Flip flop grow setup

Okay, here is what I want to do. Suggestions, comments, ideas are welcome. I will have one 12 5 gallon buckets ebb and flow system. I want two separate grow tents(next to each other)both measuring 5'x5'. I will have 6 pots in one tent and 6 in the other. Both tents I plan to scrog, lollipop and fim for increased yields. After the veg period I want to do a 12/12 light switch between the two tents. Each tent having a 600w hps. One light runs it's 12 hour cycle and shuts off and then the other light in the other tent starts it's 12 hour cycle. I'll be using a device that will allow me to use one ballast and switch between the lights. Anyways, the main reason for doing this is security with electric usage, spikes, whatever. What can I say. I'm overly conscience. What do you think?

No one?!

Someone must have something to say!

sounds awesome! have fun. make sure u have og in your line up.

I've considered the same thing, my main reasoning was to use the heat from the 'day' tent to keep the 'night' tent warm in the cold of winter. Would need a more complicated fan/timer setup, but it might be worth it.
Do it, and let us know how it goes.
What flip-flop are you planning to use?

i've done something similar and it worked well.

i had all seperate ballasts and timers etc so it was easy really, one set of lights went out the other came on seconds later, temps and humidity were stable and i kept temps in check as well as using a steady amount of elec etc.

more outlay in the beginning with two sets of fans filter etc but worked brilliantly imo.

Funny you should write about this... because I had been thinking of doing the same thing. I have a massive background in peaches, prunes and grapes. Grapes are the closest to MJ that I have experience with. I've run that same system trying to clone grapes faster because I was getting more orders for grapes than I had space. So to make my production bigger, I divided my room in half, horizontally. I made a platform over the first set of grape cuttings and put in a "second floor". I couldn't get any bigger area, so I had to come up with a way to double production. I had two separate lighting systems, I didnt run it off the same ballast. I made each area light tight. It worked fantastically. I made all my grape orders on time.

So.. for MJ, I am thinking of doing the same thing, because I want to have a harvest of 4-6 plants every 3-4 weeks. By splitting my space into 4 smaller spaces, this gives me my goal of multiple harvests in an 8 week period. Will it work? I have no idea, I am a newb to growing MJ. Do I think it will work from past experience with grapes? Hell yes! Just dont use the ducting that is bendable. It cuts your airflow really badly, very quickly. Hope this helps..

**View pic**

This is probably how I am now going to set it up. Another question I have that I didn't mention in my OP is that if I use the same ebb flow system with 12 buckets(6 in each tent). Can the flow still be the same for each set of plants even though they are on different light cycles? Ie if I have the system flood at noon one of the tents lights will be on the "day" cycle and the other on the "night" schedule. Will feeding affect my sleeping plants? Or does feeding matter day vs night?

Ok.. quick questions ... after looking at your set up, please know that I was in process to do EXACTLY that... until I got better answers.

Well.. I think they are better answers because I saw the system I am mimicking in full tilt operation. So its just MHO.

If you look at my grow journal, I started with a tent, but then before my seeds were 40 days old, I jettisoned the tent. My reasons were as follows:

I live next door to a cop. It doesnt matter that I have a legal card, my neighbor believes that because he has a dick and a badge, he can be a dick at any time he wants. He and I have no problems, but he does have issues with other neighbors and makes their lives less than pleasant. I CAN NOT have him smell anything. I like having a good relationship with him. It both terrifies me and tickles me that I have a cop car parked in the driveway next door. I have never invited him into my home before I began the grow, so its no different as far as that goes.

This was my one and driving concern... "What do I need to do to keep the smell IN my home and keep the heat out?" Most people quickly said "Just put it in a tent." The reality is... you have to open your tent, so I could not wrap my head around the idea that they could keep the smell IN, when the doors of the tent were wide open. A friend of mine introduced me to a local grower who offered to show me his set up. Like me, the other grower had major concerns with smell. My friend swore that when the plants were days before harvest you couldn't smell anything at all in his home. I had a hard time believing it, but my nose and eyes told me it was true.

I do not need a tent to hide what I am doing, as no one will ever be invited up into the grow room. Smells emitting from my home are the ONLY concern. So I have an entire 9.5 x 12 ft room to work in. I was invited to see a grow in a 10 x 11 sf room. For all intents and purposes, its the same exact size sq ft room. Walking into the home, you could smell nothing. Walking up the stairs, again, nothing. In the back of my head I am thinking "There certainly cant be any plants here ready to harvest, there is no smell at all." And then the door opened.... and I am sorry to admit, my jaw literally dropped. 6 plants about 4 foot tall looking like centerfolds right as the door opened. If you dont need the tent to hide what you are doing, then you need to consider a different idea. Do you need the tent? If not, I'll tell you more. If you do need the tent, you should be spot on. Like you, he had the mini split AC unit, and before I am done in this room, I will be installing one as well.

I don't NEED the tents. Go on...

Then get rid of them!

Powder mildew (PM) loves tents. The closed in space, low air flow, and high humidity and heat are prime for PM. Instead of tents, they were lollypopping and FIMing girlies that were at least 4 foot tall. His procedure was quite simple. He has a clone space that raises all his clones. He uses a t5 to clone with. That's in a closet. His room is set up with two 1000 watt bulbs on half of his room, Co2, and the mini split A/C. When the clones go into the flowering room, they are put in the back of the room. All plants are on buckets, or lifts of some sort. As they grow, more things that lift them are removed so as they get taller, the buckets and things are removed from under them. By doing it this way, the light is at the same height all the time and the plants are started out on top of something high to keep a canopy the same height. As the plants grow, they are lowered to keep an even canopy.

When I say the plants are four foot or more tall, I am not including the bucket height in the equation. All totaled, plant and bucket are at least 5 feet tall. In his 10 x 11 sq ft room he has about three rows of four to 5 plants in each row. These are MASSIVE plants. He is only using half his room. If he put in two more 1000 watt lights he could double his grow, but he has no interest in doing so.

While the plants are raised, he hand waters those plants until they finally get big enough to be on the ground, then his ebb flow system works right again. His plants are in trays, so that whey they are shorter, the excess water runs over the plastic raisers or buckets into the tray. It seems like a bastardization of several different methods, but I like that it allows you to harvest plants every few weeks, but not have to harvest an entire room.

By doing it this way, he keeps a good rotation of plants, the plants arent congested, and there is lots of good airflow. Good airflow, good temps = no powder mildew. At any given time, he is only 3 weeks away from a harvest of something. I liked this method for several reasons. I plan to raise more than one strain. One of my strains takes 11 weeks in flower. One strain takes 8 weeks. Because I dont want to raise just one strain and because I dont want to wait an entire grow cycle to get different strains, I decided this made the best sense for me. My main concern was smell. He is running two 6inch Can filters in the grow space. His CFM requrements are for 405 sq ft, he is running fans that are big enough to scrub the air, but he doesnt trust it, so he has two running, double what is needed. It is a closed room. No ducts. The Mini split is strong enough to keep the heat out of the room with the two 100watt bulbs.

You can stand outside of his grow room and not smell a blessed thing. Open the door... nirvana!

I'm copying every single thing he did, which is why you see a T5 in my photos on my grow journal. I didnt know I would do this until after I had bought my second tent.

I just did a smell test with Limburger cheese (no plants in the grow room at the time). Horrid stuff, but the air scrubbers worked very very well. That stuff stinks so bad that I had to put a little bit of vicks vapo rub under my nose to stop from smelling it before taking the bucket into the grow room.

Right now I have my baby seedlings which are in veg in the flowering room. Its the only thing I have in there, and I am so tickled with myself I can barely stand it. If you wanted to run two spaces, simply frame in a wall and separate the space. If it were me, I'd run my 12 hours at night, both lights when its cooler. If you need to use different feeding times for two sets of plants, then stagger feed in the same room.



This is MHO. I am currently on my first grow. I have had over 20 years raising grapes, peaches and prunes in the Sacramento Valley in Calif. I may be totally wrong... but thats where I am going.

I appreciate the info and all the time you took writing it, but the reason I am doing it this way(scrog, lollipop, fim) is so I can keep a short plant with as much yield as possible. I don't want 4'-5' plants. I want shorter ones with a lot of bud sites(scrog). It seems like a good idea in theory but I think I want to stick with the scrog. Maybe I'll just frame the room into two seperate rooms and ditch the tents. Anybody have any ideas for the feeding schedule?

That would work really well too. Ditch the tents. You have the kick ass cooler system that I am dying to install. It will keep two 1000 watt bulbs going in the same room a nice 80 degrees. If smell is an issue, get the air scrubbers. Stagger your feeding schedules. Good luck!

Tents aren't the best, but they can go up dawm quick, and can work pretty well.

Drop the CO2. Otherwise that image isn't so bad.

I have mixed thoughts on the flip flops. I wouldn't use them if I lived in a hot climate only cold unheated area to keep it warm throughout the day. Electrical spikes or whatever is of no concern.

K.I.S.S. Just save yourself some headache and get a tent that's 5x10 or 4x8 and use 2 1000's. Run the flower cycle at night. Monitor humidity and temps, adapt ventilation. You'd have to be poor as shit or dumb as shit to get powdery mildew indoors.

My neighbours a cop, I could give a shit. Don't get me wrong, I'm respectful of my neighbours, and I know he has a hard job. But he's no different than anyone else. I don't just pump unfiltered air towards his house, nor would I if there was a normal family living there, and I don't lose sleep over what I do.

- Jiji

It's always fun to try thing even if it's for nothing but for a tiny growop like that, you better to run 2 ballast at same time instead of put them on flip-flop,All your setup will shut at same time, alot of trouble for nothing! Your electric company can't make investigation for low consumption as 1kw/h or 2kw/h.

for 4 lights to 8 lights it could be a solution. but the unit cost same price as 4 more ballast .

what about just running the lights 24/7 and putting the sleeping plants in a dark area for 12 hours, then switch? i'd guess you could achieve , in potted grows, almost double the yield.

i ask because i'm planning on this, instead of building another layer to my room, as i had planned, htis seemed cheaper, as i'm just using the same space twice now