The Bi-Box - My first DIY setup.

Newbie here just thought I might share my room build, ask a few question post a few pics and get some feedback....

The story starts with I have a tropical fish & aquarium addiction and I was down at my favourite fish / hydroponics shop the other day and i couldn't find anything in the aquarium section that i liked and me being me I had a pocket full of cash that i just badly needed to spend on something, I've never really given any thought to hydroponics and it seemed like a cool addition to my list of hobbies, a good friend of mine does a bit of growing which keeps him in smoke and us so i figured I've seen his dodgy looking setup and it seems to work well so i figured i'll give it a crack.

Only problem is my perfectionist side is starting to kick in and i've been reading books flat out ever since trying to learn the science behind it all, I've built my little room and rushed it a little hey i'm keen so sue me ! anyway I've got this setup ticking along and i'll improve on things as i go along.


I started by building an air tight room into the front of my old caravan / office .

I have 2 grow tubs plumbed up and the third tub outside of the room for mixing in the nutrients, air stones hooked up in all tubs running around the clock.

I went with feeder rings to water the grow medium which I've carefully cut slits in the grow blocks and taped them up again to keep the light out, then for a bit of added piece of mind I put 3 little feeder tubes at the base of each plant just to make sure there getting a good drink. pics below.

One of the baby clones...

Anyway i have a 1000watt Metal Halide globe going 24 hours at the moment I know some say 18/6 but I'm experimenting so suggestions or comments on lighting times ?

I've built my own PID fan controller because I have a electronics design background and i didn't like the look of the dodgy analog version the hydroponics shop had, the PID controller is switching the 150mm blower and carbon filter on and off and is currently keeping the room within a half a degree of what ever temperature I set it to ( currently 26C ) does this sound right ? Note: I've also built in a heating output on the controller for when i switch to 12/12 lighting so the room stays a constant temperature at all times.

Now i'm currently building up a little CO2 sensor with a control output so i can keep an eye on co2 levels and later add in an extreamly accurate co2 injection system.

my humidity is sitting around 35% at 26c which I'm worried might be a bit low so I'm working on a way to control this as well as the room moves up and down.

A few quick layout design pics ...

As i said my room is part of a caravan so I have a duct pulling fresh air in from the righthand wheel arch constantly with a small pc fan.
then on the left side of the van the big blower which works on the temp sensor sucks the heatout while helping draw in fresh air at the same time because of the vacume effect of the small room
the extracted air comes through the carbon filter then its pumped into the small wardrobe and circulated with 2 pc fans to cool it more then dumped out through the opposite lefthand wheel arch.

Any design suggestions are very much welcome, I've knocked up a semi accurate layout design below have a look.

The piping you can see above the sink is of course concealed in cupboards that run right around the caravan.

I've neglected to show my water piping in the design but you get an idea of the layout and the mixing tub is located under the sink.

The two blue boxouts on the floor next to the sink and wardrobe are meant to represent portions of the wheel arch's .

I'm considering building another mirrored room at the opposite end of the van so I can have one room in the vegetation stage
and the other room flowering creating a perpetual cycle of the good stuff !


P.S. It's a shame the real thing doesn't look as nice as the design pics !

........................................................

A couple of questions:

Is a 1000watt good enough for 2 plants ? i cant get a straight answer out of anybody... some say 1000watt per plant...?

Whats the rule of thumb for plant yield in hydro ?

What are the real figures on vegetation growth times / flowering ? I hear i'll be smoking in 6 weeks ? from what i've read 3-4 months....

Any member comments or suggestions on top what i've already mentioned ?



Appreciate you taking the time to read and comment !

Cheers !

First!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

Yeah, thats right....Welcome to RIU, dude! This site is full of a bunch of fuckwads, and a couple really cool heads. I'm probably one of the former, but I still wanted to welcome you to our little weed growing community. To be honest, I didn't actually read any of you post, nor did I really look at the pictures...I just read the word "caravan" and assumed you were like Brad Pitt in Snatch... Good on ya, mate! I promise, not everyone is as fucked in the head as me...

Hey, I read the first paragraph...My weed-growing hobby turned me on to Saltwater Fish Tanks, Coral Reef tanks to be specific...Funny how you were turned on to growing from tanking, and I'm tanking because I grew first...Believe me, friend, the two are quite related, sorta, kinda.

Metasynth said:

First!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

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yeah the arts involved in tanking and growing i assume are just as tricky ... looking forward to chatting with you all !

unexpectedfate said:

huh ? what do you mean ?>

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Well, "first" is a claim to your thread...Like a fresh fire hydrant that I pissed on first, it belongs to me now, and no matter how many other people pee on it, I was the first.

Don't over engineer your grow. Keep your focus on the simple shit. a 1k can grow as many plants as you can fit under it. If you do a large number you keep em small with no veg. the more space you need to fill in under your light the longer you veg.

budleydoright said:

Don't over engineer your grow. Keep your focus on the simple shit. a 1k can grow as many plants as you can fit under it. If you do a large number you keep em small with no veg. the more space you need to fill in under your light the longer you veg.

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I can totally appreciate your KISS theroy ~ Keep It Simple Stupid... but i'm doing this to fill in my spare time and give me somthing to think about, not to mention i have a bad habbit of overkilling everything !

more about the design fun then the crop, weed i can just afford to buy, but the DIY challage and learning curve is just addictive!

I do the same thing. It's just when you give em too much love they don't do as well.

Complete Concept ~ one room vegetating one room flowering on a constant cycle !

A couple of questions:

Is a 1000watt good enough for 2 plants ? i cant get a straight answer out of anybody... some say 1000watt per plant...? LOL who said 1000w per plant what a load of shite XD but yes a 1000w will do 2 plants more than perfectly (though I use lower watt LED's/CFL's for veg to save electricity : )

Whats the rule of thumb for plant yield in hydro ? Keep the PH Steady and a very softly, softly approach when feeding, when shit goes wrong in hydro it goes wrong fast, other than that it's just research, reading and research and you'll be golden.

What are the real figures on vegetation growth times / flowering ? Depending on strain flowering can take 6-15 weeks (6 being heavy indica 15 being heavy sativa dominant) as a general concept, the longer you veg the more you'll yield... potentially you could veg for years and years so long as the environment is good. But no no real solid figures just personal preference, my whole veg/flower cycle takes 3-4 months.

Any member comments or suggestions on top what i've already mentioned ? Your setup looks good! are you legal? just 'cause I'm not sure about the security of a caravan lol I wouldn't do it AND you can allow a 5-10*c drop in temperature during the lights out period in flower.. if you have a blue strain or anything with blueberry bred into it aim for a 10*c drop and it will go proper blue while budding!

Think that's it, Good luck!

Stay Frosty!

Matchbox said:

A couple of questions:

Is a 1000watt good enough for 2 plants ? i cant get a straight answer out of anybody... some say 1000watt per plant...? LOL who said 1000w per plant what a load of shite XD but yes a 1000w will do 2 plants more than perfectly (though I use lower watt LED's/CFL's for veg to save electricity : )

Whats the rule of thumb for plant yield in hydro ? Keep the PH Steady and a very softly, softly approach when feeding, when shit goes wrong in hydro it goes wrong fast, other than that it's just research, reading and research and you'll be golden.

What are the real figures on vegetation growth times / flowering ? Depending on strain flowering can take 6-15 weeks (6 being heavy indica 15 being heavy sativa dominant) as a general concept, the longer you veg the more you'll yield... potentially you could veg for years and years so long as the environment is good. But no no real solid figures just personal preference, my whole veg/flower cycle takes 3-4 months.

Any member comments or suggestions on top what i've already mentioned ? Your setup looks good! are you legal? just 'cause I'm not sure about the security of a caravan lol I wouldn't do it AND you can allow a 5-10*c drop in temperature during the lights out period in flower.. if you have a blue strain or anything with blueberry bred into it aim for a 10*c drop and it will go proper blue while budding!

Think that's it, Good luck!

Stay Frosty!

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Appreciate the feedback mate, lol legal ! believe me a caravan in my backyard with my dogs good luck ! besides the caravan and the grow rooms are locked up tight !

The clones came from a friend of a friend and finding out exactly what they are is proving to be hard hopefully I'll get onto him soon or otherwise I'll be asking for people

to help identify them, but from what i'm told there very suitable for the application !

I had my first crack at " fimming " today so the next day or two will show how that worked out... besides that i'm keeping the ph steady and i'm considering a flush in the next few days..

appreciate the reply !

my oldman is thinking about playing around with some LED lights in his shed any advice ? how much does going from say a 600watt HID to LED slow shit down ?

LED's don't slow anything down... in veg they produce better growth in my opinion. Very short inter-nodes at any height up to 3 feet so far I stepped down from a 400w for veg to a 90w LED and plants are doing better. The only thing is they're not great for flower (well mine isn't anyway) 'cause of the penetrtation but if you get the ones with the 3w CREE Diodes I think that'll have some stopping power. But if you keep em close a 300w LED panel can out perform a 400w HID from what I've seen. (and save a ton on the electric bill too)

And I use Scrog now so the penetration issue isn't as critical but I can't afford something with more power to replace my HID...

If you ask me, (and this is based on the diagram), you could double your crop to 8 plants in the veg room and 8 plants in the flower room, that is if the diagram represents your real life space situation following this thread

.breeze said:

If you ask me, (and this is based on the diagram), you could double your crop to 8 plants in the veg room and 8 plants in the flower room, that is if the diagram represents your real life space situation following this thread

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Yeah, every things to scale so your right i could probably just slam 8 plants in each room but being a noob i thought i would start with 2 plants just to get everything sorted learn a bit first and then try 4 - 6 - 8 as i get better ...

i'm working on the concept i would like each room to pump out about 3-4 pound every 4-5 weeks, my aims are probably a little high but i don't like the saying, expect the worst and you wont be disappointed ! I'd much rather be disappointed and improve to get what i want !

unexpectedfate said:

Yeah, every things to scale so your right i could probably just slam 8 plants in each room but being a noob i thought i would start with 2 plants just to get everything sorted learn a bit first and then try 4 - 6 - 8 as i get better ...

i'm working on the concept i would like each room to pump out about 3-4 pound every 4-5 weeks, my aims are probably a little high but i don't like the saying, expect the worst and you wont be disappointed ! I'd much rather be disappointed and improve to get what i want !

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Extremely practical and methodical. Glad to see this sort of grow bumping around at RIU. While I tend to sit back and lurk, just figured I'd offer my kudos for your planning and practical self limitation. Dialing in any setup and then scaling is the wise move.

As to 3-4 pound in the available space and light footprint ... That's up for debate with the time-frame per cycle you're hoping for. Thing is, with your methodology and attention to detail, I will not pass disparaging remarks about final viability of concept until you've fully experimented with that space and grow style. Heck, even then, I would say it wouldn't be worth cajoling the goal you've proposed. There are simply far too many thinks you can do and you're just scratching the surface right now.


Side note about advice like the 1K per plant: all personal style. You'll probably dismiss more information than you use over time. Rarely is there is a one size fits all solution. There is solid science you will need to lean into, but some of it is the green thumb and very subjective to your ability to adapt with your op and the plants.

Silly side note, one of my favorite old timer beatniks was color blind. Worked great though. He could see difference in shade in his plants (outdoor) better than I could ever hope to. This allowed him to see various forms of stress and like better in some ways. But how he knew all of it was based on just years of trial and error. We can thankfully now have more resources to share and learn from each other some.


Thanks for sharing up your new hobby grow. Be safe.