From some good advice on this site, I've decided to improve my 3.5'x3.5'x 6' grow tent by doing a vertical grow. I'm planning on hanging a dual cool tube with two 400w in there, and also a pvc structure to hold the net pots and facilitate aeroponics. There is a system already built called a hydrogon here's the site: http://www.octagonhydroponics.com/hy...l-systems.html ... in particular I'm thinking of the square one at the bottom but with no tubes in front of the entrance so I can access the plants, and only two holes / plants per side. I was going to hook a water pump in a reservoir to an aeroponic mister in between both plants per side ... so 6 plants per level using 3 misters. I want to build two bc I have two tents one for veg the other flowering. This seems like a very efficient way to go, but here are my questions / concerns:

1. Should I only use two instead of the three levels shown? The top one looks too close to the ceiling, and should I bring the first level down lower? Seems like it is up kind of high maybe wasting space. I want to maximize my space but I don't want to overcrowd either.

2. Will those holes / net pots allow large enough roots to grow to sustain good bud development? Should I consider larger pvc piping than the one shown on the hydrogon page? Here's another system that looks like it allows for better roots, and is top fed, not sure if my area is too small for something like this: http://i768.photobucket.com/albums/x...icture_060.jpg

I'm really unsure on which way would be better for my grow space I don't want to have runt plants because there's no root space, but I have seen some big plants grown aeroponically with little space.

3. I would have the misters being pumped to continuously, and then have it gravity drained back into the reservoir, but I'm afraid the reservoir tank will be too high for that to work (has to be lower than the lowest pipe). Perhaps a smaller tank could be added, which when filled, would pump into the large reservoir? What device would I have to buy to only turn the pump on when its past a certain level? (I don't want to burn the motor or anything if its trying to pump air instead of water.)


Any further suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Here are some more interesting vertical grow setups, albeit most are much larger than my deal.

http://i768.photobucket.com/albums/x...moz/newoct.jpg
http://i768.photobucket.com/albums/x...28101_5694.jpg
http://i768.photobucket.com/albums/x...Image00007.jpg
http://i768.photobucket.com/albums/x...g_2_Large_.jpg
http://i768.photobucket.com/albums/x...r_1_Large_.jpg
http://i768.photobucket.com/albums/x...088_Large_.jpg <--------- Wow!
http://i768.photobucket.com/albums/x...ramoz/cage.jpg
http://i768.photobucket.com/albums/x...1242636916.jpg

Ya, I Think You Could Make It Happen, I Like This Design And Think You Could Build It Easy.

That Might Be Best To Start With Two, You Could Alway's Add Another Later.

If You Use 3" To 4" Pipe You Will Have Plenty Of Room For Root's, You Could Just Use A 2" Basket & Neoprene, The Root's Just Grow Right Through It Anyway.

I Would Have The Res Outside The Tent If Possible, So You Can Keep The Water Cooler, You Also Won't Have To Run The Pump 24/7 That Also Heats Up The Water.
I Have Some 20gal Res'zz That Are Only 9" Tall, If You Had Some Like That You Could Have The Bottom Row Start At Say 10", That Would Be About Right For The Ducting For The Cool Tubes & For A Floor Fan To Blow Upwards.

But Ya, This Could Be A Awesome Set-Up For Ya, & OH Ya BIG WOW!!!,,This Looks Like Heath Robinsons Work!!!



Just A Thought Looking At This Shot, What If You Started On The Floor With 12" Pipe & Used That For Your Res???,,If It Was Rapped It Should Stay Cool???& If You Kept Regular Res Changes It Wouldn't Be Hard To Clean. Just A Thought, But I Like It!!



Well, Best Of Luck, & If You Need Some Help, Just Holler I Would Love To Help Ya Out!!,,Check Ya Later,,Cheers`;`Hatch`;`

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That is his work
http://www.rollitup.org/hydroponics-...-vertical.html

He is the Albert Eienstien of PVC...

Thanks for the tips Hatch, good idea about putting reservoir outside of tank, or as a bottom tube... I really like that idea. I'm excited to start this new setup, before we only grew three big ones in 5 gallon buckets. They almost 6' tall, but of course the bottom 2/3rds of them or at least the bottom 1/2 is pretty useless. It seems to me that more numerous, smaller plants, plus a vertical light setup would be the best use of space and energy.

I have a few more questions on a few more details...
Do you think one mister between two plants would be adequate? How long and how often should I set the timer to mist them? Would it be beneficial to try to have some water accumulate in the tubes (I like the water dam idea from that Heath guy that thothaman linked to...)

Thanks for the input guys it's much appreciated. Any other tips/advice or whatever is definitely welcome.

Oh I forgot to ask also, do you guys think two 400w hps bulbs in a dual cooltube would be too much heat (even for a cooltube) in a 3.5'x3.5'x6' room? I would hate to spend the money and find out I can only use one of the 400's...

Thanks

Ya I Think Two 400hps Will Work Fine, The Best Thing To Do With The CoolTubes Is To Push & Pull Air From A Outside Source Other Then The Grow Space & Also Exhaust Outside The Grow Space, Then Have A Separate Exhaust & Intake For The Grow Space, That Will Help You Keep Everything Cooled.

The Key Here Will Be The Pump, To Get A Real Good Mist A Good Rule Of Thumb To Figure With Is Every 7 Mister's You Need A Pump Rated 250gph++, For Example; If You Have 28 Mister's Your Pump Will Need To Be Rated At 1000gph++..
But Ya One Between Plants With A Good Mist Should Be Fine,,Are You Going To Put The Plants 12" Apart??,,Then The Mister In The Center Of That, That Would Be 6" Each Side.

When The Light Are On I Like For The Pump To Run For 15min., Then Be Off For 45min. To 60min., Then Run For 15min. ect...Then When Light Are Off The Pump Can Run 15min. Every Third To Fourth Hour.

The Bad Thing About Water Accumulating Is If It Doesn't Get Re-Freshed Our Oxidized And Your Roots Are In It, It Will Cause Root Problems (root rot).

Best Of Luck On Your Build..

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Thanks for the tips, that is a good idea with the cool tube, I hope I have adequate flow to do that. I have a 200 cfm blower which vents out both of my grow tents equaling to about displacing the volume in each tent every minute. I guess I could put a y connector in the flowering tent with the cool tube and run the other side to the passive intake hole, and having the other leg vent the grow room, I just hope that my inline fan would be able to handle that.

I will follow your advice and get at least 250 gph for the six misters. My ideas was to supplement the misters with some ebb & flow I didn't really mean standing water, when the misters go on I was going to have another pump run water through the pipes maybe have an airstone in the reservoir for oxygen ... I was thinking because if one pump failed the plants still get nourished, and I was also worried about the plants growing roots around the misters smothering there spray (maybe this is not a problem? I'm new to aeroponics). If this is not necessary though I'd rather not do it, I'm picturing a jungle of tubes with my thinking.

I'm used to growing a few large plants in 5 gallon buckets, the roots get huge, thinking about them in 4" pvc pipes seems ... unnatural :-). I'm planning on 12 spots for the plant, 6 each level, but I could fit 9 per level if not 12 ... on three levels. I understand this sea of green approach gives the best yield, and would be ideal, but I guess I feel al ittle more at ease with 12 plants vs. 16. So I'm basically looking for a middle ground between sea of green and my 5'-6' bubble bucket plants. Sorry if this is too much info but I just want to make sure I get the right size pipes, net baskets, proper nourishment mechanism etc. I'm guessing 12"-16" between pots.

BTW, I know all about root rot... my last grow actually I decided to try to boost bud production and used 1 tbsp of molasses for every gallon of water added to my bubble buckets the last month of flowering. Within a couple of weeks, it seemed like overnight, a horrible stench of sewage filled the room.... the roots were like a brown mush ball and the water brown. One plant died right away, 1.5 weeks away from it's due date, another a few days later about a week away, and 1 survived which I'm trimming this weekend. I can already tell I didn't get as much quantity, I just hope the potency wasn't drastically effected.

One more thing, kind of unrelated ... I have a bad habit of leaving too much undergrowth and a bunch of weak shoots and their flowers ... Is there a general rule like "anything below 4 nodes is a waste" that I can follow, I'm just not sure how much to prune ... and when the best time to do it. I used to hear that you never prune during flowering, but lately I've been reading suggestions on doing this the first two weeks of flowering ...the stretch period. I've only recently started topping them during veg which does help control height, but I do need to do some other things that will further broaden the foliage and not end up with so many wasteful sucker shoots. I have one grow that is in veg now almost ready to move to flower using my big bubble buckets, before I install my new system.

Thanks again!

I'll upload some pics when I get it built and put into operation.

err I meant I felt more comfortable growing 12 plants instead of 36, not 16. My state penalizes based on # of plants.