Advice for Speaker Cabinet Grow

So I have seven seedlings under a 4' shop light with a space heater in my closet. I intend to tie them down to increase the eventual yields of the females, take a clone or two from each, then sex and flower them. The males will be removed and the females allowed to flower and bud.

In the meantime, I want to take the best plants and continue to grow them in a stealthier manner (I do not like my entire walk-in closet being devoted to these babies, but cannot risk my suits for work smelling of herbs). My setup right now only cost me about $20, so I am willing to throw some money at a stealth build.

Lo and behold... in my basement is an empty speaker cabinet. It is 26" tall x 24" long x 12.5" deep. the actual interior growing space is 20" tall x 22" long x 10" deep.

As far as I can figure, I need to:

1) Coat the inside with mylar, or paint it white (currently painted black).
2) Cut intake and exhaust holes, and mount fans.
3) Drill holes for CFLs, and wire sockets.
How many CFLs would I need for this space? I was thinking maybe 4 big ones?

4) Mount temp/humidity gauge. Will heat be an issue? I'm concerned that it will actually be too cold inside.

5) lightproof it? It still has the 14" hole in the center of the front for the speaker itself, and there's a foam plate that can cover it, but it won't stop much light. Then again, I could just put it up against a wall in my basement, but that defeats the purpose of a stealth grow.

6) is the cabinet too small? My plan was to root the clones, immediately flower them, and then take more clones just before harvest. this would avoid the need for a dedicated mother plant. does this work?

Thanks for your help in advance - you all were invaluable in helping me start my seedlings!

I'm not much of an "expert" when growing in small spaces, but many people do it successfully, so I'm sure you can pull it off. May take some trial and error lol.

But from you last numbered line, you sound like you're going to keep cloning a clone from a clone, and if you do that you're going to quickly destroy the plants potency. Also, if you clone the plants, then flower almost right away, don't you think the plant would be too small to be able to successfully clone from?

So then I should never flower the mother? How will I know which mother to keep around?

I thought the potency thing only becomes an issue if you KEEP doing it. ... which I guess is what I was suggesting. but I could still clone the plant once, and then keep the clone as a mother, yeah?

hokey hombre said:

So then I should never flower the mother? How will I know which mother to keep around?

I thought the potency thing only becomes an issue if you KEEP doing it. ... which I guess is what I was suggesting. but I could still clone the plant once, and then keep the clone as a mother, yeah?

Click to expand...

Keep the healthiest looking female as the mother. After she gets old, yes, you'll want to flower her and get a new one.

Yes, if you KEEP doing it, you'll have weak smoke. I wouldn't keep the clone as the mother. Keep the MOTHER as the mother and flower the clone. Whatever strain you have, you want to try to keep its genetics as straight and undiluted as possible.

OK. So let's change the topic of this thread. What's an inexpensive way to build a homeostasis chamber for a mother plant?

And wait. How am I supposed to know which are female if I never flower them?

Just keep the plant in a seperate veg area, away from 12/12 light. You shouldn't need any kind of special homeostatsis chamber.

One way to tell if its female is to put it in flower for 10 or so days, and as soon as you can tell whats what, pick one and put it back into veg. Another way is to veg it until it shows sex. It will do it before you flower as long as you let it veg long enough, it'll show the same signs of gender. Good luck to ya, off to bed