My First grow

did you ever think that with the stocks being bent so much that the plant can't form really good bud sites because you look at some of the stocks and they are redirected in multiple ways

after watching mine start to grow, the leaves where i originally had pressed against things or in weird positions have a hard time making bud sites... so they are so condensed together doesn't it need more room?

so thats why its taking so long

I honestly dunno man, it really might be, i'm just trying to keep her under control, and actually finish. Thats my primary concern now, just getting through the grow and coming out with something at the end.....If she wouldn't have gotten this big (timer was not on 12 exactly), then i figure alot of this wouldnt' have happened...and she'd be 1/3 size smaller or more.....Cant really do much more than control what i have.

ever think about taking clones at this point, you'd get some plants outta it and it would make it smaller in a worth while way

Yea i considered it, but i just feel i can get her to finish, she just needs to go ahead and flip over and start flowering, and i'm only waiting for her, all i'm seeing is just hairs......nothing more.

If i did clone could i cut 4-5 of them off and save them in anyway? I'd really like to see her through......

EDIT:

I just got back from target, i purchased this for my grow cabinet. 26x19x36", it was $50. I havn't assembled it yet, but a friend of mine has one and its got 2 adjustable shelves.



Any suggestions on things to keep in mind while i'm designing it.....I'll be building it over the next week-week.5 as i get more of my paper done, and my finals are over.

I want to design it once, and not have to patch holes that didn't work correctly.....Do you think that space is too small for a 150w HPS, in a cool tube? (what will this cost me to make?) Thats the most obvious way of venting a pretty damn heat source. I'm thinking of using the same 78cfm fan as output, and computer fans as inputs......is there any way of quieting the fan down, or putting a limit switch on the current its getting so that it moves slower=quieter, though airflow plumets.

I'm going to spray paint the inside black, then line it with those reflective things for cars.

Just finished putting the box together......

Any suggestions as to what i can do, how to arrange things, where to put my outputs, etc? I'm trying to do this similar to how picasso did his cabinet, but smaller scale, and for a single, possibly a vegging plant as well.

Anyway heres some pictures of it.....i feel like anything is possible with this cabinet.....anything.

First i'm going to go around all of the seals on the inside, where two pieces meet, and bring them tight togther with black duct tape, should seal all of the open seams, as duct tape is airproof. My biggest concern is where to output the hot air, as i only want 1 hole in, and one hole out, to keep it sealed best, going to use rubber weatherstripping around all door seems, but i need to figure up or make something so that i can latch it at the top and bottom to keep the negative pressure on the inside constant. And also trying to keep temperatures down to 75-80F.



Inside



And one of the back.



Anyway lemme know what you think of this, i'm going to try and see if my girl will fit as is into the box, and if so then i'll continue with her, if not then i may take a clone, etc, and restart her off new with a femmed clone, in a 12" pot.

right on! i was thinking on going with one of those type cabs for my grow at one point... 150 watt HPS should go just fine in there!

i bet it will paint as poorly as Monkee said the Rubbermaid would.

best advice on ventilation: NO intake fans, only exhaust. if you use intake fans, you will force air out every nook and cranny in that box.... active exhaust and it will pull fresh air in from them... helps with oder and temp control.

next, try and put the exhaust in the very top of the cab... if you dont want the port to be noticeable from the top, put it on the back side at the very top... put the intake on the very bottom in an opposite corner.

to make the fans quieter, mount them on rubber stripping and wire tie them in place rather than using hard mounting hardware.

try and use PVC instead of dryer ducting for the intakes and the exhaust pipes... smoother means quieter and more efficient air flow.

notice something with Picasso's cab... he has an air filter for his room mounted on the top... this makes a logical source for fan noise that any company might notice.... excellent bit of misdirection on his part.

as for the rest, if it was my cab, i would probably make the top section where i put all my electrics and ballasts and such.

i would then put a shelf about 6-10 inches under that for my clone area with very weak floro lights to not veg worth a damn... just enough to keep clones alive and have them take root before dropping them in to flower... if you require a veg space, use the Rubbermaid tub for that.

then, i would use the remaining area for the flower tank with a nice ScrOG.

use a flap of some heavy plastic that velcros in place to light seal the flower area.

if you go cool tube, i would run a separate ventilation line for it rather than using it for the tank's exhaust.

hope that made sense... i will go back to my "morning" coffee and bong now

Haha thanks bfq, alot of good ideas there. i've alot to say so hold on.....

As for mounting feet for the fan, i need to figure up some way of mounting the 4" inline duct fan i have, a plumming rubber pvc boot to screw it into or something, i figure i can wrap the fan body with something (sorta like sound dampener), to hopefully kill any resonances in the tin (tin is very thin and resonates very loudly at high frequencies).

I also purchased a single 2 light switch to put on the outside on a side, fans will be on 24/7, so no need of on/off for it, just lights and mainly the UVB, so 1 switch on/off for main lights, then on/off for UVB for easy access and no need to fiddle around the back of it and mess with ALOT of wiring and cords, will only have 1 extension cord coming out, compaired to my 3 120v AC's going into a splitter then going into the box....very hard to move and cable management sucks.

As for the Ducting, i got a 8' section of it at lowes, 4", but after your suggestion of using something "cleaner, less rippled" on the inside for air to transfer through would be alot quieter, what would be flexible enough to articulate as needed and be very clean on the inside?, i'm going to try and line the whole enclosure with a material to hopefully quieten the whole cabinet (carpet padding type material), you can tap your finger on a side and it tends to resonate nicely, with a moderate thud, so i need to cover the sides with a material to mass load the panels, should make it moderalty quieter on the outside as well.

I decided against painting the inside to keep the light in, and instead i'm just going to cut cardboard panels the proper size, and spray glue them car windshield things onto the panels so they sit inside and can be removed when needed.

I saw lowes had 150W HPS bulbs for $16, and the 50-75-and 100w were the same costs, i couldn't find any ballasts that worked for it, Said on box ANSI S55 ballast........What kind of temps will i get with the HPS if i get it, also suggested footprint for a 200w is 2'x2' square, do i need a 200w?. Theres a few ways i've thought of doing this to keep temps down hopefully......

-Cool tube seems like the best bet, Fan on 1 end pulling out, the end of the cool tube, perforated with holes to allow air exchange from the inside of the cabinet to the outside using a single fan. Where can find the Plexiglass tubes for this and i need to make an end cap for air to be allowed in, pass by the bulb, then out through where the bulb screw into socket. reflector On the top half of the plexi cylinder if the bulb is horizontal at the top for best light dispertion.....Biggest problem is moving enough air through the cool tube to be able to clean it with my homemade carbon filter. I also bought a febreeze carbon filter that you plug into your wall that constantly circulates a moderate amount of air....that'll be put into the flower chamber to clean some air as well before the output fans pull it out and push it through the carbon filter i made.

-I can get a cooled ballast, simply air coming in from outside, pushed through hood and then out, but i need 2 fans that way, 1 for light and 1 for cabinet, only 1 Carbon filter needed for cabinet fan, so thats 2x the cost for the airflow. This is how picasso did it in his grow, using 2 250+cfm fans, one for ballast, 1 for area.

But i do agree with your thought about having all electrical shoved up top, seems the best bet, and best organized, an no fear of dropping water on the electronics.

I really don't even know if i need a veg chamber, would be nice, but i figure if i can put a single girl on one side, then a very small 1ftx1ft (1/3 of bottom width) little area can be partitioned off on the bottom to just house a single clone for rooting and some veg. Ideally from what i've seen with my own grow so far, 2-3weeks veg 18 or 16hrs then straight to 12/12 and let her grow into the screen. Another idea is to put on shelf at the top as suggested, then the lower shelf to a point where the pot could stick through the shelf and hang into a lower chamber....thats where i can have my veg chamber, and drop the Cubic feet inside the chamber to just at the shoulder of the pot....less air to heat/less air to move and clean....also give me a chamber for veg if need be.

I really want to keep going with the scrog's i just love the interactivness. But really only wanting 1plant in flower and a single in veg/clone, with a scrog i should be able to yield more than enough for myself over a 2-3month period.

Hope that wasn't painful to read.

Just wanted to add something.....

How much height do i need for a single clone to root and veg for mabey a ~week before putting it in to the flower chamber... to veg again for another week-2 before throwing her to flower..., just want to allow myself plenty of room and no have any height problems......gotta design with height in mind.

nah, that wasnt painful to read

you are not likely to find a plexi tube to use.... what i have seen people talk about using is Pyrex (glass) tubes... seems they make these for baking and can be grabbed on ebay.

the moment you use the HID's cooling to cool the room it is no longer a cool tube though.... it is now a vented hood... which is probably easier to deal with in a smaller area like this.... can use a regular hood that has an intake and an exhaust duct and no plexi bottom to the hood, just let the air flow.... might even be able to skip the intake for the hood and let it intake the air from the bottom of the cab.

i think in an op this size, you have no choice but to put the ballast out side of the chamber.

yes, S55 ballast is what you need... i have seen them online for somewhere around $20-$30. i think you might be able to buy one at Lowe's or Home Depot as a security fixture and then just take it apart.

one thing i have noticed is that Lowes tends to not have the more commercially oriented stuff that Home Depot has... like inline vent fans... Lowes doesnt have them, but Home Depot does for like $30.... point is, if Lowes only has replacement bulbs for HID systems, i would almost bet Home Depot has the ballasts.

height that clones needs mostly depends on the size you cut your clones at and how big your tray is for them. my clones have about 10 inches under the lights because i am using really small clones right now (hasty hasty hasty) and they do not do any growing at all until they hit the grow medium. clones will hang out for a fairly long period of time under weak lights and not do much vertical growing... meaning, you can dictate the size your clones need a lot easier than you can a vegging or flowering plant.

generally, it takes about a week or so for the clone to root and then i put them in a small pot with soil for about a week and then they go into the final pot and get tossed into flower in the ScrOG. This keeps them nice and short and easy to deal with in my short area.

what you might want to think about is a small separate thing for clones and then splitting that cab into three areas... a very top area running the whole width for the electrics, fans, meter LCD's, timers, ballasts and kitchen sink.... then, splitting the lower area vertically into a left and right... put a 100 or 150 watt HPS in each side and a ScrOG under... you can then use each one to veg and flower and stagger your crops and get more wattage in your area... one plant per side.

as for wattage, personally, i think as long as you arent starting fires there is no such thing as too much... if you can go with a 250 watter instead of a 150 watter you wont regret it! bigger bulb means bigger denser buds.

what ever you do, spend a couple weeks just plotting how you will use this space... apply all you have learned from your personal experience and the stuff you can see works on other people's cabs and give it some solid thought. done right, you could be building the grow op you use for many years to come.

and i just scrolled up and reread what you asked about the bud sites laying over....

what will happen is you will wind up with the smaller budlets standing up to the light and becoming larger than they normally would have.... it is quiet pretty to watch them fill out and become thick nugs

I like your idea about splitting the cabinet down the middle......but that would require 2 ballasts and 2 bulbs, i highly doubt i can get anything online as i'll need to pay with cash when i buy the bulb/ballast, so i'll stick with 1 bulb/ballast for now, and 250w sounds ideal, 150w people have complained as i've seen with penetration for a scrog, and i plan on having it as wide as the cabinet is, so 250w it is, ballast more expensive?

I'm not sure if i follw what you were saying about the HID's and cooling the room, but i figure to use a single hood if i don't do the cooltube, but the cooltube seems like the most compact efficient way with a 250w. I never saw the 250w bulbs there. The 400w was 19$, so should be between 16-20$ i'd think, the ballast probobly a little more ~40-50 if the 150w you say is $20-30, which is alot cheaper than i was seeing online at like HTGsupply.com and all. So i can get away with a $50-60 HPS setup. cheaper than i figured. Sorta sucks now that i have $40 worth of 42w cfl's, i'll still use the UVB for more resin/cannabinoid conversion.

But planning on bumping from a 8" to a 12"pot though, planning on making up my own soil mix, bone meal, some dolomitic lime, anything else i need for a made soil, vermiculite for air, etc, will look into this more later.

The 12" pot is centered in this picture as i plan it, if i cut a hole so the pot sits up to its collar where it gets wider then i have 8" to the floor, pot is only 6.5", so i plan on putting a bowl of some sort for drainage as i don't beleive i'll be able to remove her if i do the scrog as planned, but water collection below the pot, then siphon it out i guess, this will most likely stay there for awhile.

making sure that my timers are set to more like 11/13 rather than 12/12 as that just fk'd me all up on size. But doing a scrog, veg for 2-4 weeks and let her fill out the screen, then flower her and watch her bud up through the screen, like she was supposed to origionally.....

Over the next little while i'm going to i guess keep my girl going in the rubbermaids and just see what i can do with her, but also keep building up the box week by week, not sure if i wanna wait till i move before i restart or what......

Should be able to buy the light/ballast next week i think, linings etc over the week/etc. Trying to make this a highly successful 1 time deal that works for years and years.

Anyway pictrues i made up.





I need to figure out something for lighting for the time being, i'm gonna see if i can make up a makeshift ballast to group all my CFL's together for the time being and string her up inside the cabinet and test it in a few days, and see what kinda temps i can get, i might for the time being continue the grow in that box. I can then remove the top scrog and let her open up some with the extra vertical room. Will probobly build up a carboard box with a reflector, then wire up my 4 42w and 2 23wers inside that box and use it as a hood of sorts., this is only thinking out loud to keep her for the time being, i just don't want to get rid of her and i really want to see her come to finish.

look in the growfaq, there is an article on removing the CFL ballasts from the bulbs.

check this:
150W HPS 120V Ballast - Plantlighting Hydroponics

and while i like the novelty of your clone areas, i do not think that will be tall enough for you with lights in there and the tray/heating pad.

So if i got that kit, then i would need a socket, bulb, and wire?

Socket on the same page, the 4Kv one is $9.

Is a 150w large enough for the space i have for quality buds in a side scrog like 1'x2.5', i feel 250 is too much for the space i have, and they don't make 175's or 200's. And people have complained about having the 150w for a small scrog 1'x1'. Also Whats preferred mogul or medium base sockets? If i buy i'm going to buy all at the same place, $30 ballast kit, $15 Bulb, $9 socket. Gotta figure up a reflector of some sorts.

How discreet is there boxing when they ship to you?

i have no idea how they ship, that is a link i found through Google, just sent for an idea of pricing.

as for socket type, that depends i think on size requirements and replacement bulb types.

you have 2.5 square foot of grow area... 150 watts would give you about 60 watts a square foot... various book writing types have said that 50 watts per square foot is a decent rule of thumb... i try and beat that and consider myself happy a 250 would give 100 watts per square foot, so that would probably be super sweet.

i think a normal old box type reflector would be the easiest, cheapest and fit the small area the best... but parabolic ones give better reflection paths.

Bared On My End... Change Over Here, Catching Up B4 Harv...!!! Journal Updated With Some Serious Porn...

Plant Is Looking Nice.!!! A New Pic... I Feel By Putting The Second Stage Up This Makes The First One More Support,,, Light Pen. Is The Issue Here.
Just My Thoughts, I Have Done It... Cut The Bitch Back To Were U Need Her At Take The Loss,,, She Will Make It.!!! So Are We Any Dam Closer To Flowering.??? Db.~tlb!

And The Box Pic Should Be I Diy!!! Very Nice Pic... Should Be Shared.!!!

Which pic you talkin about Db?

I'm throwing around plans, got some lining for the box today, i'm gonna try and make it as sound proof as possible, and then i'm going to figure out a way to quieten down the inline fan i have, i'm creative enough to figure up a solution to the problem i think.

I've also figured up a cloning chamber by sectioning off the bottom (6"wide area 12" tall, 19" deep). I'll put 2 23w CFL's down there......

I'm honestly not sure if i even need a 250whps, would a 150w be enough as i've already spent like 40 dollars in red cfls's? they make nothing between either as i thikn a 175 or a 200 would be ideal. I want to have the box finished by the end of the week minus the HPS, if not the weekend. I can get the hps in the future I'm on a student budget lol, but i'm planning on making only 1 cut through the top for the vent to pass through so it must work for my CFL hood and HPS when i add it.

Some tips i think from the zn or mg def is getting a tad crispy.

I'm a DIYer at heart, i love hands on work, would have built a box but no where to do any wood work.

But it'll be boxed off under it to keep the space ~1fcf for the clone chamber, then the rest of the bottom for nute/ph/storage/etc.

Picked up some 1/2" carpet padding today to line the interior areas 2-3layers thick for sound absorption potential, and will screw foam core panels into the uprights to give a hard inner shell, this will go on all interior panels. Scrog will sit inside this on wooden uprights, have yet to figure up design of scrog, will either build it myself with wire/foamcore, or buy a material netting.

Planning on keeping with the CFL's for now until i can afford the HPS, i really see a benefit of the 250 over the 150 in this size space......

EDIT: Sorry if i repeat alot of stuff in those two posts, i thought i hadn't submitted and flipped to another page then hit the back button and tried to rewrite everything....

The Pic Is The Diagram Of The Layout Of The Box... That Would Be Nice To See In The Diy Section Here. That Looked Sweat.!!! Db.~tlb!

Oh don't worry, will be documenting the whole build, and will start a thread in the DIY/Growroom Design section when i start lining it tommorrow after a final. Should take mabey a week-2weeks to finish, minus the HPS (depending on funds as to when i can get it).

But thanks, i try to take pride in my craftsmanship, i love hands on work, and i do hope that it will show with a very nice stealth cabinet, as i was really limited with the rubbermaids.

Just a little update, been building for the last few hrs, and i got a nice base to build from now.

Heres the thread of the build. https://www.rollitup.org/grow-room-design-setup/84700-sterilite-scrog-cabinet-build.html#post987515

As far as the girl goes, she's looking great, didnt' get a chance to take a picture of her before she went to sleep a few ago, but color (from rusting) is slowly cloming back to her, and i've stopped use of UVB as its just too close to the top as seems to be doing negative as i saw yesterday (Looked like a few pistil hairs looked burned on the end, so no UVB today at all and theres some nice long hairs coming in, and overall heads seem to be going towards flowering moreso.....so mabey she'll actually do something for me.

Did some measurements and all and i'm going to add her into the cabinet when its finished, i'll drop her 8"pot into the opening for the 12" pot and just have her sit there, hopefully tommorrow or thursday, and she'll have some room to wiggle. (i'm gonna simply cut the top 5" from the rubbermaid and use that for a hood for the time being, and connect ducting on one end to the fan up top. She looks to be about .5" from the plexi and just sitting there (Mabey she was stretching for the light....??)