Need Help with Micro Grow...

[Cj513]

Hello I'm a college student looking for some help with my new garden. Im in a place where stealth is good but not a big issue sense I'll be sharing what I can do with the people I love and live with. So now on to my set up its looks like this....

56 inches tall
14 inch depth
26 inches wide

Cabinet with 4 shelves I can move.

This is all I got so far because im worried about buying supplies and not needing them and so on. I wanna use Cfls for light because after seeing what Dr. Bud has done with them has amazed me. I wanna get a perpetual harvest S.o.g. going so I dont have to go a day without mj. I have no idea about ventilation so any help in that area would help me tons. I just wanna buy the right type of fans for the space I have. The strain Im planning on using is cindy 99 because of low odor/nice odor and sativa like high I have heard about. I was planning on using a basic soil mix adding more perlite and i'm not sure about nutrients yet but I will look around when I get that far. I am planning on using mylar or something else because I can't paint the inside of the cabinet. I am going to school for horticulture because of this plant and I have had years of success with tomatoes but lack of space and money have left me going to the weed man for my next smoke. I am a perfectionist too so I want my set up to be good enough to impress my friends even if they wont know what I am doing.

So in summary my dream set up would be...

56 inch tall
14 inch depth
26 inches wide
Reflective walls( With mylar or something else)
Cfl lights ( How many and what wattage do you suggest?)
plastic clear containers (cut to 16 fl oz 7 inches tall 2.5 inches wide)
Fans( I have no idea of type or how many I'll need)
c99 seeds
Normal floros( for mothers and rooting clones)
Clone box ( Plastic greenhouse thing that keeps the humidity high)

Thats all I can think of for now I am doing this from memory so If im leaving anything out please point it out. Thank you for any advice any one would like to give. Keep on smokin...

 

[nnep]

A lot of the information you've requested is already here around the forums in stickies and through grows.

This website has a ton of info on just about everything.

How do you want to set-up your CFLS? Do you want to make a moving system or are you going to hard mount them? 6400k for veg, 2700k for flower.

With CFLs you'll probably only need one exhaust, and one intake. Intake on bottom, exhaust on top opposite of intake.

Don't worry about the clonebox or doing anything like dr bud on your first grow, just get the system down and go from there. Biggest advice is read everything you can get your hands on though. I'm no expert grower but i was in your situation not very long ago.

good luck with it, it's a great hobby.

 

[virago420]

If it were me I would run two levels in that space. You can also cram a hell of a lot more plants in there for a SOG. Your working with 2.5 square feet. I got 2.5 oz out of my cab using 210W of CFLs in 3.02 square feet. So I would use at least (4) 42W CFLs, that would give you 66.6 WPSF, just a bit under what I had at 69.5 WPSF. I would recommend General Hydroponics 3 part nutes to everyone so theres my suggestion on nutes. What am I missing? Fans - I wouldnt make a decision there until you decide exactly what your doing with the cab. Peace

 

[Cj513]

Hey thank you for the information guys it is appreciated. I guess I confused some of you though. So hopefully this explanation and a picture I did on paint will help clarify things. I want to hard mount the Cfls.

I wanna make the cabinet into two seperate spaces one for flowering one for veg and mothers. I am closing the cabinet when im not checking the plants so I am going to have to put holes in the back for a fan system. My biggest hang up on the vent system is that there will be two shelves that will be closed off from eachother and how I should vent it accordingly. Im going to cut clones off the mother once I get a good one so i'm not worried about veg time because I will be flowering as soon as the clones have rooted like dr. bud does. I should probably put a carbon scrubber on the end of the exhaust that will be coming out of the flowering box. My room always smells like herb so it wont matter much but I do like my privacy. Thank you guys for posting and I hope now I got a clearer picture for what I wanna do with this set up. Hopefully Ill have pictures up soon or have enough money to start buyin supplies. And for all you out there who don't have imagination here is my crappy paint of the idea I was having for the box. O and if you missed it in the first post i am going to be trying a perpetual S.o.g.



The top is the mother/clone shelf bottom is for the flowering I am goin to stagger the plants too so it will be less crowded

 

[I2KanGrow]

Hmmm, getting good ventilation in a stacked arrangement will be a challenge - especially with only 14" of depth. I'm not sure how you're going to get fresh (cool) air into that upper chamber, you may need to run some PVC pipes, like in the NGB boxes that are built & posted all-over these boards.

Worry about having a light-tight box, it's crucial during your 12/12 flower period! having light spill from your veg/mother area will ruin your flowering grow.

You may want to box-in your lights on both levels (use plexiglass), and vent them out of the box. Check-out Red Greenery's links, he's been my mentor and has much to offer in ventilation design and light amounts per sq/ft. There are MANY great growers in IC Micro Grows - read, read, read!

You probably don't think so right now, but trust me, you'll want to keep this stealth, if you're a college student renting or in a dorm, for sure - you don't want your landlord kicking-you-out of your apartment/dorm in the middle of the semester! You can't keep your grow too low-key!!

Carefully consider odor control, you'll stink-out the whole place during flowering without it.

Good luck to you Cj - You have a wealth of information and the best folks to help you out, right here on these boards!

 

[facelift]

Youre going to need a bigger boat.

 

[touchofgrey]

Hey cj: You can do fine with a box that size. Check the box I'm currently building under my signature. It's the exact size you describe and I've got 2 compartments with flow through PC fan ventilation and a carbon scrubber. I'm running HID lights so I am building a cool tube but you could run cfl's by increasing the fan wattage from where I'm at.

Oh yeah, I2KanGrow is right on. You need stealth, see Rule No 1.

 

[TheGreenBastard]

65w CFL's will be your best bet for that setup, whatever you do do not get 23 or 27w's.

If you can look into getting something like a 125w or 200w CFl, you can find then on Ebay for pretty cheap. 42w's will do but I wouldn't use them as your main source of light.

As for that strain, since it is a sativa dominant you might have some space issues if you are planning on using two chambers, there is also the possibility of light leaks.

If you want you could go with AF's, which will allow you to still go with the two cab design and have them both on 24/0 so both chambers will produce bud in ~60 days from seed.

This is what I would do as you would grow more bud in less time, in other words rather than having one cab for veg (which would produce no bud) and one for flower (which would still take well over 60 days to produce bud). You could have cabs producing in less time than it takes to flower a normal 12/12 strain.

 

[fatbastard1976]

indeed, as the others have said, read, read, read.
there is something that you can take from every post here and use it to your advantage in your own grow.
anything from a carbon scrubber made from a old plastic jar and screen full of carbon to how to wire up computer fans to do the venting for you, two 12volt fans brand new cost 12 bucks each, power supply 12 bucks, 36 for the whole set up or if you have a couple old towers sitting around, theres usually about 2 or 3 fans in one tower, one or two 4" fan and a smaller one, old cell charger for power, free.
my grow has cost me a little over 75 bucks i think..... not more than 100. the best thing you can do is get growing to get the experience.

 

[TheGreenBastard]

Yeah like fatbastard said, if you have any old PC's laying around you can get a few fans out of them, their are some pretty strong ones in the power supply's so just crack 'em open and pull 'em out.