OLD Grower Starting Again

[TreeTopHi]

Ok. So I want to start growing my own herb again. I've done it years ago and did ok but things are way different now. I was around big time on OG then left this whole net thing alone for awhile. I'm back living in an apartment now, and looking to produce enough for me and my girl, and some friends here in there..4-6 plants. I'm very low on funds atm so I'm looking for a pretty cheap setup, but thats decent. I'm thinking of going "Micro" but then again I'm still not sure. I'm thinking of running CFL's, maybe 300-400watts if I can keep whatever I build cooled.

I know alot of you are experts at this so what I'm asking is does anyone wanna help me build my setup?

Right now I've got 4 plants veg. in 16oz cups in a rubbermaid 10gal. Under a little 75watt "grow light" from walkmart. Yes I know toss it out the window. lol.

My closest space I'm using now is 2x3x-- can use up to around 4.5feet in here if I make a cab/tent something.

Or I was thinking I could turn something like this into a cab...
http://www.walmart.com/ip/Mainstays-Storage-Cabinet-Alder/11061206?findingMethod=rr
and pretty much have it right in my bedroom..

My real plan is to grow and times here so I can get by without spending pretty much all my cash on my meds. I've got 2 kids to look out for, and plan on getting some money togeather from afew grows here to get a house and have a even better grow there...

I'm looked at tons of setups, ect. done my reading ect. I just want some one on one help or whatever you wanna call it so don't flame me and say go read. ;P

I'm thinking I'm gonna go soil for now as it seems alot cheaper untill I get myself a house and build a nice setup.

 

[yesum]

If you are going 3-400 watts in one cab, then you want hps or other over cfls. About 150 watts max per cab if using cfl, then the other lights get more useful. I do not know if you can afford a tent, but I really love mine. There are free online guides to building grow tents as well as wood cabs.

I would get a 400 watt hps from what you are saying of space needs and to supply a fair amount. HTG is cheap for stuff, have heard the filters are not good however.

 

[In~Plain~Site]

Sounds like you have a plan.
It's been my experience that the smaller the space, the harder it is to 'control' the enviroment.

I would definitely get a tent and a 600, both can be had reasonably and it's a great start for when you want to expand.Use the tent as a veg area after you get your room setup.

I know you're tryna get by on the cheap(understanably) but it is an investment in your future plans.

Good luck to you

 

[TreeTopHi]

Alright, thanks guys for the fast responds..Now I may go with the tent, the only reason I didn't wanna go with a tent is due to the fact I'm looking for stealth, as I live in an apartment. Our maintenance crew here has keys to all of the apartments here and could come in to fix something ect. at pretty much any given time. Its very un-normal..but still would like to be somewhat safe. They are pretty cool guys tho.

Where would be the best place to buy a tent?

 

[yesum]

I got my tent because of stealth. I put it in sliding door closet and just close the doors if I want it hidden. Have the electric cords coming out the crack I leave open and use a chair and misc stuff to hide cords going to outlet. If I need to move or get the grow taken down, it is a few minutes work.

I got my tent off ebay, Secret Jardin DR60. 2x2x5'. I have LEDs in it, but a 250 watt hps is perfect for the size. A 3x3' tent would fit a 400 watt light, maybe a 600watt. There are a lot of cheap tents out there, but it is hit and miss with them.

 

[TreeTopHi]

Thanks I will look into the DR60..

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

You can't beat a tent for convenience and operation, they just aren't that stealthy.

Nice cab, almost wish I had it myself. If they get one ~23" deep I'm all over it.

The cab is ~2.3 sq feet. A 150w hps with remote ballast would be nice. The cab is tall enough for veg and flower, depending on your needs. You could get away with a single exhaust-fan and scrubber for both chambers.

You could use the adjustable shelf for sectioning off a utility area up top for the remote ballast, exhaust fan and scrubber. The fixed shelf could divide veg and flower.

Hoods are nice but a pc fan blowing on the bare hps bulb will run cooler. The lamps you're using now would be good in the veg chamber.

The only tricky part would be light trapping the door cracks. A 3" wide strip of plastic, fabric etc that allows free movement of the door and hinge would be the easiest and probably most effective. Window stripping doesn't always work like it's supposed to.

If you're not interested in a combo veg/flower cabinet, a single chamber flower cab is that much easier to rig up. Good luck.

 

[dansbuds]

Yup you need a cabinet/wardrobe . my buddy has a tent set up in his apartment & is constantly worried about somebody seeing it . i started off with a wardrobe cab & eventually turned it into my clone & veg box that i use now .
couple of quick pics ....
this is what it looks like now .....

this was when i used it for flowering .....

the build out thread for that box is here if ya want to check it out .https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=186872&highlight=dansbuds

for stealthness a cab like that or even the one you posted could work for you .... theres alot of options out there for you , but i'm sure you'll get it done ... good luck bro .

theres 2 forums here that will give you TONS of info ..check them out .
grow room designs & equipment .....https://www.icmag.com/ic/forumdisplay.php?f=32

& the DIY links ....https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=40637



growem green & stay safe ...Dans

 

[señorsloth]

i'm in an identical situation, just a few months down the road, i was also a big contributor on overgrow, and stopped growing and posting on grow sites for the most part after og got shut down. i recently moved into an appartment, about 3 months ago. i went with a homemade wardrobe cabinet with a 400 watt air cooled hps, it works very well but needs LOTS of work still, and i have put so much money into it already! if i had a walk in closet i would have gone with a tent but because my apartment didn't have any i had to go more stealth, i like my setup a lot because if the landlord were to just walk in for whatever reason, he probably wouldn't suspect a thing.

i have been thinking the most stealth setup would be one of those longer low dressers, they are like 2 feet deep by 5 or 6 feet long and 3 or 4 feet high... you could easily toss out all the drawers, glue the drawer fronts to where they belong, and make the top a false door with a hidden latch, setup a 250w or 400 hps, vented through the bottom, i see those things for dirt cheep on craigslist all the time.

you might want to take a look at hps lights, you say your on a budgjet, my 400w hps with ballast and cooltube was only like 150 bucks shipped off of amazon, it's a no name but works great. you could probably find a 250 for 120 or 130, that would give ya better bud than cfl, probably wouldn't even cost a whole lot more to setup, 300w of cfls still puts out a lot of heat!

 

[TreeTopHi]

I'm still thinking about what to do, build a cab or go with the tent in my walk in closet. I'm looking for stealth, but at the same time I need to produce atleast a half p, every harvest to get my by till my next. I'm thinking I'm gonna go with the tent, put it in my closet and run the 400watt hps, If I can get 2-3 harvests around a half pound, I'll be on my way out of here an into a house somewhere, where I can use the tent I get now as a veg. tent and buy a bigger tent for flowering.

My thing now is gear, I've been looking around hoping to find a whole 400watt tent setup around 2x2x5 or 2x3x5. What should I go with? Might not even make these sizes..Give me some links to whole turn key setups, or post the items I would need here to DIY one..

 

[señorsloth]

ya a 3x3 tent would be perfect for a 400, or maybe for more intense light a 2x3, in a walk in closet you are fine, put in your own lock with a key, there should be no reason a maintenence person would ever need to go in your closet, nor would it be likely that an "emergency" would happen that would require them to look inside it, so worst comes to worst if they do decide to take a peak in your closet they would find themselves locked out, where they could either bitch at you later for, granted that they feel like coming up with a decent excuse for why they wanted to go in there without notice...or they can just drop it because they weren't supposed to be in that part of your appartment anyway, they have no right to dig in your closet for no reason just like they have no right to go through your dresser drawers or computer hardrive...though if they find something they can always make up some kind of excuse later, so better to lock it so they don't get a chance to find anything illegal, just get mad and suspicious, giving you time to dump the grow.

on the other hand you could rig up a sort of hidden latch for the door, with like a piece of fishing line that you have to pull from the top of the door to unlatch a bar from behind it or something, but hidden so he will never see the lock. if the landlord tried to get in there while you were at work and came up with an excuse for why he wanted to snoop, you could just say you use it for storage and put some sort of new child safety latch on it because your kid or neice kept getting into it, then again time to scrap it.

in my appartment we have one guy in charge of 100 units, and he spends 90% of his time in the office, he has no time for inspections or maintenance, and he is a cool guy, most of the people in my buildings smoke and are cool with weed so i blend in well, i actually seem like one of the more straitedge people in the building, so that helps a lot. i can't imagine they would ever come in except for the once a year city inspection, and i'll hopefully have my cab finished by then so i can just shut everything off on that day and seal it all inside the cabnet while im at work. my night period is durring the daytime so the plants would never even know, and if there are no fans or lights on, and no cords coming out of the cab plus a innocuous but sturdy lock keeping it closed? i think i should be in the clear, as long as i play it safe... every apartment setup is different though, some people get inspections all the time, some never...i haven't lived here long enough to say for sure but from the freinds i have met here, i have figured that it almost never happens.

half a pound is a pretty good harvest for a 400w, it might not be easy to do with a new strain after a long break, of course, if you get good at it and find some heavy yeilding genetics a 400 could yeild a pound or more per harvest but it's not attainable by most, starting from seed, especially with mixed strains, make sure to figure in veg time as well, with only 4 to 6 plants in there you will need to veg for at least a month, if not longer, i have 20 plants under my 400 in a 2x3 footprint, and they all needed 26 days veg to really fill in the canopy nice and tight. if you want to go without veg time you could flower right from clone and do a sea of green type grow, but you will need clone moms and many more plants than you initially stated you want to run

 

[In~Plain~Site]

I think I'd stay away from the turn-key setups,you can always buy items seperately and save some coin.

Think outside the box, but also bear in mind what your future plans hold when choosing equipment.


What size space is the closet?

They come in many sizes.

 

[TreeTopHi]

Thanks all for the comments, keep'em coming! It's been sumtime since I've grown, as I've stated up. I talked everything over with the ol lady and she seems to think a cab would be more stealth. Only because shes friends with our manger at our complex and she stops by from time to time, but the lady is still a BITCH! lol I hate to say it but she is. She's VERY funny about things cluttered up, she kinda moaned last time we had inspection about the mess in the closets talking about boxs stacked up. LOL

Anyways with that being said I'm DEFF. going to be buying something like the link I posted to turn into a cab. If anyone could please help me with this idea I'd be greatful I've looked over the other cab threads, well alot of them and still unsure what the best route to go is...as I need to atleast harvest a HP or more..so what I'm asking is what kind of cab can I run a 400watt hps in and keep my temps around 70-75F?

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

Total stealth is tough. Absent the false wall or room nobody but you enters, we're left with disguise. Disguise isn't always foolproof. The best bet might be a combination of disguise and low to no unnecessary traffic. Here we more mimic stealth than actually achieve it.

I grow in a cab and have to put the pc console on top to disguise the fan noise. It ain't perfect but it helps keep prying ears from asking too many questions. Other than that, I try to keep folks out of the room I grow in whenever possible. (For me that's always.)

One thing you might want to consider is an all inclusive design. An external fan, scrubber, duct etc might give away your secret.

IMO, there are three basics you might want to consider before you know what degree of security you'll need to employ:

visual - keep whatever you can out of plain view. A cab usually looks pretty innocuous but light leaks and or external hardware could give you away.

sound - total silence is probably out of the question. Your best overall bet between expense and practicality would be to grow in another room than the one you entertain, such as a bedroom. The bigger the lamp, the bigger the fan you'll need for temps and circulation. To a degree, a speed controller can tamp down the fan noise but you can't under size the fan in this scenario.

Long story short, you'll have to decide how much you can effectively cool. Not only for the unknowing visitors but for you and your wife. For example, you don't want your bedroom cab so noisy you can't sleep.

A 400 shouldn't be too hard to handle, so long as the cubic feet isn't too small. A general guideline for indoor HID growing is 50 watts per sq foot. More light than that and you'll need more cfm per cab volume. This often means more noise. IMO, you need a cab in the ~8 sq foot range.

Smell - Two words... carbon scrubber. I wouldn't scrimp on this area. Living with your grow means you may get accustomed to a lil' odor. A visitor isn't likely to overlook a stanky crib if you know what I mean, even if the odor is slight.

Keep these three basics in mind and you're fine for most visitors. If your landlady wants to inspect the room you grow in, I'd consider another place to live. That or have the ability to construct a cabinet she's pretty much certain to glance over as opposed to think, "What the fuck is that?"

 

[TreeTopHi]

Total stealth is tough. Absent the false wall or room nobody but you enters, we're left with disguise. Disguise isn't always foolproof. The best bet might be a combination of disguise and low to no unnecessary traffic. Here we more mimic stealth than actually achieve it.

I grow in a cab and have to put the pc console on top to disguise the fan noise. It ain't perfect but it helps keep prying ears from asking too many questions. Other than that, I try to keep folks out of the room I grow in whenever possible. (For me that's always.)

One thing you might want to consider is an all inclusive design. An external fan, scrubber, duct etc might give away your secret.

IMO, there are three basics you might want to consider before you know what degree of security you'll need to employ:

visual - keep whatever you can out of plain view. A cab usually looks pretty innocuous but light leaks and or external hardware could give you away.

sound - total silence is probably out of the question. Your best overall bet between expense and practicality would be to grow in another room than the one you entertain, such as a bedroom. The bigger the lamp, the bigger the fan you'll need for temps and circulation. To a degree, a speed controller can tamp down the fan noise but you can't under size the fan in this scenario.

Long story short, you'll have to decide how much you can effectively cool. Not only for the unknowing visitors but for you and your wife. For example, you don't want your bedroom cab so noisy you can't sleep.

A 400 shouldn't be too hard to handle, so long as the cubic feet isn't too small. A general guideline for indoor HID growing is 50 watts per sq foot. More light than that and you'll need more cfm per cab volume. This often means more noise. IMO, you need a cab in the ~8 sq foot range.

Smell - Two words... carbon scrubber. I wouldn't scrimp on this area. Living with your grow means you may get accustomed to a lil' odor. A visitor isn't likely to overlook a stanky crib if you know what I mean, even if the odor is slight.

Keep these three basics in mind and you're fine for most visitors. If your landlady wants to inspect the room you grow in, I'd consider another place to live. That or have the ability to construct a cabinet she's pretty much certain to glance over as opposed to think, "What the fuck is that?"

Thank you sir, You've spent a great deal of time trying to guide me in the right way, much respect for you. I'm looking for the "perfect" cab as we speak "type" all over the net. If you know of any good places please let me know.

P.S I think you're due for some rep..

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

One of the best cabs I've seen is the mdf wardrobe ~$150 less shipping. It's probably better suited for a 250 but it's big enough to veg and flower in the same unit. A 400 is possible but would need a honkin' fan.

IMO, you need something in the 4' x 2' x 5' range. Check the 400 club, you'll get an idea of the hardware sizes.

 

[TreeTopHi]

Could you link me to that cab? The one I'm looking at is 22.31 x 15.25 x 59.63 it's made of a thin wood I've read..would that be a problem? It's not solid wood.. can be found here.. http://www.walmart.com/ip/Mainstays-Storage-Cabinet-Alder/11061206?findingMethod=rr

Would I be able to fit 4-5 plants in this area, in say 3gal pots??

I know I'd need one hell of a vent system to run a 400watt hps in this area but do you think it's possible and to keep it cool? I'm looking to for a nice harvest..like a HP? I know its many other factors to but you know what I mean...I need to get my hands on some good gen. sad beans are so much..

 

[inquest]

Hy Treetop, Biscuit's got the right idea!!

I've been able to quite a fan pretty well by putting a carbon filter infront AND after it. This works very well for fan blade noise does, nothing for vibration though. For vibration, put it on something like a pillow to isolate it. I'd also look at low odor strains and carbon scrub the shit outta it!!! I've been in the room with my cab and had zero smell, then went upstairs and holy-cow my house smells like nugs!! Yikes!! Also, you're in an apt so soil is a good way to go because it cant spring a leak and drip into another apt while you're at work or what-have-you.

Hey Buscuit, putting a scrubber, or any kind of muffler really, on both sides of a fan works wonders!! really cuts down your CFM, though! Those last pics of your box look delicious btw! Good job!!

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

http://www.google.com/products/cata...Y0QHg1uz-Cw&ved=0CGIQ8wIwAQ&biw=1024&bih=579#

It's not real wood but you could veg and flower at the same time. This knocks out lots of time between harvests. Doesn't look like you could get five 3 gal pots in one side though. 40" x 20" x 72" outside dimensions.

A square footprint, ~36" x 36" would allow you to hang the bulb vertical. You could put plants 360* around the bulb and get more per haul. Unfortunately there's not too many cabs with those dimensions.

 

[TreeTopHi]

Your speaking of the cab you posted right?

Duh I'm high..lol.

Do you think this is a good idea to go with for a cab or should I keep looking for a better?