BlueFish
Active Member
So, my friends and I decided to start growing recently. Problem is, we all live in small apartments. So, we decided to design and build a box from the ground up with everything we need integrated into it, and design it so it looks like a large cabinet. We also settled on using aeroponics since I'm very experienced with plants (I worked at a landscape center for 8 years).
The system has been constructed, and from all accounts I'd say it's working beautifully. The seedlings have only been growing for a few days and they're already about four inches tall, and a nice deep green color.
With everything accounted for, including seeds and a new drill and sander, it cost us just over 500 dollars. Our lighting setup uses a 400 watt electronic ballast that supports MH and HPS bulbs. I'd say we came out pretty good on the cost.
Now, my question is, am I missing anything that could make my grow go better, or that we could do differently on the next box? Here's a description of our setup. To warn you, it's going to be pretty long winded.
The box itself has two compartments. The main, growing compartment is 5'x4'x2', plus a 1'x1'x2' cubby hole for all the electrical equipment. The second compartment is 4'x1'x2', and will be used for drying. It also holds all my fertilizers right now. The whole thing is made out of 1/4" plywood, braced with 1x2s (definitely using sturdier wood for the doors next time). The total dimensions of the box are 5 feet tall by 5 feet wide by 2 feet deep.
Our reservoir is a 32 gallon tub I cut down to 10" tall, which now holds about 15 gallons. The aeroponics sit directly on top of it, with less than half an inch of clearance to give us the most growing room. The tub had to be reinforced after cutting the top off to keep it from bowing out. I've got a large hole cut in the lid between the tubes to access the nutrient solution for measuring the TDS and pH and topping it off. The hole is covered with some of our scrap plywood to keep algae growth down. The entire aeroponics system is more or less completely lightproof.
Our lighting is a single 400 watt bulb suspended by a nylon cord in a simple reflector. To adjust the height, I screwed 3 wood screws into some of the bracing and a second eye hook into the corner to prevent a sideways force from pulling the nylon cord off the screws. The screws are set 2 inches apart, so I can adjust the height of the lamp in 2" increments just by wrapping and unwrapping some cord. Currently the lamp is about a foot off the top of the plants, which has caused the ones at the far ends of the tubes to turn fairly sharply to face the light. I'm considering raising the lamp another 6 inches to straighten them up a bit.
The lamp itself is a 55,000 lumen HPS (the Home Depot here has very unreasonable prices on horizontal burn MH lamps), which gives me 6,875 lumens and 50 watts per square foot of canopy, which from what I've read should be pretty good. The lamp is on a cheap analog timer with an 18/6 cycle, with night coming at 9 AM to keep electricity costs down (it also helps keep my apartment warm at night, this thing produces a lot of heat).
The walls are currently just bare wood because I didn't have time to paint. For my next grow, I've got a can of Kilz primer I'm going to coat the whole inside in to increase lighting efficiency. I figure this grow will be fine without it since our light output is a good bit higher than necessary. I opted not to use mylar because of the high humidity resulting from an aero setup, and I didn't want mold growing behind the mylar where I couldn't see until it was too late.
The aeroponics consists of four PVC pipes. Two 4" pipes which the plants sit in, and two 1/2" pipes which the spray nozzles are screwed into. Each pipe is 3.5' long. The 4" grow tubes have 1.75" holes drilled 6 inches on center, which are fitted with 2" net pots for a nice snug fit. The half inch spray tube is powered by a 590 GPH pump (overkill, but I didn't want to find out that 300 GPH wouldn't cut it and have to buy a bigger one). The sprayers used are the EZ-Clone sprayers, and they're working decently.
The spray tubes are mounted inside the grow tubes in such a way that there is a sprayer on either side of every hole, which means every sprayer shared by two plants except the ones on the edges. This provides a level of redundancy so if a single sprayer gets clogged, the plant still has a source of water until I fix the system. The spray tubes enter the grow tubes through the end cap with a 1" hole drilled. The end cap is rotated so the hole does not leak (it actually does leak about a drop every minute or so, but it falls into a channel on the lid of the reservoir and runs back in). To return the water to the reservoir, another 1" hole is drilled into the bottom of the grow tube and a 3" section of half inch pipe is glued on. This pipe runs through a 1" hole in the lid of the reservoir. The result is a somewhat pleasant trickling sound as the water returns. I'm planning on using the scrap of plastic cut off the lid to modify the reservoir for silent return, but that will have to wait until after the first grow.
The pump runs constantly right now. I've heard conflicting advice about how to run it. I'd like to get a high resolution timer and set it to run something like 2 minutes on/3 off.
For ventilation, I have two fans set up. The first is just a little rotary fan I got in a thrift store for a dollar to keep the air moving. This fan is screwed into the roof. The second is a 4" inline duct fan, which draws air in through a homemade filter and expels the air through a repurposed dryer vent quickconnect coupling (2 dollars at home depot, and works perfectly). I estimate that it can change the air out in the box every 2-3 minutes, and that's if my filter cut the flow by 75%. A small slit at the bottom of the box allows air from the drying compartment to flow into the grow compartment so the ventilation system can vent both to some degree. Currently there are quite a few gaps in the box as I haven't gone back and put all the screws in (most panels are connected by only 3 at the moment), so there is no intake. After shoring up the gaps I plan to cut a small intake in the back.
To lock the box I've got a couple of barrel locks, which is just to prevent passing curiosity if somebody happens to see the box.
I'm planning to add new nutrients and additives periodically, as I figure that's the best way to improve my harvest at this point. Any recommendations on which ones to get are very welcome. I'm growing White Widow right now, and plan to try out something different for my second grow. Any recommendations there are also very welcome. Where we are it's hard to find sativas, so we're all leaning towards high sativa strains for now.
So, is there anything I'm missing? Anything I could be doing better? Any general advice to a first time grower? Any guesses as to how much we can expect to harvest out of our box (it's about 1 cubic meter of usable space)?
If you guys like I can post some pictures of the box once I get things cleaned up a bit. Currently a lot of my tools I've been using frequently are living on top of it.
The system has been constructed, and from all accounts I'd say it's working beautifully. The seedlings have only been growing for a few days and they're already about four inches tall, and a nice deep green color.
With everything accounted for, including seeds and a new drill and sander, it cost us just over 500 dollars. Our lighting setup uses a 400 watt electronic ballast that supports MH and HPS bulbs. I'd say we came out pretty good on the cost.
Now, my question is, am I missing anything that could make my grow go better, or that we could do differently on the next box? Here's a description of our setup. To warn you, it's going to be pretty long winded.
The box itself has two compartments. The main, growing compartment is 5'x4'x2', plus a 1'x1'x2' cubby hole for all the electrical equipment. The second compartment is 4'x1'x2', and will be used for drying. It also holds all my fertilizers right now. The whole thing is made out of 1/4" plywood, braced with 1x2s (definitely using sturdier wood for the doors next time). The total dimensions of the box are 5 feet tall by 5 feet wide by 2 feet deep.
Our reservoir is a 32 gallon tub I cut down to 10" tall, which now holds about 15 gallons. The aeroponics sit directly on top of it, with less than half an inch of clearance to give us the most growing room. The tub had to be reinforced after cutting the top off to keep it from bowing out. I've got a large hole cut in the lid between the tubes to access the nutrient solution for measuring the TDS and pH and topping it off. The hole is covered with some of our scrap plywood to keep algae growth down. The entire aeroponics system is more or less completely lightproof.
Our lighting is a single 400 watt bulb suspended by a nylon cord in a simple reflector. To adjust the height, I screwed 3 wood screws into some of the bracing and a second eye hook into the corner to prevent a sideways force from pulling the nylon cord off the screws. The screws are set 2 inches apart, so I can adjust the height of the lamp in 2" increments just by wrapping and unwrapping some cord. Currently the lamp is about a foot off the top of the plants, which has caused the ones at the far ends of the tubes to turn fairly sharply to face the light. I'm considering raising the lamp another 6 inches to straighten them up a bit.
The lamp itself is a 55,000 lumen HPS (the Home Depot here has very unreasonable prices on horizontal burn MH lamps), which gives me 6,875 lumens and 50 watts per square foot of canopy, which from what I've read should be pretty good. The lamp is on a cheap analog timer with an 18/6 cycle, with night coming at 9 AM to keep electricity costs down (it also helps keep my apartment warm at night, this thing produces a lot of heat).
The walls are currently just bare wood because I didn't have time to paint. For my next grow, I've got a can of Kilz primer I'm going to coat the whole inside in to increase lighting efficiency. I figure this grow will be fine without it since our light output is a good bit higher than necessary. I opted not to use mylar because of the high humidity resulting from an aero setup, and I didn't want mold growing behind the mylar where I couldn't see until it was too late.
The aeroponics consists of four PVC pipes. Two 4" pipes which the plants sit in, and two 1/2" pipes which the spray nozzles are screwed into. Each pipe is 3.5' long. The 4" grow tubes have 1.75" holes drilled 6 inches on center, which are fitted with 2" net pots for a nice snug fit. The half inch spray tube is powered by a 590 GPH pump (overkill, but I didn't want to find out that 300 GPH wouldn't cut it and have to buy a bigger one). The sprayers used are the EZ-Clone sprayers, and they're working decently.
The spray tubes are mounted inside the grow tubes in such a way that there is a sprayer on either side of every hole, which means every sprayer shared by two plants except the ones on the edges. This provides a level of redundancy so if a single sprayer gets clogged, the plant still has a source of water until I fix the system. The spray tubes enter the grow tubes through the end cap with a 1" hole drilled. The end cap is rotated so the hole does not leak (it actually does leak about a drop every minute or so, but it falls into a channel on the lid of the reservoir and runs back in). To return the water to the reservoir, another 1" hole is drilled into the bottom of the grow tube and a 3" section of half inch pipe is glued on. This pipe runs through a 1" hole in the lid of the reservoir. The result is a somewhat pleasant trickling sound as the water returns. I'm planning on using the scrap of plastic cut off the lid to modify the reservoir for silent return, but that will have to wait until after the first grow.
The pump runs constantly right now. I've heard conflicting advice about how to run it. I'd like to get a high resolution timer and set it to run something like 2 minutes on/3 off.
For ventilation, I have two fans set up. The first is just a little rotary fan I got in a thrift store for a dollar to keep the air moving. This fan is screwed into the roof. The second is a 4" inline duct fan, which draws air in through a homemade filter and expels the air through a repurposed dryer vent quickconnect coupling (2 dollars at home depot, and works perfectly). I estimate that it can change the air out in the box every 2-3 minutes, and that's if my filter cut the flow by 75%. A small slit at the bottom of the box allows air from the drying compartment to flow into the grow compartment so the ventilation system can vent both to some degree. Currently there are quite a few gaps in the box as I haven't gone back and put all the screws in (most panels are connected by only 3 at the moment), so there is no intake. After shoring up the gaps I plan to cut a small intake in the back.
To lock the box I've got a couple of barrel locks, which is just to prevent passing curiosity if somebody happens to see the box.
I'm planning to add new nutrients and additives periodically, as I figure that's the best way to improve my harvest at this point. Any recommendations on which ones to get are very welcome. I'm growing White Widow right now, and plan to try out something different for my second grow. Any recommendations there are also very welcome. Where we are it's hard to find sativas, so we're all leaning towards high sativa strains for now.
So, is there anything I'm missing? Anything I could be doing better? Any general advice to a first time grower? Any guesses as to how much we can expect to harvest out of our box (it's about 1 cubic meter of usable space)?
If you guys like I can post some pictures of the box once I get things cleaned up a bit. Currently a lot of my tools I've been using frequently are living on top of it.