
During the Cold Winter months I exhaust my 2K HPS carbon scrubbed sytem into the basement, then run it out the window in the warmer months to pull cooler air in.
This helps to keep the LED area up to Proper Temps for Quick growth. Its ALWAYS Good to Save $$$!
Peace
During the Cold Winter months I exhaust my 2K HPS carbon scrubbed sytem into the basement, then run it out the window in the warmer months to pull cooler air in.
This helps to keep the LED area up to Proper Temps for Quick growth. Its ALWAYS Good to Save $$$!
Peace
tystikk
Member
Hey, glad you liked that- the simple truth is that once you have a system for actually moving heat around your home as opposed to merely dumping it, a whole world of energy use reduction strategies become possible.
An outdoor circuit running RV Antifreeze (50/50 water and propylene glycol, non-toxic) could do things like service a 'compressorless chiller', basically a big air handler that sits outside and sheds heat when the temperature drops. I'd be interested, except I got better things to do with MY heat right now, lol! Other places to send 'waste heat' include a greenhouse in winter, fish ponds for aquaponics, geothermal lines in your driveway that keep it ice free all winter, etc, etc. With actual hot water from a water cooled process chiller, you can heat your house (cold water circuit at 60f isn't the ideal choice for this), hot water, your hot tub, and other applications where 110-120f water might be useful(!)... PLUS all the above.
After all, it's your heat; you've already paid to generate this heat AND paid again to move it out of your growroom, you might as well put it someplace useful!
tystikk
Member
So the final results of my very first ever vertical run were all in all very encouraging- the things that limited my yield were all pretty self evident; improper initial pruning, small initial size, excess density resulting in overcrowding.
I've made corrections and the results are, well, encouraging. One particularly successful plant may yield what the entire first run did in toto... and then there's the rest of the room.
I've made corrections and the results are, well, encouraging. One particularly successful plant may yield what the entire first run did in toto... and then there's the rest of the room.
Bubba Nub
Member
your grow looks really good. It took me two years of experimenting and the another year of tweeking to dial my vert system in. It's a pain staking process, but it pays off in the end. My last run hit 2.1lb per 1k watts, I'm shooting for 2.4 this run. It's painful how much you have to chop away to keep the canopy from getting out of control. Some days it just breaks my heart...
tystikk
Member
I would be very interested to see more of your process.
I'm not doing a lot of chopping and thinning when I run my vertical system- in fact, reduced trimming and training is one of the reasons I like it! I let my veg girls grow straight up like they were outdoors, I even crowd them slightly to keep them going UP and not get too bushy early on.
Once they hit the silo, I vine clip them into place with plenty of room between lateral branches, again with very little training or green material removal.
Three weeks later, I remove large fan leaves to allow the buds to get maximum light and nutrients.
From at least one of my silos, I'm expecting 2+ grams/watt from my 1kW bulb. I'm expecting them all to be close. This is my second vertical run, so there is much dialing yet to do.
tystikk
Member
I did peep your thread, and I subscribed to it. I'm excited to see how it works! I really want to see your moving light tree, too.
tystikk
Member
I use hydroponic methods, because they are much less effort than dealing with bags of dirt. Move a bag of dirt, or a waterpump? I'll move the pump every time!
I use dry nutrient salts, such as Jacks Professional Hydroponic mix and calcium nitrate. These give consistent results and are extremely affordable compared to hydro store water based nutes.
I grow trees, because few bigger plants take less effort than more smaller ones on a per yield basis. There's that whole legal thing right now, too, which this approach helps in the peace of mind dept.
I do not top. I don't do much pruning; only if a branch simply refuses to go on the trellis, or if it's growing off the edge/top of it.
I defoliate once, about 3 weeks into bloom.
I do nutrient water changeouts upon initial entry into bloom, at three, five and seven weeks, for flush.
I use automation; timers, pumps, sensors and environmental controllers. Those who don't limit only themselves.
Control is nothing without monitoring, charting and effective feedback. To this end, I'm buying a Growtronix system to control my entire op from a webcam at the front door to humidor control. This system comes complete with monitoring and graphing software to help the gardener gain full control of their environment.
I use these tools not because I am lazy, but because I want to extend how much product one manhour can be responsible for creating as far as possible. Doing this improves efficiency and reduces cost.
Folks will note that these are two of my foundational values when it comes to indoor cultivation of anything and they always have been. Just because we currently can afford to be wasteful as Fuck ALL due to the artificially high price of our wares, does not mean that A. It makes any moral, ethical or business sense to do so, B. That it confers any competitive advantage, or C. That doing things more efficiently will in any way hinder competitiveness. Indeed, I'm betting my career on the fact that prices will come down, and the wasteful will either reform or go bankrupt.
I have a lot of tips, tricks, techniques, strategies and equipment options for those who are serious about reducing their hours worked per pound produced. That's why I'm a consultant, lol
I use dry nutrient salts, such as Jacks Professional Hydroponic mix and calcium nitrate. These give consistent results and are extremely affordable compared to hydro store water based nutes.
I grow trees, because few bigger plants take less effort than more smaller ones on a per yield basis. There's that whole legal thing right now, too, which this approach helps in the peace of mind dept.
I do not top. I don't do much pruning; only if a branch simply refuses to go on the trellis, or if it's growing off the edge/top of it.
I defoliate once, about 3 weeks into bloom.
I do nutrient water changeouts upon initial entry into bloom, at three, five and seven weeks, for flush.
I use automation; timers, pumps, sensors and environmental controllers. Those who don't limit only themselves.
Control is nothing without monitoring, charting and effective feedback. To this end, I'm buying a Growtronix system to control my entire op from a webcam at the front door to humidor control. This system comes complete with monitoring and graphing software to help the gardener gain full control of their environment.
I use these tools not because I am lazy, but because I want to extend how much product one manhour can be responsible for creating as far as possible. Doing this improves efficiency and reduces cost.
Folks will note that these are two of my foundational values when it comes to indoor cultivation of anything and they always have been. Just because we currently can afford to be wasteful as Fuck ALL due to the artificially high price of our wares, does not mean that A. It makes any moral, ethical or business sense to do so, B. That it confers any competitive advantage, or C. That doing things more efficiently will in any way hinder competitiveness. Indeed, I'm betting my career on the fact that prices will come down, and the wasteful will either reform or go bankrupt.
I have a lot of tips, tricks, techniques, strategies and equipment options for those who are serious about reducing their hours worked per pound produced. That's why I'm a consultant, lol
tystikk
Member
Ho hum, just another morning in Paradise... Colorado.
Every lady in the place is fairly bursting out of her netpot with life and vigor, the first day after a res change is always fun!
Since this happens so regularly, I'm wondering how one calculates the freshness of their nutrient solution. What does the process of nutrient depletion look like chemically, and how can I calculate when my setup needs it, based on size of plants, volume of reservoir, type of system, etc. There has to be something out there.
I basically guessed at the nutrient volume I'd need for my trees; I wanted to grow a plant that yields up to four #, so my thinking was that a 27 gallon tub should be able to support that.
I've read (somewhere online, I do not remember where now) in the past about how once the grower has added double the volume of the original nutrient solution back in fresh water top ups, the solution should be considered depleted and replaced. Is that reasonable? How about for our particular crops and conditions? Since I recycle my distilled water from dehuey in the sealed room (in my case, Iceboxes), how do I know when this or any similar threshold has happened?
I know some just replace their res weekly and call it done. With dry salts, it would not cost me much extra to follow suit, will I get anything for the effort?
CAN ANY OF THIS BE QUANTIFIED, SO I CAN BUILD AND PLAN INTELLIGENTLY INSTEAD OF BY GUESSWORK?
Every lady in the place is fairly bursting out of her netpot with life and vigor, the first day after a res change is always fun!
Since this happens so regularly, I'm wondering how one calculates the freshness of their nutrient solution. What does the process of nutrient depletion look like chemically, and how can I calculate when my setup needs it, based on size of plants, volume of reservoir, type of system, etc. There has to be something out there.
I basically guessed at the nutrient volume I'd need for my trees; I wanted to grow a plant that yields up to four #, so my thinking was that a 27 gallon tub should be able to support that.
I've read (somewhere online, I do not remember where now) in the past about how once the grower has added double the volume of the original nutrient solution back in fresh water top ups, the solution should be considered depleted and replaced. Is that reasonable? How about for our particular crops and conditions? Since I recycle my distilled water from dehuey in the sealed room (in my case, Iceboxes), how do I know when this or any similar threshold has happened?
I know some just replace their res weekly and call it done. With dry salts, it would not cost me much extra to follow suit, will I get anything for the effort?
CAN ANY OF THIS BE QUANTIFIED, SO I CAN BUILD AND PLAN INTELLIGENTLY INSTEAD OF BY GUESSWORK?
tystikk
Member
So, update time. Yeah, I'm soooo bummed the Magic Merlin crashed and burned, but it's going to make for some happy hash makers! Meanwhile, the rest of the room looks great- all five are ripening and thickening, some are looking more like monster chunks against an open mesh, others more like a lumpy, curving green flying carpet o' buds, lol- yeah, that would be the Blue Dream!
So while the Magic Merlin was in trouble, she threw stress nanners- and they seeded. So, the room could be seed weed, which would piss me off, indeed! Oh well, move forward. The ultimate cause of this was poor design of the RDWC hoses in this room. Since this was my first multi group tubsite setup, I thought I could get away with one hose back to the control bucket from each pair of tubs. This turned out badly, so the rule is always two or more, to thwart clogs.
In this case, the clog backed up the water in the tub, it overfilled and drowned the stem, causing the stem to rot. It wasn't bad luck, and tracing all the way back to root causes teaches lessons that lead to continual improvement.
On to happier subjects! With some help and more wrestling, I completed my first four trellis Super Silo; this one stands six feet above the tubsites, about five feet in diameter, has four tubsites and presents 100 ft² to two thouies, one hung from the ceiling and the other standing on a tripod in the middle. So, this one is two feet taller and one foot wider than the two plant, 50 ft² silo. In other words, double the interior growing space, complete with double the watts to light it- but not double the footprint. INTERESTING!
I bought a big fan to blow upwards through the center, to bring cool air from floor level and blow it upwards to both move heat from the bulbs out of the canopy, and provide a breeze on the plants. If this isn't sufficient, I'll add an 8" duct inlet collar on a 90 degree angle- and SUCK the heat from directly above the bulbs and stuff it right through the Icebox exchanger! This would be in addition to the first fan blowing from beneath.
I'm skipping the light mover for the moment because I want the thing up and running. If I can retrofit during the run I will- or just wait. With two bulbs, the light distribution pattern is going to be much better than with just one in any case. I'm lining the ceiling with Mylar, and beneath, covering the area around the sides of the fan and tripod beneath, I'm using more rigid reflective insulation board.
So, top and bottom will be covered in reflective materials and of course all the walls are directly in range, and 30" from a bare bulb. I'm thinkin' it's gotta be a nice place for some girls to hang out and do some personal growth... Might be nice for plants, too. LOL
I have a trophy crew in the veg tent bursting out of every seam- and growing directly into the MH thouie in the adjust-a-wing! High time to get them into their places! Tomorrow, the leak test will be finished- already went around it twice tonight, sometimes a drip is just slooow, lol
So while the Magic Merlin was in trouble, she threw stress nanners- and they seeded. So, the room could be seed weed, which would piss me off, indeed! Oh well, move forward. The ultimate cause of this was poor design of the RDWC hoses in this room. Since this was my first multi group tubsite setup, I thought I could get away with one hose back to the control bucket from each pair of tubs. This turned out badly, so the rule is always two or more, to thwart clogs.
In this case, the clog backed up the water in the tub, it overfilled and drowned the stem, causing the stem to rot. It wasn't bad luck, and tracing all the way back to root causes teaches lessons that lead to continual improvement.
On to happier subjects! With some help and more wrestling, I completed my first four trellis Super Silo; this one stands six feet above the tubsites, about five feet in diameter, has four tubsites and presents 100 ft² to two thouies, one hung from the ceiling and the other standing on a tripod in the middle. So, this one is two feet taller and one foot wider than the two plant, 50 ft² silo. In other words, double the interior growing space, complete with double the watts to light it- but not double the footprint. INTERESTING!
I bought a big fan to blow upwards through the center, to bring cool air from floor level and blow it upwards to both move heat from the bulbs out of the canopy, and provide a breeze on the plants. If this isn't sufficient, I'll add an 8" duct inlet collar on a 90 degree angle- and SUCK the heat from directly above the bulbs and stuff it right through the Icebox exchanger! This would be in addition to the first fan blowing from beneath.
I'm skipping the light mover for the moment because I want the thing up and running. If I can retrofit during the run I will- or just wait. With two bulbs, the light distribution pattern is going to be much better than with just one in any case. I'm lining the ceiling with Mylar, and beneath, covering the area around the sides of the fan and tripod beneath, I'm using more rigid reflective insulation board.
So, top and bottom will be covered in reflective materials and of course all the walls are directly in range, and 30" from a bare bulb. I'm thinkin' it's gotta be a nice place for some girls to hang out and do some personal growth... Might be nice for plants, too. LOL
I have a trophy crew in the veg tent bursting out of every seam- and growing directly into the MH thouie in the adjust-a-wing! High time to get them into their places! Tomorrow, the leak test will be finished- already went around it twice tonight, sometimes a drip is just slooow, lol
tystikk
Member
Whats up Tystikk!
Great meeting you as well and I look forward to seeing how this vertical grow turns out
Hey buddy! Great to see ya!
tystikk
Member
Too early to tell yet, so far so good.