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VERY STEALTH - Fishtank Wardrobe Cabinet

GP73LPC

Strain Collector/Seed Junkie/Landrace Accumulator/
Veteran
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This is from several years back. This cabinet can no longer be purchased and I no longer own this cabinet. Let me say this cabinet was a winner. I grew in an apartment with maintenance men in and out while i wasn't home. i grew in rental homes. i have literally had family and friends admiring my fishtank while unbeknownst to them they are leaning over 4 flowering marijuana plants. :D

But, with that said i thought i would post this thread in hopes it might help a few others in their design.

First thing I did was hack off about 2 feet from the top of the wardrode cabinet. I have actually built two of these, one that supported the weight of a 55 gallon fishtank, roughly 500 lbs... :eek: I built in support with 8 2x4's. I painted all the 2x4's white.

Next let me say, I went way overboard with everything when first building this. i had 2 150 watt (air cooled) HPS bulbs, with enclosed refectors, intaking and outaking seperatley from the grow chamber. This required 4 holes in the cabinet, 4 in the reflectors and a piece of tempered glass for each reflector. Four PC fans (90C FM) powered the air cooled bulb system, but the bad news here was the ballasts were part of the reflector housing.

I also had a PC (120 CFM) fan on a cabinet intake with light trap, 2 PC 120 CFM fans pulling air out of the grow chamber and exhausting it into my air scrubbing chamber where postive pressure eventually pushed it from the cabinet. Inside the cabinet i also had a 2 PC fans (120 CFM) blowing on my 4 plants.

I had an ozone generator in the air scrubbing chamber and a layer of 1.5 inches of activated carbon for the air to exit across.

So in total, I had 9 PC fans, 2 air pumps, ozone genny, 2 150 HPS bulbs, 2 fishtank pumps, 2 more air pumps on the fishtank, the flouro's on the fishtank and the heater on the fishtank. I literally put on the amps down on paper to insure i could operate in a room with a 15 amp breaker that also had lights, radios and tv's on it. I don't remember the total draw now from the cab and fishtank, but it was ok and i had no issues.

The cabinet did okay as you will see (the pics below are of the cabinet as i have described), but i continually tried to eliminate parts until it became more efficient and more quiet.

First thing i did was remove the ballast from the reflectors and relocated them to the upper left corner space of the cabinet. i ditched the reflectors and just hung the open bulbs, which ended up sitting on about a 45 degree angle. This reduced heat in the grow chamber by 10 degrees. Suddenly I was down to 5 fans. The intake fan was next to go. The grow chamber flourished on. Next I removed 1 fan from the wall seperating the grow chamber and air scrubbing chamber. No ill effects. Ended up with only 3 fans. and the rollout shelves are the only way to go...

So I ended up with a much simplier design (remember K.I.S.S.) that was more efficient and did a super job for a number of years. The ozone genny and carbon scrubber worked great on everything but Afghani. I could smell that one a little bit when in the same room late in flowering...

Oh, one more thing. That's Bogglegum on the right and a strain called Juicy Fruit on the left.

sorry, but i have no pics of my updates to the cabinet.

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I built one for friend who worked out of town quite a bit and ended up growing in it briefly before he returned home and took possession. It is pictured in these last several photos before the HPS lights came in and were added. And Bogglegum doing well under 80 watts of flouros ;)

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comments ? :dunno:

questions ? :dunno:
 

budelight

Discovery Requires Experimentation
Veteran
Wow... I am going to take your advice and start eliminating unnecessary electronics from my setup.

Thanks for sharing :)
 

Anti

Sorcerer's Apprentice
Veteran
Lovin' this design, though I'm paranoid about large quantities of water above electricity.

Looks sweet, though.
 

GP73LPC

Strain Collector/Seed Junkie/Landrace Accumulator/
Veteran
thanks Anti, and I was so concerned with the fishtank bubbles covering up the cabinet fans I wasn't worried about 55 gallons above all the electricity :eek:

no problems though...
 

GP73LPC

Strain Collector/Seed Junkie/Landrace Accumulator/
Veteran
Awesome. How hard was it to keep cool using only pc fans?


not hard, i ended up with only one fan actually pushing/pulling air through the cabinet.

With a 120 CFM fan and a grow chamber of about 18-20 cubic feet, the fan worked well... ;)
 

Jellyfish

Invertebrata Inebriata
Veteran
Ingenious. I'm sure you thought of this, but any sound from your fans, etc. can be attributed to the aquarium pumps. Look at the pretty fishies!
 

GP73LPC

Strain Collector/Seed Junkie/Landrace Accumulator/
Veteran
Ingenious. I'm sure you thought of this, but any sound from your fans, etc. can be attributed to the aquarium pumps. Look at the pretty fishies!

exactly and it was true the fishtank with 2 water filtering pumps most definitely over powered anything coming from the cabinet.
 

FreezerBoy

Was blind but now IC Puckbunny in Training
Veteran
Show people the sound, and the sound disappears. First time visitors to my garage always turn their heads when they hear my freezer but, as soon as they see it, they ignore it. Course, I have to make sure there's no bubbling noise....
 
G

Groseph

Very nice..

What are they yielding like?

Reminds me of nimby's stealth dressers from back in the day...crushing 4oz per 150w right under your nose..

I see new growers on their 1st grow starting with 1000w or 2000w setups. They are really missing out on all of the fun to be had playing around with these small (but super efficient) stealth setups.//

1st grow here was an apartment 250w in a stealth gutted dresser...veggin in a 70w MH filing cabinet.. the rest is history.... wouldnt give up those days for anything..
 

GP73LPC

Strain Collector/Seed Junkie/Landrace Accumulator/
Veteran
Very nice..

What are they yielding like?

Reminds me of nimby's stealth dressers from back in the day...crushing 4oz per 150w right under your nose..

I see new growers on their 1st grow starting with 1000w or 2000w setups. They are really missing out on all of the fun to be had playing around with these small (but super efficient) stealth setups.//

1st grow here was an apartment 250w in a stealth gutted dresser...veggin in a 70w MH filing cabinet.. the rest is history.... wouldnt give up those days for anything..

when i owned the cabinet i was getting between 5 and 6 ozs total. i sure wasn't able to pull 4 oz a 150 :eek: i wish...
 

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