Check out my grow cabinet

LVsFINEST

Well-Known Member
Looking for some feedback on my cabinet thats going to house both the clone and flowering rooms. This cabinet is 78X36X24. The bottom half is 55.5 inches and the top half is 22.5. Theres a 4 inch duct joining the two chambers. I used spray foam to seal the inside edges of the self, and plan to line the outside edge of the self with weather stripping as soon as I can find some. I'll also probably need to line the doors with something because they're recessed.

My custom made aeroponic units are 15 inches tall - a 10 gallon roughneck inside a 14 gallon. The 396 pump resides in the bottom roughneck which acts as the reservoir. I started with StinkBud's designs tho, so alot of credit goes to him. I do plan on using 1 soil pot for a mother plant.

I'm using 4 24watt T5s up top, and a 400 watt HPS down below in a cool tube with a 6 inch Vortex fan. The fan is temporarily sitting on an upside down roughneck until I construct a better mount and intake that will also utilize the 4 inch ducting leading to the top. I also have a mini 6 inch oscillating fan too. The flex ducting isn't hooked up because my lamp is having issues. I'm taking it back to the hydro-shop tomorrow.

One huge problem is that my plants only have 6-7 inches to grow on top, and 27.5 to grow on the bottom... Kinda sucks, makes me wish I wouldn't have spent all this money on timers, roughnecks, pvc, etc for a hyrdo setup. Some pots and soil would have been lower profile and allowed the plants to grow larger. I think my hydro setup will kinda make it hard to do SOG style growing too but we'll see. A concern of mine is that 1 mother plant must live up top. She'll only have 22.5 inches including whatever pot. A 3 gallon pot is already 11 inches, so I'm really worried how the mother situation is going to work out.

I've never grown anything yet, but got some seeds from Nirvana already, and some on the way from Attitude. Too bad I placed the order from Nirvana before I even had the cabinet and was also a total n00b (well, still am I guess). I got some Jock Horror and Ice seeds. The Jock Horror is going to get tall so I'll probably have to trash it. I tried to find the best short strain I could tho the second time and came up with blue moonshine. They say it rarely goes over 3 feet outside and 2.5 inside. Hopefully I can get by with this strain as a mother and only 22.5 inches...
 

token211

Active Member
Damn cant believe i never seen this post.....and at the right time. i just found a cabinet just like yours in my mother inlaw's basement that she didn't know about....lol anyway i I've been looking all over the net to find something like this......Thank you... and u did great job.....i will be back to ask you tons of ?s
 

LVsFINEST

Well-Known Member
I'd be glad to help! Feel free to ask any questions or for any advice.

I'm only a couple weeks in and this setup is working great thus far. My seedlings are mostly between 1 and 2 inches.

It leaks alot of light out the cool tube ventilation exit and a little out the door hinges. It also makes a slight noise, sounds exactly like air coming out of a vent (duh lol), even with the fan on low. All timers, wires, the ballast, powerstrip etc reside outside the cab too. I've got the tallest cabinet I could find and I'm still strapped for height, so I'm stuck growing primarily indica strains. My airoponic units use up alot of height, growing with soil would give extra inches to both veging and flowering. Just things to keep in mind, it all depends on how much stealth and what strains you will be growing...

But anyway, ask as many questions as you have! I will help you best I can!
 

token211

Active Member
1. well with the veg chamber on top, are there any light leaks into the flower cab during dark hours.
2. i'm curious about the exhaust. the can fan inside the cab on the tote. can u explain that for me.
3. what is temps and humidity normally around
 

LVsFINEST

Well-Known Member
1. No, its light proof between the two chambers. The spray foam around the inside edges was easy (and also reinforces strength), but the front edge where the doors open took alot of work. I used multiple layers of weather stripping and also a foam strip, which I found right with the weather stripping at Lowes. On the doors, I duck taped white cardboard because of the metal hump that runs on both doors to make a level surface. I then used all kinds of different thickneses of weather stripping to seal up the nooks and crannys. The doors arent' fancy but it works. Also, moonlight can sometimes be quite bright. A little bit of indirct, faint light here or there is definitly not a problem. Direct bright light is diferent.

2. LOL, thats still a work in progress... Basically, its just a 6 inch Vortex inline fan plugged into a speed controller so its on low, and runs all the time. I attached the mounts to the fan (so thats what the metal legs you're seeing are), but haven't mounted it yet. I just put it on an upside down 14 gallon roughneck for now, so it would be closer to the duct that joins the two chambers, and also the plants. The 2foot long, 4 inch metal duct that joins the two chambers is hard to see and kind of blends in between the flexible ducting and reflective sheet. You can see it on one of the pics above if you look hard enough, its on the closup of the top of the fan and ducting.

3. For Humidity, the highest I've ever seen it go is only 46%, the lowerst was 20%. The humidity pretty much stays the same between both chambers. As for the temps, it gets hot sometimes. The bottom stays at a consistent 84-85F when the light is on, and drops to 68 with the light off. I've never seen the flower chamber go above 85F tho. The top fluctuates between 76-83F. This is with a 42w cfl I added (not seen in the pics) for the mother. It never went about 80F before adding the cfl. The cabinet is also in my basement, so the atmosphere is usually cold and dry.
 

LVsFINEST

Well-Known Member
Well, it's been a while and I'm down to just one plant out of twelve now. Over half were males, and don't ask about the others. Of all to survive tho, it was the freakin free g13 fem WW seed. Oh well. Here's some pics I just took tho. The mother is kinda small, she don't get much light.
 

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