One point 21 gigawatt grow setup. ( back to the future reference)

Hey amigos, I am setting up a new spot, so it’s the perfect time for a grow diary. here is what i have going on;

There are many factors involved setting up a large multi room grow area.

Usually the limiting factor is space. Than, electricity.

Fortunately my space is big, so I will start with the electricity.

Deciding to start with 2 flower rooms, a mom room, and a veg room.

the first room will be 27, 1000watt D.E hps. the second room will be 18-21 1000 watt d.e hps with wing reflector. in veg I will have 15 630watt Cmh or lec.

I have no electrical installations so, after doing many hours of planning I decided on a 150kva 3 phase 220v transformer. using 2/0 wire from the transformer supplies the 400amp main breaker which than feeds 2, 200 amp sup panels. I already have the transformer on the roof, Monday I start the electrical installation. Right now I only have a temp electrical line that has so much load, I am only getting around 70volts inside! things are not working well if you can imagine. I am using about 3000 watts of florescents just to keep all the genetics alive. the dehumidifier stopped working of-course because 70v isnt shit but hopefully everything will be good tomorrow.

I will be using a soil less mix for moms and the first run because they are already in that medium. however the idea here is to do pure hydroponics. will be starting with ebb and grow buckets in one room using hydroton in the beginning. I am checking into a local volcanic rock, to see if it will work. maybe in a few months i will switch to rockwool.

this week I will install the first 5 ton mini spilt.

I already installed a r.o filter which supplies r.o water at about 1lt per min. right now I have a 1100l res for only the r.o water. eventually i will have several of these tanks. 1 for each room, plus the main res.

I will be burning C.O2.

I have some pictures to post, but please understand that this is all temporary and does not reflect the final grow arrangement. also understand that I have almost no electricity, so that means no a.c, no dehumidifier, no pumps working for the hydro, fans barely run. etc etc. sooooo, some of the plants look like shit. :confused: also, you will see fire hazards and cables all over the floor. the pictures were for reference not for social media. as the title states setup. I hopefully will have everything in order in 4 weeks.

be warned, things are messy.

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males don’t remember which ones. maybe shit and afgooey x querkle .these all arrived with spider mites :tired_face:








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Wow. You’ve got my attention! :ok_hand:

Good luck with electrics, take your time it is all about safety of installations.

Ebb&Flow buckets… Do you plan to use DIY buckets (that would be probably a lot of work :wink: ) or ready-made system?

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yea, the electrical is a nightmare. I have really been doing homework.

It really is a interesting process.
you have watts, volts, amps, kva,resistance, BTU, ft3,volume of water, temperature, humidity. all this shit I have to figure out just with the measurements of the rooms. than, figure out how many lights can fit into each room. multiply watts to get BTU so I can figure out how much a.c is needed. but wait, I’m stoned so I forgot to add the ft3 of the room, so I have to do it again. :smile: been lots of hard work, with a lot more to come. good thing I’m up to the challenge.

as per safety, all electrical contacts will be installed above 4 feet. all water installations below 3 ft. all rooms with hydroponics will have gfi breakers connected to ground rods. one main breaker will feed double main breakers on the sub panel. every single breaker will have a load calculation and each of the 3 phases will be balanced.

as for buckets, yes, they are recycled plastic 10 or 11 litre (2.5-3gallon) buckets. they cost around $1.50 usd. 9 sites per light with 2 buckets per site =486 buckets for 27 lights. LOTS OF WORK , but the real hustle is cleaning the hydroton after. thats why i am looking into the lava rock. good thing about the system is that you only have to fuck with it every 8 weeks. the idea is to have twice as much hydrton as needed. that way, I have 8 weeks to clean it :wink:

I just found a suplier of rockwool in china. I want to test it to see the quality and maybe I will start to use it. otherwise it is way to expensive.

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I got my chair… Amazing grow!

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That space though. Whew weeee!!! Following along for sure. What strains going on?

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Wow! 1.21 Gigawatts sounds pretty close.
That many lamps would cost about $40K+/- per month in electricity where I live.

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Bulbs arrived today!!
Got the 400amp main installed and a 225amp sub

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Hi. 4 weeks isn’t very possible. These rooms will produce so much heat I can’t even imagine (should be used somewhere). 600’s are better than 1000’s with energy consumption. RO water is fine but should be mixed with tap water 50:50. Keep mothers in soil. Just my 2 cents. Cheers

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Although 600 watt lamps can have higher lumen per watt output, light penetration would be inferior imho.

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Hey. Sorry, 4 weeks for??

Yes, the first room will have 15tons of a/c to start. 2nd room 12tons.

My city water is so bad there is no way i will use any. It smells like chlorine and dirt. My R.o filter is pumping out water at 12ppms. combined with silica and cal mag, it makes a good base. Don’t forget humic and foliic acid along with amino acids to aid with buffering.

Moms are already divided in a soiless mix and hydroponic buckets with hydroton.

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Couple days ago i foliar fed using my phone light, took a quick pic, put its fuzzy in the dark. Tomorrow i will take some in the light. Homemade cloner. Cookies, and two ahuyasca phenos. Roots were at least a foot long. The stretched and need to be transplanted a couple of days ago.

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Nice looking set up.

Im not sure what your climate is like but when I ran large tanks for the reservoirs and stood them on the floor I had problems with temps. I tried to build a wooden frame but the weight was too much I should have used 4" timber. In the end to solve the problem I stood the reservoir on a sheet of 100mm thick kingspan insulation board and wrapped the sides with 40mm kingspan insulation boards and had 300w fish tank heaters and 80litres/min of air been pumped in to keep the water moving. :wink:

I will be keeping an eye on this thread looks really interesting, best of luck.

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Hey, thanks! Right now i have the 1100litre rez of freah ro water on a plastic pallet. Also, i have 5 water chillers on the way.

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Yes they are great little tools those water chillers, I had to fight each direction, heat the tank in winter and cool it in the summer.

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No sir! I have enough trouble with one variable.:rofl:

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I dont know if your tank is visible from the lights our was at first and not covered we had an algea growth, I had to drain the tank and scrub it with H2O2, so I moved it into a seperate dark room, the cooler the water the more oxygen it holds, its nice if you can set it exactly.

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4 weeks to set it all up. That’s a lot of work, does somebody help you?

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You would be suprised what 1 man can do when he’s on an OVERGROW mission :sunglasses:

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No, tanks will be in the hallway. I usually run h2o2 even when things are good. Yes i believe ( don’t quote me) 65-68f is the min temp for the maximum amount of dissolved Oxygen. 75 F is the max which allows for better root growth but also is easy for pathogens. Once the clillers arrive i want to a gradual temp swings to see what happens. Like ph swing but with water temp

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