Canna BossX Commercial LED Case Study

[CannaBossX]

Hi Everyone, I live in Florida where medical marijuana becomes legal tomorrow (January 3rd) thanks to overwhelming support of Prop 2 in the November election. I've been waiting for the day when it would be legal to grow in Florida and finally have my opportunity.



For those who are not familiar, the Department of Health has 6 months from tomorrow to develop the infrastructure, card system, limits, etc... for Florida medical law, which means it will be at least 6 months before any legal dispensaries open here. My goal is to get in on the action with my own commercial grow, so I'm starting small with a "proof of concept" or "case study" grow in a 10x10 room for several investors I've lined up, to make sure we are ready to hit the ground running in 6 months with a proven, scaled model.

I ordered mostly Cannabis Cup winning strains from TheAttitude Seed Bank. I have to give these guys props for the quality of the seeds they sell. Not all of my seeds have turned into seedlings just yet, but every seed I germinated and then planted has popped and is growing. Hard to beat 100% germination rate - so thanks guys! Y'all rock!

I have divided my room into two sections, Autoflowers and Photoperiod plants. For my autoflowers I have 4x THC Bomb, 4X Mazar and 4X Blue Cheese. For photoperiod I have 2x LSD, 2x Sweet Tooth, 1x C99, 2x GDP and 1x Cotton Candy.

I will be running a recirculating DWC system from CCH20.com, with 18" spacing from center to center on each bucket. The autoflowers will be divided 2 plants per bucket (6 buckets) and the photoperiod plants are 1 per bucket (8 buckets). Both systems are auto-filled by a 60 gallon reserve reservoir. The reserve reservoir is auto-filled by a 150GPD RO System with an electronic shut-off valve. This way if I need to leave for a week I have nothing to worry about. I had to plumb a new water outlet into the room as well as feed and return lines for the RO system. Well worth the two days it took to get it done. I'll be running a tri-meter to monitor the PPM, EC, PH, Temp, etc.. on each system, they just haven't come in yet.

In each "Epicenter" of the CCH20 systems I have placed a wort chiller (normally used in distillation), which is connected to a small 10 gallon reservoir. This reservoir is cooled by a 1/10hp water chiller, and also feeds a water-to-air cooler attached to my carbon filter and fan. The water cooler (the AC for the room) is connected to a thermostat so that when the room rises above 88F a pump turns on pushing water through the water-to-air cooler which will cool the room. To make sure the chiller does not contribute to heat in the room and operates as efficiently as possible, I am making a 6" duct attachment for the front and rear. The air being pumped through the chiller is 76 degrees (from the house) and is pulled from another room through the chiller, then exhausted outside the room (an external closed loop system).

I have placed the air filter on the floor of the room so it recirculates falling CO2. The 6" fan on the filter is attached to insulated ducting which I've run across the entire length of the room, poking 2" vent holes every 8". On the opposite wall are two 35lbs CO2 tanks that will be enriching the room at 1200ppm. 4 "Hurricane" 16" wall fans will keep air circulating and provide good wind for the plants.

For lights I will be running 14 LED fixtures (one over each bucket), but they haven't come in yet. Supposedly they will arrive in about 2 weeks (we shall see), and pull about 200W each. I have installed a dedicated 20 amp circuit into the ceiling and a second 15A circuit for additional fixtures. To get me by until my lights arrive I have a couple of prototypes I can use. They're bright as hell!

The goal for our first run is to achieve an average of at least 4 ounces per autoflower and 8 ounces per photoperiod plant. This would equate to 7lbs of finished product using about 2800W of LED. The rest of the system (chiller, fans, pumps, etc...) consumes about 800W-1000W. Worst-case scenario if we ran everything 24 hours a day (which won't happen in bloom) it would pull about 2800KwH or $310 in electric per month (about $900 per cycle). The start-up cost for the space is about $13k, and a 7lbs harvest would bring in about $20k at wholesale. If we can truly achieve 100% ROI and profit an additional $6k in only one cycle it will be a no-brainer for my investors. Now we just need to wait about 3 months to see the results.

 

[CannaBossX]

Today I got my chiller setup finished and connected. I bought some sheet metal ducting supplies at Lowes and spent about an hour cutting and fitting everything to the chiller to make it a closed system.

Now I can suck air through the chiller from another room and exhaust the hot air out into another room so the chiller does not contribute any heat to the grow environment. The chiller will also receive 76 degree air around the clock to keep it as efficient and stable as possible. I'm just hoping the little 1/10hp chiller on a 10 gallon reservoir will be enough, otherwise I'll need to buy a new chiller.

 

[CannaBossX]

I wanted to see just how far I could push my little 1/10hp chiller I had left over from some smaller grows, as it is only rated to chill a maximum of 42 gallons by 10 degrees over ambient air. So after hooking everything up last night I ran some tests.

I have a 10 gallon reservoir filled with water that I chilled to 55 degrees (from an 86 degree room), and then I turned on my wort chillers (one of which is just sitting in the room, the other is in the 6-pot system). The 6 pot system holds about 42-49 gallons of water. So all in all I'm chilling 52-59 gallons + a wort chiller running open atmosphere rather than in water. This morning I checked on the room and the room temp has dropped to 84 degrees while the water temp in the 6-pot system has fallen from 86F to 72F (and is still falling). Based on this information it seems I am running the system more efficiently than the unit is rated for, as it has dropped nearly 60 gallons of water by 12 degrees (thus far) over ambient temp, and has reduced the ambient temp in the room by 2 degrees from the amount of chilled water sitting in the room. But 1/10hp won't be enough to chill both systems + the water to air cooler for the room (AC), so I'll be bringing in a 1HP chiller within a week to do the work.

The MFR suggestion is 1/4hp to cool 1000W of lighting, and I'll have close to 3000W of lights. But when you consider a 1hp chiller only runs 8A on startup (about 900W) and 450-500W continuously, it's pretty amazing to think it can cool 3000W of lights and 100+ gallons of water simultaneously. In the past I would run a 1000W AC unit on top of the chiller to cool the room and water (about 1300W all together), and now I'll be running less than half of that. It's true what they say about water chilling - it's twice as efficient as HVAC for anyone looking to reduce their energy consumption.

 

[CannaBossX]

I transplanted most of the seedlings last night as a few still need a longer root system before transplant. Out of the 20 seeds that "popped", only 16 grew. The other 4 popped and simply never got beyond putting out a tiny root. So I started germinating 1 x GDP, 1 X THC Bomb and 2 x AutoMazar last night. I'll wait till tomorrow to put them in Rapid Rooters.

After the seedlings were transplanted I hung up the prototype lights and turned 5 of them on (about 2000W), then added Iguana Juice to the systems. With the door sealed all night, zero AC and nothing more than a 1/10hp chiller on the CCH20 systems, the room hit a maximum of 95F. That's one thing I love about LED - you can run hotter rooms than HID or CFL without the same stress to your plants. I plan to keep the room about 86-88F during the grow, but wanted to know the max temp the room would hit if there was a malfunction on cooling.

My new 1hp chiller arrives today. I'll get it plumbed up tonight and by tomorrow my water temps will be a consistent 68-70 with my air temps running 86-88F. I honestly think I could have made due with a 1/2hp chiller, but figured it would be better to have more than I need than not enough.

 

[Fullyspectrum]

Awesome setup. I envy it, if only all places around the world allowed such a setup legally. Keep it up im subbed

 

[CannaBossX]

Whenever you're working with a new type of system or piece of equipment there always seems to be a bit of a learning curve to getting it dialed in perfectly. Having never used water exclusively to cool my room (heat from the lights) and reservoirs at the same time, there was a bit of figuring out to do.

I was limited to 6" ducts to install my chiller from the spacing between the rafters in the roof where my chiller is. Originally I installed one that was split into 3 intakes with 1 exhaust, connected to a 390cfm fan. The chiller just wasn't doing what it was supposed to (keeping the water below 80 with the door closed or the room below 90). So last night I added in a second set of 6" ducts and an additional 250cfm fan I had lying around. So now there are two 6" intakes and two 6" exhausts.

The power draw from the unit before I added in the second fan and duct was about 1420W. After it dropped to 880W. Now it chills like the Yeti it is. I can bring my main chilling res down to below 55 degrees in a room where ambient is 85. I have my DWC system wort chillers now connected to a thermostat so they don't fall below 68 degrees and don't rise above 70. And there is still extra cooling power left over if I need to run my ice box for any reason (right now it's not looking to be the case).

The 100 gallons or so of water running through my DWC system is acting like an AC for the room. Every bucket is cold on the outside, with cold air emanating from the buckets. The fans blow it around and mix it with the hot air from the lights and the result is a beautiful 85 degree ambient temp with no AC or ice box (water to air radiator). Now that the system is finally dialed in I can sit back and focus on growing.

 

[CannaBossX]

Update: Sorry I've been gone for a while. I spent the month of January trying to figure out this RDWC system, but no matter where I set the water level I was not getting anywhere. I lost a few plants, others stressed out hardcore, and planted many more... After a month of messing with this finicky system I decided to scrap RDWC all together. It is NOT a viable option for commercial cannabis cultivation.

Having already spent quite a bit of money on the CCH2O systems, I decided to use them to make a new type of system: Aeroponic RDWC. It took the better part of 2 days to get the right fittings, connectors, tubes, etc... but I managed to make it work. I put two sprinklers in each bucket, lowered the water level to be just above the 2" outlet fittings and fired everything up. For the first time in weeks all of my plants are growing new roots. The plants in 8" pots are taking longer than those in 5" pots, which means that I'll be switching to all 5" pots in the future. The plants in 8" pots also stress more during transplant than those in 5". That's the whole point of this grow - to get all the variables worked out to have a viable working system to scale up in June - and I'm nearly there.

After lowering the water levels (cutting my chiller from cooling 100-120 gallons down to 50-60) I noticed my chiller was having a harder time maintaining temps. Perhaps if I had a smaller chiller it would be different, but it seems this 1hp monster needs at least 100gallons to run efficiently. So I re-rigged all my lines to the backup 60 gallon reservoir and now the chiller is working more efficiently. I just need to insulate the res so it stops sweating and is even more efficient at retaining the chill from the chiller.

This week I'm installing a new auto-dosing pump which I will calibrate to keep the pH at a consistent 5.5 - 6.0. After that everything other than nutrients will be automated in the room. I won't automate the nutes until I create my nute schedule, and now that I have a hydro system working as it should I can begin to dial in my nutes to create a schedule.

Lastly I received an email update from my LED supplier that there is a delay on the units, and they informed me that the new models are operating without the use of cooling fans while still maintaining optimal temps. I decided to change my order from 14 of the lights to 14 of the 42X-2 units. I think it will be awesome to run a completely silent grow light as these prototypes are quite noisy. We shall wait and see as the ETA on my units is about 3 weeks.

 

[buzzychuck420]

Good set up man. Just remember this . Don't be telling anyone your growing there. Not your best friend your bitch nobody. Simple concept people to lazy to grow will rob you. Security will only take pics of people stealing your shit. They will take equip and all. Just a heads up brother .

Sent from my HTCD100LVWPP using 420

 

[Teddy Edwards]

Hope all is well in your world.

How did this grow turn out?

We would love to be updated with some pictures and info.

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I am moving this to Abandoned Journals until we get updates.

Sending you lots of love and positive energy.