Grow room build round three: Full environment control and no compromises

[SmokeyMcFly]

Hey all this will be my third or fourth grow room setup at this point depending on if you count that closet in my first condo as a grow room or not. After having a couple different setups both with some pretty major limitations I have the chance to setup everything right with no compromises and have full spousal support for the project

Major problems with last grow room I am looking to fix.
Not enough AC / no dedicated AC for the grow room which limited the amount of lights I could run and keep the temps ok.

Since the room was constantly ventilating to the rest of the house and sharing its hvac it was impossible to keep humidity up to acceptable let alone optimal levels.

No place to do potting work without doing it on the floor.

Was a bedroom in the house so harvest time and what not what stink up the house some and the wife would no matter how many carbon scrubbers i had.

Major goals for final room
Full environmental control of humidity, temp and C02/02 levels with different settings for day and night modes. I live in the desert with a normal RH of around 8-10 so this can be difficult to pull off.

Somewhat stealthy, I have a med card and am legally allowed to grow but that doesn't mean I want nosey neighbors knowing whats going on every time I harvest or open my garage door.

Security, wells theres lots but i'm gonna keep that bit private for obvious reasons.

Not be limited by anyone thing ie last house didn't have enough cooling from room which then limited the amount of lights I could have and so on it went

What is planned so far
10x12' room built into spare bay of 3 car garage. Walls are being built with metal studs hammer nailed to the foundation, insulated and sheet rocked. I got some anti insect foam for sealing around the edges and what not to try and keep the room as air tight as possible and to help keep any critters out of course. The room has a work bench and storage on one side that I am going to keep to do potting work on etc, doing it all on the floor got old in my last room. There is also a double high cabinet that I may use for my drying rack. The cabinets all came with the house so they were freebees

Environment Control
Cooling / Heating / Dehumidifying
Dedicated mini split AC / Heatpump with dehumidifier, still trying to decide between 9,000BTU and 12,000BTU.

Ventilation
Single 6" fan with inline carbon scrubber and vent to outside, will be ran probably only once a day for long enough to exchange the air when the lights turn off to dump the C02 out and pull in some O2 for nighttime. Various oscillating fans for in room air movement from last grow.

Controller
Have an apollo controller from my last grow that can run a humidifier if needed and can control a C02 system plus a bunch of other junk i probably wont need because of the mini split. I'll dig up the info on it when I pull it out of one of the many boxes we still have to go through from the move.

C02 Injection System
Haven't started shopping for a C02 system yet so any recommendations would be great

Lights
I currently have 4 Platinum P300s and 1 P600 for flower area and two 48x3w Leds from I can't think of who right now I usually use for veg plants

Tents
I have a Gorilla 2x4', a 4x4' and a 5x5' from previous grows. Not sure how I am going to set these up yet. I am thinking of just setting one up either the 2x4 or the 4x4 for the veg area and the run the flower tents right in the room outside of the tent. I have various 4 and 6 inch fans for venting the tent(s) into the room from old setup also. Plants will be on pallets to keep the cold concrete from sucking the life out of the soil.

Fertilizer / Medium
Doc Buds High Brix Kit

Water purification
Growonix RO filter with chlorine and chloramine cartridges.

I think* that covers everything I have thought of so far. Luckily most of this stuff I have from my previous grows and I have friends helping with the parts I need to get done like framing and sheet rocking the walls and handling the AC install so that helps a lot.

A couple pics of the walls going up, they're coming back tomorrow to finish them up and put the door in then it's time to go mini split shopping and get the electrician out to do the wiring work for it. Im also going to have him make sure I have a big enough line for what i'm doing and if not run another to the room while he's here.

Thanks for looking all I will keep this updated as new developments happen and of course follow it up with a brand new grow journal once its all up and running proper.

 

[Amy Gardner]

Evening Smokey

I saw you flag this new thread over at Duggs’s, I love a good build and this looks excellent. I’ll claim a good vantage point and hang about to watch you work

 

[Neiko]

Of course I'm in!

 

[weenmeoff]

I'll pull,up,a chair smokey! Interested to,watch this develop. Gonna be an awesome,grow,room!

 

[dr.h00k]

.........cheerz...h00k......

 

[MassMedMan]

McFly what's smokin? Love the start. Can't wait to see what ya do...... I'm in

 

[TheGreenYeti]

Looking good so far bud! Should be one hell of a grow space when you are done

 

[Graytail]

 

[AzLaker]

This should be fun. I live in the desert also, but we must live in different states. I have my medical card, but you can't grow unless you live 25 miles away from a dispensary.

AzLaker

 

[SmokeyMcFly]

This should be fun. I live in the desert also, but we must live in different states. I have my medical card, but you can't grow unless you live 25 miles away from a dispensary.

AzLaker

I'm in Nv and have a pretty serious med need. The law says if you need a strain that's not available in the dispensaries they can approve you to grow. I told them I need landrace sativas that are not available in dispensaries because they take way to long to grow and most strains at this point have been crossed so many times that you can grow out 20 plants of the same strain and end up with over 10 very different final products easily which makes buying at the dispensaries a total crap shoot. Then I started going into terp combinations and how im positive that's what really matters and that it took me years to track down and cross a strain that worked for me consistently and they were like ok ok you can grow...

Basically just make it clear that you know way more than they do on the subject and you have no problem letting them know you do and they will just approve it over looking stupid trying to argue a subject they know shit about

Great to have so many here already, wasn't sure how much action this part of the forum got.

This cabinet is pretty big and I might either use it as a drying cabinet or a veg cabinet instead of the tent haven't decided yet it will depend on how my footprint of the room turns out and how much flower room I have. I am probably going to rotate more plants through this time instead of doing big batches so maybe start like one plant every week or two or something instead of cracking out big batches each time which I then am unable to legally store that amount until I get it smoked back down...

Might take the cabinets on the wall down and the one moved out is going out of the room or it may turn into a drying box.

Bins of grow equip, soil and the rest of the materials to finish the walls

For anyone that was wondering on how I got wife approval to build my dream grow room. I figured out I was spending more than our old mortgage at the dispensary every month and figured out that if we put less than half what I was spending on bud with our old mortgage by being able to grow again we could buy our dream house, seemed like a no brainer, she agreed


The new backyard, slight upgrade to the 20x40' box of rocks and murder row apartment building view the old house had

Guys come a bit later today to finish up the walls and hang the door.

 

[Killerbudz]

I will be in and out with my portal gun! Plenty of room to grow and good view in the yard cheerz

 

[Neiko]

Wow nice view of the back yard. The only thing missing is a fat joint of HB weed. So how did the dispensary weed compare to the high brix weed you were used to? I've yet to find any dispensary weed that came close. The last weed I bought was some Durban Poison that has quite a reputation here. It has test results with 3% terpenes so I had to try it. It was ok but it was so dry that I don't think I got the full experience. I decided to just grow Durban out and then let the people who loved that cut of dispensary Durban try it. When I asked how it compared they said it was amazing and immediately asked for a cut.

 

[SmokeyMcFly]

Wow nice view of the back yard. The only thing missing is a fat joint of HB weed. So how did the dispensary weed compare to the high brix weed you were used to? I've yet to find any dispensary weed that came close. The last weed I bought was some Durban Poison that has quite a reputation here. It has test results with 3% terpenes so I had to try it. It was ok but it was so dry that I don't think I got the full experience. I decided to just grow Durban out and then let the people who loved that cut of dispensary Durban try it. When I asked how it compared they said it was amazing and immediately asked for a cut.

Thanks!

So at first the dispensary weed was garbage when they very first opened. Now I have found a couple really good growers and not surprisingly they are both using very similar methods to us. One is advertising living soil grow and the other is advertising high mineral soil natural grow. The terps are measured in mg on the labels but I have had some that were over 20mg of a single terp type. Both of the companies put out what I would of considered an ok batch of my highbrix weed. You know a grow that turned out good but not one that was like omg I have to keep this and grow it forever. They have a couple strains I really like and wouldn't mind growing. One of them had seeds in them one time and I have three started I think they were face on fire og which had one of the highest terp amounts of anything I have smoked that I liked and one of the only OG strains I have found that doesn't make my neck pain act up. They had one strain that I think had over 30mg of mercine and it coated your mouth in rotten orange oil (nothing like bubba taste) that lingered for 20+ min. It was so overwelming and gross it kind of put me off of high mercine only strains. Some of the growers put out complete garbage that tastes like it was the first time someone ever grow that had no effing clue what they were doing but most are just middle of the road well grown by hydro standards ok weed for people that don't know what matters yet

I haven't smoked anything from the dispensaries that compares to any of the strains I smoked that were actually grown by Doc himself.

 

[Rich 3033]

That's a nice space you're making! I hope it's all going well.

 

[SmokeyMcFly]

That's a nice space you're making! I hope it's all going well.

Thanks! The ac was ordered last week went with a 12,000 btu 27 seer model that cools heats and can run as a dehumidifier although I have never needed a dehumidifier here in the desert with the room being sealed I may end up needing it. They’re supposed to be coming back Tuesday to knock out as much of the rest that they can so hopefully I have some more progress to show soon. I also ordered a 20 gal c02 tank and regulator to hook up to a Saturn 5 controller I have from my old setup. I knew the rest of the features on that thing would come in handy one day . The first batch of plants are almost a month old and still living in a closet so it’s time to get this show on the road

 

[SmokeyMcFly]

Almost forgot I dropped two ace purple Malawi’s last night that came from the breeding stock they used to grow the plants they took the seeds from for the first limited edition run of it a few years ago. I had tried to grow one once before and it was a male. After much thought of harvesting the pollen since it was the sexiest looking plant I ever grew in veg I decided to kill it and not deal with pollen pollution in my room, like polintating anything with purple haze x Malawi would of even been a bad thing... looking back I wish I would of collected the pollen so if there’s a male this time I will be

 

[SmokeyMcFly]

Here's the one I ended up culling back in the day without collecting pollen. Going through my old journals last night made me want to grow it again, I had forgot I even had them actually

Nieko, I found a shot of the original bubba-hash when she was just a wee-one.

Wasn't long before the tree trunk like stems showed up though

If you guys haven't gone back and re-read any of your grow journals from your early days I highly recommend it, not only did it remind me of some things like having a bunch of killer seeds that I had forgot about but its just fun to see how you progress over time in your grows.

 

[Rich 3033]

Thanks! The ac was ordered last week went with a 12,000 btu 27 seer model that cools heats and can run as a dehumidifier although I have never needed a dehumidifier here in the desert with the room being sealed I may end up needing it. They’re supposed to be coming back Tuesday to knock out as much of the rest that they can so hopefully I have some more progress to show soon. I also ordered a 20 gal c02 tank and regulator to hook up to a Saturn 5 controller I have from my old setup. I knew the rest of the features on that thing would come in handy one day . The first batch of plants are almost a month old and still living in a closet so it’s time to get this show on the road

Yeah in a sealed environment you might need a dehumidifier, it's good you have an aircon which can do it all.

What are your leds like for flowering? I bought some second hand 300w leds (130w draw) and they aren't very good at growing compared to a hps.

 

[Neiko]

It's nice seeing the Bubba baby pics. Who knew that girl would be so damn good. I've got another big one ready to flip, I can never have enough of that on hand.
I had a 3rd version on Golden Tiger 3 weeks into flower before I caught it was male. That dude had such tight clusters it looked like a female until I took some pics for an update and saw it was a dude. It was in back so I didn't notice right away. That was a super healthy plant, I was bummed. I'll try again next seed drop, this new version is more Thai dominate.

 

[TheGreenYeti]

One of the healthiest plants I have ever grown from seed was a Huck Kush male. He was in a 1 gallon pot for MONTHS without skipping a beat! He had amazing structure and smelt better in veg than most females do in flower. I had to ax him and regret it. He would have been a stud I am sure.