HOW TO: Build a grow tunnel!

Hey A-S,
How many folks are utilizing the grow tunnel, or some form of it? Seems I keep hearing of more growers beginning to mention using the full-size reflector, if not the SWC too.

Also, is your friend beginng to get his/her parts & materials together for the big tunnel?
 
I'm not sure how many there are, I believe the count is around five if I'm counting correctly. Me, slim, GM, Baggins, and I'm sure there's another one or two around somewhere. Plus my friend who will be building one soon. He is getting some of the smaller parts right now......plumbing, air pumps, water pumps, lights, etc. Then once everything is there, he's gonna go get all of the lumber. :D It should be about a month away. :D

Here's some pics of one I cut today and the look of the tunnel overall.
 
why are you limiting the width to 32 inches? Is that all you can afford? First off, help me to understand your reasoning for wanting the batwing instead of one parabola. Mine is 4 feet wide.....almost a foot and a half wider than what yours would be and mine works perfectly fine. Plus with your 600, I would suggest increasing the width to 5 or 6 feet. Now, if you are set on 32" and the double batwing, I'm sure I could invest a little time trying to figure out the hard details if you are stuck. The parabola really works best when the light is placed in the middle of it......putting the light at a bottom corner would hurt the efficiency, I believe, but we couldn't be sure until it was tried out.
 
Sooo... Any ideas on how to run a 4x8 tunnel the same way as described with only 12 plants? SCROG is all I can think of, and that'd be a pain in the ass... I guess maybe just a ton of training... What do you guys think?
 
LateShaftNBaggins said:
Sooo... Any ideas on how to run a 4x8 tunnel the same way as described with only 12 plants? SCROG is all I can think of, and that'd be a pain in the ass... I guess maybe just a ton of training... What do you guys think?
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Baggins,
Why is 12 the number? You'll have to grow them too large to get a worthwhile yield, I'd think. I've never tried SCROG, but as pointed out they are a lot of work and large ones get crazy. Also if you are using the 2" net pots that I am they will give you trouble trying to support such large plants. The weight will push the net pots through their holes in the shower board. I don't know if the larger size net pots would be much better, but they'd have to be somewhat better.

Basically, whatever you end up trying to do plant support will be the big issue. Plan to be able to rig up plenty of fishing line, or something, for keeping the plants from leaning/falling over. The net pots just aren't designed for trees. When I ran a bubbler I made homemade "net pots" from sturdier 4" little decroatice plastic planters, which were much heftier and had a substancial (sp) "rolled lip". You'll need an approiate sized hole saw to drill the shower board for a 4" pot, and you'll also need a deeper table than the 5" that I'm using so the roots will have some room below the pots. Unless you plan to keep all of your future crops at 12 plants I would not go to so much trouble & expense.

Have you finished your tunnel & SWC grow field yet? If so, what is the plant site spacing/count ? Mine is 6 rows of 12. I have had crops get away from me and stretch much taller that I'd planned. I don't want them to get over 24" tall, but have had a couple get way past that. One crop stretched to 36", which maxed out my available headroom. I heavily pruned the side branches ("pistilwhipt" style, I think) so they remained healthy, rather than culling half the crop. It was a freaking forest, but it worked. So, actually you can grow em' pretty damn big in 2" pots. Yours will get quite a bit heavier than mine because you won't remove all the branches. As I said "plan to tie them up well". Even if/when the net pots won't stay in the holes if the plants are tied well they should be fine sitting on the bottom of your table.

Personally, I'd wait and try to get at least 32+ plants for the grow. But it's up to you. Have you considered trying to do 1/2 a crop in just a 4x4' part of your 4x8? Or maybe do a perpetual crop like A-Smith.

If you just pot up those 12 clones you have you'll be able to get all the clones you need in a few weeks, right? I'd say you could have 100's of cuttings rooted within 30-40 days. If you're planning to go with higher numbers in the future I'd just wait a little longer so you can begin your first crop that way. Otherwise you'll end up working hard to maximize a crop of 12, which won't teach you anything towards your future plans.

Anyway, glad to hear that you're at this stage. It won't be much longer till you're up to you elbows in buds. :)


peace,
 
gnomer,

I got dizzy trying to follow you descriptions of what you're working with. But it sounds like you know what you are doing. Basically you just want to figure out how to make a long batwing. I'd make it in 2 sections, then attach them. Say you need a 32" x 72", right? I would make 2 seperate 32"x36" reflectors and attach them inline, probably just mount each of them onto a single support (2x4 or something) and tape the seam with aluminum dryer duct tape (on both sides if necessary).

I'm with A-Smith thinking that you'd be able to light a much wider space than you are. But lots of folks say high watts per foot are the way to grow, so I won't argue over that. I personally, light 4x8' with 3 400's and am very pleased with the yield. But maybe I'd be even happier with 3 600's.....

peace,
 
~gnomer~ said:
try to fit a 24" wide (400's) or 32" wide (600's) sweet spot over a 4'x8' in any combination, won't work.. you're stuck with a 1000 watt hot-spot in the middle and dim sides, plus a lot of light blowing off into acess areas, whereas it could be reflected back instead of wasted...
QUOTE]

Yo AS/all....

gnomer...my (crude) tunnel is 8 ft. x 8 ft. and was constructed of 2- 4 x 8 sheets of 1/8 thick masonite board, Elmers glue, and mylar. I am running 2-1000's on the ends and a 600 in the middle (didn't have another 1000 at the time so I used the 600) in cool tubes with the internal reflector ripped out...resulting in 360 degrees of light bouncing all over the place.

The intensity of the light in the middle of the space is a bit higher..but not overly so. Time and time again I watch as the buds on the farthest edges of the room...4 ft from the light....bulk and grow at a rate that rivals their counterparts directly under the lights. (I put the larger plants on the sides and the sidelight is incredible)

This, I believe, is the beauty of and the reason for utilizing a tunnel such as this. Bottom line...the spred of light is unbelievable under these canopies.

good luck kids.

sky
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Glassman - I am not thinking of doing a twelve plant system because I have twelve clones, I'm thinking about it because it'll be legal in my state if I'm doing 12... I have been planning to do the 6x12 sites like you, but in case anyone had any good ideas on how to reduce to 12 I thought i'd ask... I'll go on as planned then. And the field isn't finished yet, it's not lined... I had another question... If I got a random 100 gallon container, could I just throw that under the field as a res instead of building one, or is there some advantage to having it built yourself? Seems to me it's gonna cost more to get all the wood/liner/hardware then it would to buy a big rubber container and put a few rolls of tape around it.... Lemme know what you guys think... Oh, and another update...
The Rosetta Stone clone I had in the DWC pretty much died, so as a last ditch effort, I cleaned her roots one more time (which looked suprisingly good) and threw her in some soil, and she actually perked up a tad.... Maybe I can use my experience to help out now, but I think shes too far gone :(... We'll see.
LSnB
 
LateShaftNBaggins said:
Sooo... Any ideas on how to run a 4x8 tunnel the same way as described with only 12 plants? SCROG is all I can think of, and that'd be a pain in the ass... I guess maybe just a ton of training... What do you guys think?
Click to expand...

Well what you could do is ditch the hydro setup, make the tunnel taller with an adjustable reflector height and run soil.
 
~gnomer~ said:
it's a modular system I use. everything is based on a 6' by 32" inside dimension.

light penetration is maximized for a 600 watt and under lighting system.
co2 will be very efficient if i decide to go that route.
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You know, with that area you could run 1 600W bulb instead of two with a grow tunnel style reflector and get great yields, or you could run both in the same reflector and completely blind yourself. Seriously, the tunnel style reflector IS your answer, that and throwing mylar on the walls, I swear you'll love what happens. Sky High is right, this reflector WILL spread the light all the way to the outside edges easily.
 
Agent-Smith said:
You know, with that area you could run 1 600W bulb instead of two with a grow tunnel style reflector and get great yields, or you could run both in the same reflector and completely blind yourself. Seriously, the tunnel style reflector IS your answer, that and throwing mylar on the walls, I swear you'll love what happens. Sky High is right, this reflector WILL spread the light all the way to the outside edges easily.
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Hearin you talk like that makes me all gushy inside.... I can't wait til I have the clones to fill it... Did I tell you I got eight sprouts goin?
 
I just weighed my last crop and the numbers are up quite a bit. I'd gotten off to a rough start with some pH crashes (which peroxide cured) that also caused a bit of stress, that caused a few male flowers which I removed, which worked:). I had to keep my fingers crossed during the rest of the crop, but luckily found no seeds.

Anyway I managed to get .84 gpw which would have been a little higher, but I over dried a bit to the point of crispness. Overall the increase came from a much more uniform crop (less runts). I also pruned for 2-3 colas, rather than a single large one, but I'm not sure that increased the yield. I mainly think it came from the higher number of plants which "produced". That number was increased by having better quality clones to begin with.

Also I had a little bit of added CO2 from the propane heater, which only ran a little because the weather has been pretty mild here. It was cold for a couple of weeks though, which must have been good for growth.

I can't imagine ever getting up to 2 gpw. But I will reach 1 gpw, sooner or later, and that will be great.;)


peace,
 
Thanks for the 5th effort A-S! Glassman, sounds like you are tuning and tweaking nicely. Good luck!
 
I love this design, thanx heaos for putting uo this thread! was just drawing up some plans for a small cabinet and thats great.
 
Well Mr. Smith, plans seemed to have changed a bit...
Wanting to stay inside of legal plant numbers, I cannot run the 72 site setup as planned. Having said that, and having already built the reflector, tray, and walls, I am still going to use the tunnel. I am trying to revamp the plans (as little as possible) to fit, say, nine hempy buckets with much larger plants? I imagine I would have to raise the reflector a bit to allow taller growth even if I trained them well, and thought this might require 600w lights. I hope this is not the case as I already have three 400w ballasts, lol, but I can slowly upgrade if it is. Anyway, if any of you tunnelers or anyone else have suggestions please feel free to chime in...

As a side note, I pollenated the Rosetta with the strongest male I got from my mystery stock (desperate attempt to keep her genes, at least some of them). I see some seeds growing in the buds now, and hopefully they will be used to start the buckets.
Thanks all,
LSnB
 
LSB,

Dude! You've been playing around "planning" too long. Get some plants "started" and fire up those lights. The buckets will work fine, you'll adjust whatever needs adjusting. My B-Day's coming up and you won't have a pile of big fat buds to show me....if you don't start em' soon. ;)

Go for it.
 
Glass Man said:
LSB,

Dude! You've been playing around "planning" too long. Get some plants "started" and fire up those lights. The buckets will work fine, you'll adjust whatever needs adjusting. My B-Day's coming up and you won't have a pile of big fat buds to show me....if you don't start em' soon. ;)

Go for it.
Click to expand...

Haha, you're right sir. I do have some plants going right now, just not in a tunnel. I was waiting to get my clones going, and seeing as my bubbler failed, I didn't have the clones to get started on the tunnel. Thats why I pollenated the rosetta, so I can get something started. I don't just have a seedstock and clones lying all over the place, I'm pretty new here... Hopefully the cross I did will mostly represent the Rosetta, because shes looking awesome even with a few seeds in her.
LSnB
 
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