Setup recommendations

[Greensleeves420]

My flowering room is going to be 8 x 11 and have 4 Gavita DE 1000w lights haning from a 12 foot ceiling.

I would like to grow 4 big plants per light.
And I would appreciate any ideas to maximize production within those parameters. I am open to any grow medium.

 

[TysonOG]

First off, there's no "right answer". Some people really prefer hydro, some super soil, different strokes for different folks. I've switched to hydro and when dialed in, the speed is incredible but it requires it's own set of parameters.
Is the flowering room a tent, where you have access to the sides or an actual walled room? In order to maximize production, you would want 64-100sqft of canopy. (4x4 - 5x5 per light). It order to accomplish this, you wouldnt have enough space to walk around the perimeter for maintenance/scrog etc. In that type or space, I would do two 4x8 areas with a walkway in the middle. Here's a quick drawing, X's are plants, O's are lights.

 

[SQl2kGuy]

My flowering room is going to be 8 x 11 and have 4 Gavita DE 1000w lights haning from a 12 foot ceiling.

I would like to grow 4 big plants per light.
And I would appreciate any ideas to maximize production within those parameters. I am open to any grow medium.

Fewer lights and a light rail might be an option.

A combination of LED and MH lights.

18-6 lighting or 3 cycles of 6-2 to take advantage of the dark cycle ... absolute black for 12-12 ... even tape over the LED displays on controls.

Fans, Humidifier, Dehumidifier, Air Conditioner ... draw air from the house if possible.

CO2 tank on a timer ... spend about 30 minutes in the room with your plants each day ... humans are CO2 machines.

Temperature Controller, Humidity Controller, CO2 Monitor.

Photoperiods in 10 gallon pots.

Coco ... hydroponics ... drip and mist ... I don't think you'll be using soil.

I like Advanced Nutrients because they are designed specifically for cannabis, and they focus on the science of how macros, micros, and organisms all work together in specific ratios to maximize yield.

ScrOG the plants ... leave enough space to crawl around under the net ... at some point you will need control over width and height ... without it, maintenance increases.

Likely RO water or well water with low alkalinity.

Root hormones for the early stages to get off to a strong start.

You will likely wind up with four 4'x4' grow spaces. This means you have 2'x2' per plant. If your pot is 12" to 16" wide, then your plant can grow up and out.

With a 12' ceiling, minus 3' for pot height and lights, you should have about 9' of working height. This means you should flip to 12-12 when the plants are 3' to 4.5' tall ... 3' for fast growers and 4.5' for slow growers.

So overall you have 2'x2'x9' per plant ... this suggests tall, high yielding sativas.

You will want to do some training, likely mainlining ... and simple fluxing.

This is a great question, you are going to get a lot of good responses!

 

[TysonOG]

@SQl2kGuy nailed it! I was just reading about 6/2 this morning. Have you tried it?

 

[SQl2kGuy]

@SQl2kGuy nailed it! I was just reading about 6/2 this morning. Have you tried it?

Hey @TysonOG ... great to hear from you again!

I have been doing research on 6-2 and Gas Lantern for a month or so. I have also read papers on the Calvin Cycle ... then on July 05, 2019 I switched from 18-6 to 6-2 ... and I am never going back to 18-6!

You can read a bit about it in my Lessons Learned section here:

July 05, 2019 Update - Lessons Learned
July 06, 2019 Update - Lessons Learned​

TTYL

 

[Greensleeves420]

First off, there's no "right answer". Some people really prefer hydro, some super soil, different strokes for different folks. I've switched to hydro and when dialed in, the speed is incredible but it requires it's own set of parameters.
Is the flowering room a tent, where you have access to the sides or an actual walled room? In order to maximize production, you would want 64-100sqft of canopy. (4x4 - 5x5 per light). It order to accomplish this, you wouldnt have enough space to walk around the perimeter for maintenance/scrog etc. In that type or space, I would do two 4x8 areas with a walkway in the middle. Here's a quick drawing, X's are plants, O's are lights.

Since my room will be 11 x 8
That give me exactly what you said.
8x4 on left 8x4 on right and 8x3 down the middle

 

[Barney86]

4 gativas for your first grow mate. That's a shit load of lighting!
My advice would be to keep things as simple as you can.
I'm guessing cash flow isn't much of a problem so something you might wanna check out is "autopots".
They're the best of all worlds. All the benefits of a full hydro system with none of the drawbacks.
You hand water them for 2 weeks till the roots hit the bottom of the pot then an autofeed reservoir kicks in and that's it.
Just fill a bucket, stick an airstone in it and done.
Don't have to muck about ph'ing it etc like you do with every other system because the plants don't feed directly from the rervoir so they don't effect it.
They look a bit pricey but for the time and effort they save you they're worth every penny. Stick airdomes in them and they can go toe to toe with any system on the market.
You don't wanna be handwatering 20 enormous plants so you'll need an automatic system of some sort and that's by far the easiest to use imo. Only one I know of where you won't have to worry about balancing the reservoir.