Racerx's G13 3000watt recirculating DWC grow

Well things are back in swing finally after a month long hiatus. Its been a fresh break, but all good things must come to an end. We have drastically altered the design and orientation of our larger hydro room and are very excited about the changes. They should make for an even more controlled environment and there is considerably more space to move around.

If you didn't see the previous setup, you can check the link here http://boards.cannabis.com/hydroponi...-grow-log.html. We have gone from 16 buckets down to 12 and have shrunk the size of the canopy. All the lights have been moved in approx 9" to better light the smaller and more dense canopy. There is no longer a central space, this is one rectangle that is about 7 feet by 6 feet. We are utilizing a screen with a frame, however the type of screen is undecided. We are going between 2"x4" and 4"x4". Ideally I would like a 3"x3" but I am having trouble locating such a thing. I like the smaller area, but it does require more work. We still have our reservoirs in the closet and we are still running the 500gph pump as well as the 35 watt single airpump for all our air needs. The airpump sits near the A/C unit in order to draw as cold of air as possible and there is a cardboard deflector that helps direct cold air at it. However...one thing I do notice is that the intake for the pump can have a 5/8" hose put on the end and can draw air from farther away. Obviously will decrease efficiency but I never noticed that.

The next big change is the new window box which is only 4" off the wall and made with much sounder materials and a 2"x4" wood frame. This allowed us to mount our window A/C higher then one normally would so that it wont be blowing directly at the canopy but instead up at the lights and above the canopy. We have gone from a 7,000 BTU A/C to a 10,000 BTU unit that has a working recirculating feature, allowing us to exchange no air with the outside (outside air is used to move the heat thats made from the compression). Quite nifty. We have also built a box for our 50 pint dehumidifier. This box allows us to either vent the hot air produced out of the room or allows us to direct the hot air to the top of the room so that it even disperses instead of concentrating on one area. It will also cut down on the noise.

A 6" CanFan still cools our 4 750watt digital HPS Lumatek lights, and while this is a bit overkill for the area, our 600s are in use elsewhere and hey, the more the merrier. We cut the energy from over 6000 watts to 4200 watts. Going much smaller this time as its just personal stuff (about to go into knee surgery soon so I need as much as I can get; painkillers make me vomit). A 5 foot tall carbon filter with a 10" CanFan Maxx keeps things smelling neutral, but I have yet to need to use it cause of the sealed room. Umm, what else... I guess not much in the equipment area. The room is controlled via an IGS-220 environment controller which handles temp, humidity, and CO2.

The clones are a G13 cross, which I was very excited to get ahold of, although I hate not knowing what it was crossed with (as pure G13 does not exist anymore since it was a clone only plant). My last G13 cross was devastating and the fastest growing plant I have ever seen. Less then 2 weeks of veg and it ended up 3.5 feet tall and yielding ounces and ounces, and it even traveled 50 miles in the back of a SUV halfway through flowering! They came slightly lanky, but very established. We will probably aggressively top them once they are fully adjusted to the buckets which are at about 550ppm-600ppm with Hygrozyme and a very light 1:1:1 ratio of GMB. Our other hydro room has 4 NYC Diesel clones that came to me huge! They were done in small flood and drain tables with hundreds in the Rockwool squares still connected to eachother. They were much bigger then I would like, but so it goes.

here we have the first 2 pictures illustrating the 10,000 BTU A/C and the dehumidifier box and the experimental 8" netpot. We decided that we wanted to experiment with the difference between a 5.5" netpot and an 8" netpot, to see if the increased room for root mass and root ball has any benefit. I dont believe it will with our setup because of the already aeroponic environment.

The other 3 pictures are another closet featuring to 600 watt digital HPS and 4 NYC Diesel clones.

To finish it up, a pic of the clones, a pic of the massive bubbles (the #1 thing to make your plants magnificent), and last grows finished product.

Happy gardening. comments, critique, advice, always welcome

Question: what kind of airstone do you use? or is it that porous tubing?

man this grow looks awesome. I wish I had the space/money/time to make something like this. I can't wait to see where it goes.

Have you considered hanging your lights vertically between the plants KBS style to get more bud from the side branches?

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Originally Posted by Cornelius

Question: what kind of airstone do you use? or is it that porous tubing?

man this grow looks awesome. I wish I had the space/money/time to make something like this. I can't wait to see where it goes.

Have you considered hanging your lights vertically between the plants KBS style to get more bud from the side branches?

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I use a typical 6" airstone. I use them because they keep the sound down. However they dont provide any grow advantage as an open ended line. I have considered hanging lights vertically and its in the cards for the future but I would prefer a larger place to work in. This grow is a screen of green so the growth will be very regulated, just big nugs. Our A/C works well but we cant be running it all the time and vertical lighting would require more work by the A/C because the ambient temps would be atleast 8 degrees higher then they are with aircooling.

We do a pretty massive under growth trimming when going into flowering and 2 weeks into flowering. This keeps nice airflow and focuses growth to the top nugs. This is all personal stuff, I dont sell, and everyone knows the best stuff is the big main colas. I am shooting for around 1/2 gram per watt of really really good stuff, but if this G13 is anything like the last strain I grew, i should be able to beat that.. Our last grow in this room went well, but some specific mistakes were made and affected the outcome to some degree. Those have all been addressed and there should be very little hiccups this time around. The extra space will save much frustration and hopefully less likelihood of contamination.

PS. If I didnt mention it before, I use a 35 watt pump for the buckets and a 12 watt for the 2 reservoirs. This keeps things really bubblin. In my small 4 bucket closet, we use a single 35 watt pump to power the res and all 4 buckets and they really rage it.

nice. as for vertical lights i meant to say put them in cool tubes but alas.


Screen of green eh? that has the potential to be a lot of work. How do you plan to do that? individual screens for each bucket? just curious.

i've never grown on this scale but i really think vertical lights could yield as much or more than scrog. From what i read about g-13 it looks like a good candidate for kbs.

but hey man it's your grow so have a blast.

Too sweet R/X ,
You got no idea how long Weedhound and I have been waiting for someone to do a crazy monster W/F -DWC scrog . I thought Just -a- Seed talked for a few about a 1000w. hps cooltube scrog but you've got it topped maybe .
I had visions of a frame like your talking and maybe a big ass piece of chainlink fence ?
We'll be watchin
Peace
Crispi :jointsmile:

yeah when I say screen of green, I dont mean like a perpetual garden sea of green. I just mean that there is one very large 7.5x6.5 foot screen over the 12 buckets. They will all be harvested at the same time. It looks like a sea of green, like a bunch of small plants but in reality its 12 plants spread way out. Get me? You will see soon enough.

xcrispi, Ive been waiting to do this for awhile and I am excited to have an easy way to control growth. LST is fun but only for a few plants, then it gets to be way too much trouble. Soon as I see roots coming out the netpots I will rest easy. Until then, I am always uneasy. The G13 are doing great, but my NYCD came to me really big and lanky and they are not fairing as well.

I have thought about the cool tubes Cornelius but I figure if I am going to do vertical lighting, I want to do it without any air cooling. Thats the best way to do it in my opinion.

Thanks for the kind words guys. I just got a new digital camera today so things should be coming in with much better focus.

Ive had great experiences with these air diffusers. Generation II Sweetwater Diffusers, 2
I pump a sonic pro 2.9 psi air pump through one of the sweetwater 9 inch airstones in a 10 gallon rez. Under a 1000 hortilux, a big bushy girl fed with good nutes,67 degree root zone, and that many bubbles, 2 inch massive colas are the result. Make sure to get the elbow MNPT fittings and Heavy set weighted air tubing doesnt hurt either. Peace

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Originally Posted by BlazeIdo

Ive had great experiences with these air diffusers. Generation II Sweetwater Diffusers, 2
I pump a sonic pro 2.9 psi air pump through one of the sweetwater 9 inch airstones in a 10 gallon rez. Under a 1000 hortilux, a big bushy girl fed with good nutes,67 degree root zone, and that many bubbles, 2 inch massive colas are the result. Make sure to get the elbow MNPT fittings and Heavy set weighted air tubing doesnt hurt either. Peace

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I will bet any amount of money that an open air line will give the exact same results. Airstones are 99 cents. I can replace em anytime I want. They dont require cleaning, just replacement. Thats why I dont spend any money on diffusers or anything like that. I currently have been using the same airstones for a couple grows. Havent cleaned em. Still bubbling like mad. Frothy water. I am going for 4" massive colas.

I think these airstones work great and thats all I said. Im tired of people looking for a way to put down peoples shit instead of going, oh that might work pretty well. An open air line wouldnt create as much surface agitaiton. Give me a break dude. Im not tryin to OUT DO you. chill. I wont have to replace my airstone for years to come. Thats something I think is worth it. Try em out people. Peace

and 0 percent clogging as well. which is pretty damn important in my book. I dont want my girls loosing oxygen ever!!

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Originally Posted by BlazeIdo

I think these airstones work great and thats all I said. Im tired of people looking for a way to put down peoples shit instead of going, oh that might work pretty well. An open air line wouldnt create as much surface agitaiton. Give me a break dude. Im not tryin to OUT DO you. chill. I wont have to replace my airstone for years to come. Thats something I think is worth it. Try em out people. Peace

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You are the one who needs to chill Blaze. I was not attacking you at all so relax. I am pointing out that an open airline, is the best way to go if you dont mind the noise. There is absolutely no possibility of clogging and there is no possibility of not receiving the 100% efficiency of the pump. There is no more significant dissolved oxygen available in small bubbles as there are in large bubbles. And surface agitation? No offense but youve got to be kidding me. What could agitate the surface more; a large bubble or a small bubble? There is no less or more spray with small bubbles as there are with large bubbles. There is no need for anything on the end of your line. If you must have something and you prefer to not just replace it with a 99 cent piece every 3 months, then your idea sounds great. Aside from that, people need to get off the notion that small bubbles are some how better.

If you want the proof yourself, please do a side by side grow and then, once again if you dont mind the extra noise, you wont use anything but an open airline. I could show you endless pictures, growth rates, etc and you wouldn't know which one had an airstone or bubbling thing and which one had an open airline. If anything...the open airline will have MORE oxygen available because its not being restricted by small openings. Im not saying your method doesnt work dude, of course it works, Ive grown trees with airstones. Ive also grown the same trees with the same yield with open airlines, so that is what i am argueing. Everyone is caught up with small bubbles and airstones and its just extra money you dont need to be spending.

EDIT: I will also add that airstones are like nutrients ok? I only use Grow Micro and Bloom, 3 part, no additives anymore. I yield the same and sometimes more then my friends who grow the same strain and use more additives. Of course this may be for other reasons as well, but it is physical proof I can see that even though I dont use additives, I can get a better yield or atleast the same as people who do. This is the same notion as an airstone, where it is just one more thing you dont need to deal with and spend money on...and you will get the same results. You may not get better results, but if you get the same, then your saving money and time and annoyance. Now nutrients are a little different because i believe some additives might actually be able to help you...but i ONLY believe that they will help to any degree when you have every single other aspect of your grow completely dialed.


Got our first roots yesterday, I am happy. This is when the plants began to take advantage of the aeroponic environment, and it will only be a matter of a couple days before the roots reach down into the nutrient solution, and then boom, we get 2"+ growth a day.

Apologies RacerX, i was a bit tired and irritated when I wrote that. I am about to switch back to the straight 3 part. oh the simplicity!! Peace

looking good racerx! how is that hydro system treating you? im thinking about starting a hydro setup but am not shure what system to use. i was thinking about trying out one of those aquamist systems. what do you think would be a good system?

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Originally Posted by santacruz_organic

looking good racerx! how is that hydro system treating you? im thinking about starting a hydro setup but am not shure what system to use. i was thinking about trying out one of those aquamist systems. what do you think would be a good system?

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Is the Aquamist mainly just an aeroponic system? Thats what it looks like to me. I think they can work very...very well. However for a larger area I dont think it is worth the trouble. I would either do a table (so simple) with flood/drain or do a recirculating system like I have. After that, then maybe step into aeroponics but try something a little simpler at first. Youve got a nice place to do your stuff and I bet you dont have heat problems. You could do a 4x8 foot tray or 2 4x4 trays on the same reservoir under your 2 1000s and grow like 200 plants and yield close to a half ounce off each one. Howd you like that? If your gonna do hydro, just make sure you assemble it yourself. It always saves money and lets you improve on the design to better fit your specific needs. Let me know if you need help.

And we are loving the recirc DWC. With the water cooler, the growth is still the fastest I have ever seen. You get the aeroponic-like environment from the massive bubbles, but you also get the benefit of a lot more water (holds pH and temp more stable and less likliehodd of pathogens) and a solid nutrient solution like an ebb and flow. There is abundence of all the major things needed for plant growth, so the plant always has as much as it can take.

How do you handle the electricity with 4200 watts of light? Is it diverted?

heya RacerX, glad to see you starting back up again. I was glued to your last thread and will be to this one as well.

What is the make & model of the air conditioner you are using? I did a search last week for recirculating air conditioners and came up with a goose egg.

Im also interested in which air conditioners are recirculating. I'm looking at the surpentown 9000 btu portable air conditioner which has a great energy efficiency rating and requires no permanent installation. I'm not sure if it would exhause Co2 or odor. Anyone with vast ac knowledge know how portable ac's exhaust hot air, or even regular ac's. Do they draw air from the room? I dont want to be blowing all my Co2 and delightful aromas outside!!

Most A/C just recirculate the air. Some larger ones draw in fresh air but do not exhaust it. Only the heat goes out. Portables have to cool the heat they give off also, maybe more work and power consumption. You still need to intake and exhaust fresh air and bring in C02

Quote:

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Originally Posted by BlazeIdo

I think these airstones work great and thats all I said. Im tired of people looking for a way to put down peoples shit instead of going, oh that might work pretty well. An open air line wouldnt create as much surface agitaiton. Give me a break dude. Im not tryin to OUT DO you. chill. I wont have to replace my airstone for years to come. Thats something I think is worth it. Try em out people. Peace

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he just replied to your post...I am not picking on you, but perhaps you should slow down a bit and read before posting. There was no cut-down here...peace

I see you varied your formula...What are you using RacerX?

BTW. I did finish a couple plants with 3x's the bloom part, similar to your old recipe, because I ran out of any type of Booster. Worked great. Buds got Super Frosty by tripling the Bloom part factor. Peace

What week in Flower did you flip to the 3X bloom?

Hey guys! I am back after a month long hiatus and things are in full swing. In fact a little to much in full swing. Its nearly impossible for one busy person to take care of 2 large DWC gardens so with my absence, things got out of control and I have a jungle again. However its in somewhat control right now and shouldn't get any bigger then it is at this point. I never see that much growth past the 2nd week of flowering, not atleast significant. I see there are some questions to answer, I will get to those in a second, first a small update.

Both the room and the closet are in bloom, they are into their 2nd week with obvious flowers showing in the G13. We are still fairly close to a 1/1/1 ratio right now. This strain seems especially affected by the powerful 750 digital lights and the slightly less then perfect light spectrum. When I turn up the P and K, they start to bleach a lot easier. But first few weeks of veg they like nitrogen anyways. So were using a good bit of Grow and Micro but now about the same amount of bloom as well. PPMs are at about 1000-1100. I almost dont want to give them more then that because the 3 large plants just go crazy on it and grow 2-3". Well max out around 1400-1500 since this G13 like my last G13 grow likes a lot of nutes, havent seen a spec of burn.

CO2 stays at about 1050 right now. Next week well go to 1150. The week after 1300 or 1400, and well max out about 1600ppm. We will stop a week or 2 before cutting. This is supposed to be an 8-9 week strain so we will see. The pictures you see here are all from the last few days. They are all the G13.

Now questions. Lets see.

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Originally Posted by doco

heya RacerX, glad to see you starting back up again. I was glued to your last thread and will be to this one as well.

What is the make & model of the air conditioner you are using? I did a search last week for recirculating air conditioners and came up with a goose egg.

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It is I believe an HBQ1000. Its a Hampton Bay, 10,000 BTU, window mount. I learned valuable lesson with portable A/C's last grow and essentially wasted $500 by getting one that has only one exhaust hose and intakes from the room. If you get a portable, you must get one that has 2 hoses out the back, not one. Otherwise you will just be exhausting your air/co2 right out the place; with 2 hoses you are drawing air from outside and exhausting it outside, not creating negative pressure so to speak. There are ways to get around it but its annoying. "Most" window mount A/Cs have a recirculating feature that "mostly" closes off the exchange of outside and inside air. Some do it better then others. This is when a carbon scrubber are nice so you dont really have any smell exiting the spot. Our model (which is like 5 years old, i got it for $10) seals well enough so that smell isnt a problem, but we have a large filter in case. If you can find a way to use it, a window A/C will be drastically cheaper and cool much more effectively.

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Originally Posted by latewood

I see you varied your formula...What are you using RacerX?

BTW. I did finish a couple plants with 3x's the bloom part, similar to your old recipe, because I ran out of any type of Booster. Worked great. Buds got Super Frosty by tripling the Bloom part factor. Peace

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Hey Latewood, hope everything is rocking nicely. I didnt change my formula a huge amount. Mainly I am keeping a more 1/1/1 ratio for a little bit longer then I normally due, like 2.5 weeks into flower. Some of my plants stretched with this, some didnt. Then I am kicking into a 1/1/2 for 2-3 weeks, then eventually well hit the 1/2/3 and possibly 0/1/2. Flush for a few days. But I just plan on being less aggressive and a more consistent and smooth upward slope change. I might toss in some Big Bud if my ppms are a little low. Not a huge change but some tweaks.

The really big problem is that I havent found a strain I have just been crazy in love with that I can grow over and over so I tweak my recipes but it is sometimes with a completely different strain which could react totally different from another strain.

And here are some more pictures. First 3 are more G13. The last 2 are some bubble we made. Its hard to get bubble pictures with a crappy camera. But its wonderful, a combination of White Widow, Trainwreck, and a few other random plants. The 160, 120, 73, and 45 melted like nothing else. Never had a 160 bad melt on me.

I forgot to add that we are also completely pest and disease. Fingers crossed we can keep this up.

first time i saw this thread,amazing grow dude well done:thumbsup:

Nice grow!!!! I wish I had the space to do a grow like yours. I am really interested in seeing how much you yield off your grow all be watching this one.:thumbsup:

Hey Racer. Nice Grow!!! I am currently using about the same space as you. But have been growing in soil but am seriously considering going hydro. I like your set-up a lot. I have been trying to figure out what kind of hydro set up to use and your thread has helped me determine which way to go... Thanks!!! Still leaning tward aero though. I'm just waiting for my 13 girls that I have in flower now to finish up before I make any major changes to my rooms... Keep Up the Good Work. Any other suggestions you may have for me in getting going with hydro would be GREATLY appreciated... Check out my thread
http://boards.cannabis.com/hydroponi...-go-hydro.html
Soil grower here wanting to go Hydro... I look forward to your input. I'll be posting more about my current set-up soon...
PEACE:hippy:

The system once it is established is incredibly simple and easy, although it does require attention. I have to fill my gravity reservoir atleast twice a week which is 50 gallons. The system goes through between 100 and 150 gallons a week of water. However, aside from nutrient and water top offs and phing once every week or so, it runs by itself. The growth is explosive and massive and often hard to control. Do not leave for 4 weeks while vegging!!!

I expect to yield around 6 pounds from this setup. We got around 4 last time and harvested early and had some problems.

6 weeks in. less then 2 weeks left. Going swell, except a couple weeks of neglect have left us with some light, nutrient, and pH burning. Doh! Still looking great and the buds are incredibly dense. I am positive we are at the 4 pound mark right now, so anything beyond this will be good.

The NYCD is the real treat. She is doing just spectacular, couldn't be happier.

Here are a few of the NYCD

sweet. what are canopy temps? just wondering because usually ill raise my lights at that point. maybe something else

Hey there RacerX,

What is the smell like of your plants right now? Is it controlable?

i would love to lay in a bed of mary jane plants... okay well maybe next to them :thumbsup: nice grow keep it up.. keep us posted i cant wait to see the harvest..

OOOOOOOOOOOOOO mmyy GOD. thats fucken nice dude.:D

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Originally Posted by hows.your.roof

sweet. what are canopy temps? just wondering because usually ill raise my lights at that point. maybe something else

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Canopy temps are about 2 degrees higher then what the environment controller records. Right now they are staying about 83-84F. The burning on the plants is not really a temp problem but more a light problem. These 750 watt digital HPS lamps are more powerful then a conventional 1000 watt system and the hoods we are using just seem to really burn the plants. There are specific areas under each hood that burn the most and you can tell they are hot spots created by overlapping light from the hoods. This is the very reason why we are finally moving over to vertical lighting on the next grow. It is not the bulbs or the light from the bulbs burning the plants...it is the light reflecting off the reflectors that is burning stuff.

The lights are raised as high as they will go with 8 foot ceilings. A few of the plants are over 5 feet tall. I am pretty sure these big plants will yield more then a half pound each.

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Originally Posted by Chabnoc

Hey there RacerX,

What is the smell like of your plants right now? Is it controlable?

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The smell is very controllable. We never really have a problem with smell since the room is sealed. The CO2 also seems to rob a little bit of the smell too which helps. We do however have a 5 foot tall Pristine Carbon Filter with an 1100cfm 10" fan on top in case things get a little too stinky. But it actually has NEVER been a problem for us. The last couple weeks get a little smelly but the way our house is setup, any smell is undistinguishable outside.

Before when we didnt use a sealed room, the smell was much easier to detect. The Carbon Filter is used as a scrubber, so it just scrubs the air inside the room.

Thanks for the kind words guys. I am mainly excited about the Diesel. I have a few clones saved as well. We plan on doing a big hydro room with the NYCD next, I can already tell the smoke will be to die for.

cut everything down today. Little under 8 weeks. Some turned out really nice, especially from the extra large plants. The rest turned out mediocre, with some bottom stuff getting seeded. Very crystally though.

Looks real good Razz ,
Curious about yield when you got it all dried . Root systems are crazy man , mine are like that-n- we had to add drain fittings for flood tables cause stuff quit recirculating .
Peace
Crispi :jointsmile:

Stunning colas, but it's the root shots that make me drool.

Have you considered a light mover of some sort to control the 'hot spots' you are seeing? That seems to be a simple and efficient solution.

Well, congratulations on a beautiful grow ~ SA

Sorry Racer ,
Mesmirsed by the bud pics. n called u Razzpiggy . My bad .
It's all this vaporisesr in fronta mes fault man !!
Crispi :jointsmile: