Need advice on dresser design

[XtraStillLyfe]

Hi guys, complete noob here looking for advice. I have a small dresser that I'd like to turn into a grow box though I have some questions. As you can see in the picture i have a small veg room in the right hand corner however I'm unsure how small I can make it. Can anyone tell me the smallest it can be for just 2 clones? I won't be housing a mother plant there. The reason I want it as small as possible is because the dresser is already small and I want as much space as I can get away with in the flowering section.

Another question is, is it ok that the space above the veg (where I have all the wires is) is not sealed off from everything? Also what kind of watts do you think I should have in such a space? Any idea on a yield I could get? For the fan pulling the air out, what kind of computer fan do you think I will need in terms of strength? Also what amount of watts for cfls do you think would be best for the flower chamber as well as veg area?

My idea is to have the front drawers glued together and be my door to get into the box. Do think I should have a door with hinges on both the flower and veg room and then the glued on drawers on top of that? Or just have the glued on drawers as one big piece to get into the box? I will have weather stripping to make it snug. Forgot to show in the picture that I will have a fan blowing on the plants in the flower room. I'm thinking just a computer fan.

Please let me know if you think this idea will work as well as anything you think I should add or take away. Thanks

 

[XtraStillLyfe]

bump

 

[someotherguy]

high man, here's a couple links that i think will
answer all your questions plus many you don't
realize you need to ask yet, lol.

the first is to a box design that has been used
by many, many growers for years.

the second is to a compilation of links to some of
the best DIY threads here at ICMag, if it aint there,
it don't exist!

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=27982~OG SALVAGE~ TICK'S SOGG'N BOX PARTS 1-4 (step by step), THE BEST GROWBOX EVER!!

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=40637ICMAG'S OFFICIAL ~DIY~ LINK-O-RAMA

anyway, i know you were looking for answers and
not links and i'm sorry but these threads will give
you much more complete answers than i can.

hope this helps, SOG

 

[XtraStillLyfe]

Thanks for the links. Great info there. I'd just feel more comfortable knowing I had some people approve of my design before I leap on into it.

 

[Skillet]

Your design looks fine, but it's going to be cramped in there. For a fan, I'd recommend a Panasonic Whisperfan (super quiet), probably an 80 CFM one. It's not a computer fan, but you'll need more than that to handle cooling and a carbon filter. You can build a carbon filter like bulenaths on the DIY links someotherguy gave you.

Your clone section can be as little as 6" wide (assuming you'll want a little space for them to grow just a bit while the others flower) and can have very little light, one daylight spectrum cfl will be fine.

Use a 100W HPS (or 150 at the very most) in the flowering section and do a scrog grow.

For the doors, I'd suggest using hardboard to make a separate door for the clone area. Without one, you'll never know if light from there is getting into your flower cab and giving your ladies balls.

Your yield will be almost impossible to guess on your first grow, but I'd imagine a bit more than an ounce for the first grow, and then maybe 2 or 3 after that? I found that my second grow was waaay better than my first, with improvement falling off after that and leveling off around 1.1g/watt (but my set-up is a vertical scrog, inherently more efficient than your space will allow). I started in something like that though, and had great bud from it.

Have fun on your first grow!

 

[XtraStillLyfe]

Thanks for the response. Now you said the smallest I could make my clone section is 6' if I want it to grow just a bit while the others flower. What about if I don't need it to grow while I flower. How small do you think I could get it then?

 

[Skillet]

If you just want to root the clones in coco plugs, it could be 2" wide, but then I'm not sure how you'll get the clones. I imagined you'd take clones right before you flowered the two in the main chamber and keep those rooting and growing very slowly until they were ready to be topped and flowered, thus creating a motherless clone system. If you're getting clones from elsewhere, you don't need the clone chamber, and you can have more room for flowering, which is always nice.

Skillet

 

[XtraStillLyfe]

Awesome great info. I think I'll go that route. I'm not able to get clones from anywhere but that'd be nice.

 

[Skillet]

Which route? The one I described will require at MINIMUM 6" of width. If you can't get clones from an outside source a 2" wide chamber will be of no use to you, as the clones from the plants in flower will outgrow the space long before you have room to put them into the flower chamber.

Unless you're going for an ultra-mini-perpetual SOG in which you are always taking cuttings from just-rooted clones and putting the rooted clones directly into flower. That would end up being way too time consuming for a small grow like this, and it'd be easier to just grow from seed every time or build a separate clone/mother box.

You've got to figure out where your clones are coming from and how long they'll need to stay in the clone chamber to figure out how big it needs to be.

Skillet.

 

[someotherguy]

here is the link to where i learned the easiest,
most reliabe way to clone without having to
plug something in, and more reliable than
most that do plug in. . . and when i discovered
this thread i was already using a bubble cloner
that had stood me in good stead for almost a
year.

i was so convinced i built a clone box around
4 of 'em, lol.

[URL="http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=42847&highlight=walmart"]World class cloner new at walmart[/url]

here's a few pics to illustrate...these were 14 days.




and a couple of the box i built to house them,
4 cloners up top with room for freshly rooted
clones down below. (design allows me to
passively capture heat from lower bulbs for
the cloner reservoirs)



this thread below is a guy who is a canna
God, lol, what he's doing with standard
CFL's is amazing!

[URL="http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=69713"]Compact SOG with CFL's[/url]

hope this helps inspire, lol.

peace, SOG

 

[Skillet]

That's a great link for how to clone, but I always get so upset when I see that Dr.Green CFL SOG. First, I'm not entirely sure I believe a barely rooted clone will put out 3/4oz with no veg time in a soda bottle. Now, maybe he has a secret lamp with a genie in it, but giving new growers the idea that they too can yield 1.6g/watt (average 1.5oz/week x 9 weeks) with CFLs is a little crazy.

XtraStillLife, if you really want to try a micro SOG, go for it, but don't expect those yields and do expect to spend way too much time cloning and harvesting every week. It's easier to do a single grow and harvest multiple ounces than to harvest a bit every week and make more clones.

Just my 2 cents
Skillet

 

[someotherguy]

That's a great link for how to clone, but I always get so upset when I see that Dr.Green CFL SOG. First, I'm not entirely sure I believe a barely rooted clone will put out 3/4oz with no veg time in a soda bottle. Now, maybe he has a secret lamp with a genie in it, but giving new growers the idea that they too can yield 1.6g/watt (average 1.5oz/week x 9 weeks) with CFLs is a little crazy.

XtraStillLife, if you really want to try a micro SOG, go for it, but don't expect those yields and do expect to spend way too much time cloning and harvesting every week. It's easier to do a single grow and harvest multiple ounces than to harvest a bit every week and make more clones.

Just my 2 cents
Skillet

well, having done my best to reproduce his results
i can tell you that the only way to get those kinds
of yields is to have absolutely everything dialed in
perfectly, something i never accomplished.

i do believe he is doing it but only because he has
more than 20 years experience, he is growing his
own cross and he does everything organically, it's
the micro-herd that makes those results possible.

myself i only managed about 7 grams per plantlet
harvesting 5 per week and you are right, it's a real
pain harvesting every week.

but the experience was invaluable, i learned much
about how to read my plants and cab design and
all manor of stuff, lol.

so now i'm in the process of upgrading to a 400CMH
with a proper reflector and not another DIY make-do
kind of thing.

i'm also switching to Air-Pots to improve root health
and mass, plus, i'm finally forcing myself to climb the
organic learning curve, lol.

also, i'll be doing perpetual but only harvesting every
8 weeks, i'm tired of having to trim and clone every
freeken week!

anyway, if there is one thing i've learned over the last
few years is that i have to remain open to change, my
op has been in a constant state of evolution from day 1.

sorry for the ramble, slept in today so still working on
my first cup of joe, lol.

peace, SOG

 

[Skillet]

I'll try to pepper this with advice for the OP, so we aren't jacking his thread too much.

I tried a similar micro-sog thing a few years back when I saw that thread, but with multiple low wattage HIDs. I found to get any respectable yield I had to veg for too long to make the space viable. Also, even having two clones a week kept minimum plant numbers (including mothers) at 20, which is too high for me to sleep well. Like you, I found that every 8 weeks was a good time frame to harvest. (Take that as some good experience, XtraStyllLife!) EDIT: I forgot! Another downside to the perpetual sog was that I never got to cure bud for very long as I only ever had just enough!

I understand the power of the micro-herd, and organic is definitely the way to go (more advice!). But, I disagree with you on the DIY front. I like to get most of my supplies at Home Depot and Lowe's, as the police regularly sit down the street from any local grow shops. So, I end up making a lot of things (reflectors, remote ballasts, carbon filters, etc.). For me though, that's half the fun and if you take the time to do a good job, it can turn out just as good or even better than a store-bought, as it's made to your exact specifications! Probably the reason that like you, my setup rarely stays the same for long! (Is that advice? Maybe?)

Anyway, XtraStillLife, any more questions? Or any progress? Love to see a photo sometime.

Skillet

 

[XtraStillLyfe]

Thanks for the feedback guys. I'll def look into that clone info you posted 'someotherguy'.

It's ashame I have to take up 6 in of width but Skillet your right about my plants outgrowing the ones in flower. I was afraid of that but wasn't sure. Now I know. So I'm going to think about it more. I'd really like to have the veg and flower in the same box. At the same time it will be crammed and I'll get less yield. It is just for me though and I don't smoke much.

Quick question Skillet. When you said I may get an Ounce were you figuring that if I had a 6' wide veg or without a veg room?

I'll post some pictures once i have something worth posting heh. I've been busy lately and this is just a small side project.

Once again thanks for all the great feedback guys.

 

[Skillet]

Keeping it all in the same box is nice, I like doing that, but have to change my own setup for other reasons. Use a short flowering strain, that way the clones you take don't have as much time to overfill the veg space. 7" might actually be better, so you can use 7" square pots and then pot up to 9" or slightly trim the rims on some 10" square pots for flowering.

When the clones are vegging, train them to be small and extra branchy, so they can explode during the brief veg time in the main chamber before flowering. Does this all make sense?

The ounce estimate is pretty much a minimum guess for your first grow (with a clone/veg area) based on what I did when I learned and from others' first grows on the forum. About .25-.30g/watt. With the box being all flowering, you could push that up to a 150W lamp and get maybe 1.5oz to start. But, where I live that's $400/oz you save, and the box will cost less than that to build and run.

Keep in mind that the weed you grow will probably be potent and last longer than you expect. Or, conversely, you'll go overboard with the idea of "free" weed and smoke it all really fast. Either way, it's fun!

Also, almost everyone does much better on their second grow, and subsequent grows after that.

Skillet

 

[XtraStillLyfe]

Once again great info! Thanks Skillet, you've helped immensely.