Vertical NFT room build

My fellow growers!



Since vertical growing in my country is not that populair I descided to ask my questions on this forum, I hope you guys can help me out.
I drawed the room design down, with numbers matching my questions, I hope this is clear enough. I have quite some experience with indoor growing on dirt, but want to make a switch to hydro. I love the way NFT works so I descided to start working with that. I am able to read the plants through EC and Ph so I think I will be fine. Also I would love to do a vertical grow for a change, simply because no one is doing it over here and 1gr/w is considered the standard of a good grow, I would love to see how I can do better than that.


I will be running with 99 plants and 4 HPS lights (probably 4x600w) in cooltubes. Available room size is 2m X 2m (6.5 ft x 6.5 ft). Will not be using Co2.


Here are my questions matching the drawing (I know in my drawing the upper channel is a bit high, that will be at normal height in the real room):

1) I currently have a 150 liter (39 Gallon) watertank available. Is this a proper size for the amount of plants?

2) I am thinking of running 4 tubes (or more if neccesairy, depending on the size of the outlet extractor) to the fan(s) in the center to bring in fresh air passively. Will this do the trick and give the plants enough fresh air circulation?

3) What size of outlet extractor will be needed here? Normally I take 1m3 for every watt I have on lights, so that will be around 2400m3 (7874 cubic foot). Since I will be using cooltubes will I probably have less temperature problems so I can probably take a smaller one, but I would love to have a little overcapacity so I dont have to run it at 100% and make unneccesairy noise.

4) I am thinking of placing to fans on the floor blowing air up, hitting the plants before hitting the outlet extractor. Thoughts on this? Is 2 a overkill? I see a lot of vertical growers still using clipfans from the top, my opinion is to always take cold air from the bottom and remove hot air from the top.

5) Is my NFT drain good to go the way I drawed it? So all stacked in line?

6) My NFT pipes have a total lenght of 6.5m (21.3 ft) holding around 25 plants per channel. Is a drop of 3% enough? So every meter I drop 3 cm. Total drop on the 6.5m is 19.5 cm (0.6 ft or 7.6 inch)

7) Can I run my cooltubes this way? So connected to the main exctractor? Or would I need a separate extractor for the cooltubes? I could imagine that the extractor will not be happy with the hot air, since the air is also cooling its motor. For that reason I always thought its better to push air through the cooltubes instead of sucking it through them. In that case, what size of extractor would I need to have optimal cooling in both double lighted cooltube channels?

8 ) What is the optimal distance between each netpot hole for our crops? Will probably be growing indicas SOG.

9) How much light can I run in the cooltubes? I often hear 600w is the max for a cooltube. is 4x750w an option?

10) I know its probably hard to give exact numbers on this, but in what rance of L/h or G/h waterpump do I have to look to have optimal water flow? Maybe anyone with a similair system can give me some ideas? I know it depends on the height the pump can lift the water, but I still see lots of difference in the numbers between different pumps matching the height.

11) I forgot my question I had while drawing, probaly smoked to much



I know its a lot off questions, but thanks in advance guys!

Quite the setup you have planned there mate,

NFT is a nice approach to hydroponics, been using this method for years.

The reservoir size could be bigger, hence it´s only 1,5 liters of water pr. plant, I would if space allows it go to 250-300 liters.

The idea of your air circulation sound good, you can always add an extra passive intake if needed.

600 Watt HPS lamps get very hot, even with cooltubes, sadly I cant remember the size I had when growing with 2 x 600 watt HPS lamps in cooltubes.

Some research on ventilation on the site can help you out.

Ground fans are a good idea, plus you should have some side fans, I think that in this scenario I would properly tend to have 3 or 4 fans in total.

Depending on their sizes of course.

When I had my setup the main extractor was placed on the seiling, so that all the air from the room forcing the cooler air from the room to pass through the cooltubes to the outside.

Your idea of having an extractor to push air through the cooltubes will of course help with the heat from the cooltubes, have not tryed this concept myself.

The drains might clog up with all them roots, what size are you thinking about for them, hence they need to be big.

Cant say is a 3% drop in the pipes is enough or good, hence mine were placed straight, like an AeroFlo setup.

4-6 inches between the netpots is what I often used to ave in the past when plenty of space, now I run 4, but mind you thats in a small closet.

2400 watts of power would be good, but more is always better of course, cant comment on the 750 mentioned.

Currently in my small scale 50 liter reservoir setup, I use a 1200 liter, with waterfalls, 2 in each pipe, pipes only 2 feet long mind you.

Have a good day...

Thanks for your comments Mellow. Channels are 110mm (4.5 inch), drain is 40mm (1.5 inch)

Okay, in regard to the drains, you can buy spareparts from GHE, their uniseal are for pipes in 50 mm,

Using the same size of pipes as you have I have not in my country found any uniseal that are bigger, it would also be hard to make them bigger in the 110 mm pipes...

I feel like your wasting space between your lights. I would design the nft in a figure of 8 so you have plants between the two sets of lights.

Cooltubes can remove around 1/3rd the heat. I used to run 3 600s on a 900m3/h fan and never had to go full speed unless it was mid summer.
But UK climate is somewhat cooler than France.

Cant figure out from your drawing how you have a filter and two ducts going into the fan.
I used to run filter>fan>tube>tube>tube>chimney. If your fans good enough you could set the whole system like that.

Filter top far left corner>fan>down tube one and two> back up tube 3 and 4 to outside.

Mellow old School said:

Okay, in regard to the drains, you can buy spareparts from GHE, their uniseal are for pipes in 50 mm,

Using the same size of pipes as you have I have not in my country found any uniseal that are bigger, it would also be hard to make them bigger in the 110 mm pipes...

Click to expand...

I can run 50s as a drain, no problem

coreywebster said:

I feel like your wasting space between your lights. I would design the nft in a figure of 8 so you have plants between the two sets of lights.

Cooltubes can remove around 1/3rd the heat. I used to run 3 600s on a 900m3/h fan and never had to go full speed unless it was mid summer.
But UK climate is somewhat cooler than France.

Cant figure out from your drawing how you have a filter and two ducts going into the fan.
I used to run filter>fan>tube>tube>tube>chimney. If your fans good enough you could set the whole system like that.

Filter top far left corner>fan>down tube one and two> back up tube 3 and 4 to outside.

Click to expand...

The 8 shape might be a good idea, but makes it almost impossible to get in properly.
The idea I had was just put them on the main extractor with extra openings, but I will probably just add a extra extractor for the cooltubes since I cant push that amount of air through the cooltubes. I will probably go for 2500m3 main fan, and 800m3 just for the cooltubes.
I’ve had summers running 4 1000s with a 5000m3 fan and still had high temperatures.