The Barrel

Hello there kindred spirits, my name is Graehstone on the net and I am a disabled Vet that lives in the SoCal area and I suffer from Degenerative Disc disease, Scheuermanns disease, Scoliosis, Migraines … I have been a MMJ Patient for some time and due to living in a single income household it is difficult to be able to afford the Meds needed to be able to go through the day as a Man and not an Invalid hunchback.
The Narcotics I am on just make certain things worse … but I am sure most of you already know the stories that go along with sentences that start like that.
I can very easily imagine many other folks being in the same boat that I found myself in as far as affordability or even availability of Meds goes and that being that there were none or if so waaaay out of my price range.
So a very intelligent dear friend of mine came up with a (at least I think it is) brilliant idea on how I might be able to fix my problem.
Ideally I would love for someone to rent us, for very long term, a little house where the wife and I can live happily ever after and grow my own meds and veggies and … you know the little Cottage house from fairy tales … sigh, lol, but seeing as how we live in a two bedroom apartment that kind of puts a little damper on things.
This “closet” growing was something new to me but I was soon to be amazed.
It’s not really in a closet but rather a 50 gallon barrel that was painted white on the inside with a few strategically placed holes for hardware and ventilation, a false bottom to hold the water reservoir, and that is a very simplified version of what I got.
The entire thing sits inside the cardboard box that the Fridge came in and is in one corner of my bedroom.
There is also (just in case) a smoke detector and two timers, one for the lights and one for the watering system.
The temperature inside the barrel has never exceeded 26 degrees Celsius even on very hot days.
The electricity that I am using "extra" made almost no noticeable difference on my bill with this system either.

For those of you more technically inclined, here is what it consists of.
Lighting: One 150w HPS (high pressure sodium) lamp in a 4” wide cool tube
Three 40w 20” floro tubes (6500 Kelvin for blue spectrum enhancement)

Air circulation: One 120mm, 55 CFM, extra quiet 12v fan cooling the HPS cool tube
Two 92mm, CFM 12v fans exhausting out of the top of the barrel.

Nutrient delivery: Six distribution line manifold powered by a 2500cc per min Hagen air pump.

Now lots of you are going to go “Ahhh,” and “I see,” and stuff like that, then there are those (like I did) that are going “Heh?” “Does it work?”
And I have to answer with a resounding “Yes it does!”
And here’s proof.

Here is the basic set-up, just a converted 50 gallon barrel:


Strategically placed holes for ventilation and the other workings:


Two views from the inside:

Note that everything inside is painted white:


My little sign that I made with my Dremel (cool huh?, lol) and a view of the set-up open:


Here is what is inside on the bottom of the Barrel (reservoir for the water with "stilts" (cans filled with "good water" to keep everything elevated a bit)


Here is what we will call week Zero, the first day the clones went in:


After one week:


Two weeks:


Three weeks:


Four weeks old now:


Week Five:



Week Six and thriving:



Week number 7 and approx 28 days into the flowering stage:



Like I said, this is my first try at this but I am impressed with what my friend has been able to come up with for me.
Just thought I'd share and get your thoughts on it.

im at loss for words. very impressive man! any idea on the total height of that barrel? love the simple micro cooltube! oh and which nutes you using on what strains?

tngreen said:

im at loss for words. very impressive man! any idea on the total height of that barrel? love the simple micro cooltube! oh and which nutes you using on what strains?

Click to expand...

Thanks for the compliments, they are appreciated and I will most assuredly pass them on. The total height of the barrel and stuff on top (I just measured, lol) is approx 1,10m tall or about 45 inches and the strain I am using (if memory serves me correctly {iffy thing there at times, lol} on this) is C-4 x Sweetleaf and, again if I am not mistaken, is an Indica dominant strain.

VERY COOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
what kind of system is that drip??? please explain

Awesome!!! There's a lot of ingenuity in your barrel!

Found a related link:

Found a related link:

Hey Graehstone your settup looks very simple, easy, cheap, and effective. Very cool. I haven't seen a barrel grow in a long long time. I was wondering if you have considered turning the bottom of the barrel (the reservoir part) into a dwc if you aren't already? I believe it would perhaps increase your plants ability grow a larger root mass and maybe improve yeilds. Im very interested to see what you can pull outta that barrel with a 150w. Good luck.


P.S. I found the old barrel grow site. The web page is a little.... I dunno.... kinda hard to navigate, and doesn't seem finished, but it's cool to check out. Google barrel of green, if you are interested.

Now thats nice! Hay you think I could borrow it when you are done with it? No,No, how bout you let me borrow it right before your done with it, you know, when its full of all those nice, phat, stinky buds! I promise Ill return it. Ill even clean it out, and put a coat of wax on it if ya want. We are all friends here right?

great design, and lovely looking plants man.

this is one fine looking set-up and grow . lovely work .

that really is fantastic, ive been into growing vcrogs for a while, and i very neally built basicaly what you have but with a screen.

its hard to tell from the pictures so i may be incorrect, but it would apear that the bulb is right at the top of the barrel. if you could move it down the cooltube towards the plants you could get more intense light to the plants. either that or veg longer to get the plants nearer the top of the barrel.


ill be really interested to what kind of yeilds you get from this

Hello from Grow Tech

Hello from Grow Tech

Greetings all,
After dragging a half cut up barrel around for 6 years I finally got ahold of another one, and with better planning than my first attempt, built Graehstones system out of it. Before I go own about my motivation, I have to give credit to all those that share their knowledge through sites like this. Most of what you see in Graehstones barrel was inspired / copied from things I saw on OverGrow.
About my motivation...I'm in San Diego and a medical patient. With the county stupivisors actions & the following safe access closers, a 6 plant system that was simple to operate and cost effective never seemed more in need.
I would consider Graehstones unit a prototype. I've refered to it as the "GT-270". Made by Grow Tech with 270 watts of love! I learned a bit while building this unit and want to see how it performs over a couple of grows. I would like very much to have an even more refined version available for adoption by other San Diego patients.

I will go through some of the questions tomorrow. Between Graehstone & myself we should be able to answer everything. I just wanted to introduce myself and Give Thanks for all the kind words.

That is out of this world! Very nice work

Very nice setup... simple and effective!!!

Hi All!

tngreen- The strain being grown is Sweettooth #3(F)(SOL)x C4(M)(Chimera Seeds). The nutrients are GH 3 part.

Hiking808- It is a drip system. I modifyed a WaterFarm bubbler system by adding the 6 line manifold and using a stronger pump than comes with a WaterFarm.

ECUG- The DWC suggestion maybe a good one. I've never done DWC but I've seen some awsome pics of rootballs it can produce. I've said all along that my goal for this barrel will be 3 ozs of dried finished smoke. Not sure if we'll see that this time but as the pics show...we have a fighting chance

Watermelon- I too had considered a scrog setup for this. There isn't a whole lot of extra room in the barrel so it's nice to be able to shift the plants around some to work on them. The strain we used was selected because it's somewhat branchy without being out of control. We could have possibly vegged a little longer...you're right that the plant tops aren't quite as close to the bulb as the could have been...


Thanks again everyone for the good words. Peace!

i reckon you could just hang the light from a chain and youd be sorted.

i too decided having a scrog in such a limited space would be quite irritating. unless you made it removable from the grow chamber.

nice looking barrel o' buds!! seems pretty low maintanance(SP) and clean setup. not using any stink filter?

I had originally hoped to make the hps adjustable. It opened a whole can of worms that seemed like it would cause more problems than it would help. As far as light intensity goes...
A stumble we had the first couple of days in this grow was that we light poisoned our baby clones. The babies were rooted under a 27w cfl. We put them in the barrel with all 4 lights on and a 1 1/2 days later and the babies looked a bit fried. We backed off and just ran the floros for 4 days and then gradually added hours of the hps. Every baby survived...and now thrived

The light intensity is pretty darn good as is !

Hey Simple...
The unit doesn't have a carbon filter. I have invisioned a couple of ways that one could be added but so far it's not an issue ( for me lol..the unit isn't at my house ).
The SWT#3 x C4 strain is pretty low odor if it isn't handled. There ara a couple of bags of those australian odor absorbing rocks in the box but who knows how well those really work

Hey there greahstone...

nice grow chamber you have there. I really like the simplicity of the idea. It looks as though you will have some personal medical cannabis in no time...

very nice friend...

stinky aka jon

BOG candidate?

BOG candidate?

Have you seen the so-called Box or Tube Of Green setups? The claim is that you could get even more grow area out of that barrel shape by scrogging the plants facing inwards around a circular screen.