208 Watt CFL Rubbermaid Micro Grow

Braddah Smokes · Apr 7, 2011

Not my first grow, but the first I'll be sharing. Anyway I'm trying to do this on the cheap, no frills, I just want to be able to pull some nice nugs out of here for personal medicinal use. Hopefully I can show that you too can grow, and it doesn't take several hundred dollars of expensive equipment. Anyway, thanks for visiting, let's move forward... :thank you:

The cab is just a 30 gallon tote, here's some specs:

Dimensions (W x D x H) :: 32" x 19" x 16"
Area :: ~4.222 sqft
Volume :: ~5.629 cuft
Lighting :: 8x 26 watt warm CFLs, ~50 watts/sqft
Ventilation :: 50 CFM rated bath fan, mini fan inside to dissipate heat from bulbs

I'm growing bagseed, 12/12 from germ. I currently have twelve babies going, of various ages. I'm trying to stage them up for perpetual harvests. I'm going to try to keep these ladies as low as possible, as I only have 16" height to work with! Should be a good challenge! Right now the box isn't exactly light proof (it glows lol), but I plan on fixing that. Also temps are a bit high for my taste, summer is coming around and I don't have central air. We'll see how that works out. Any questions, just ask! Well enough with words, let's see some pics! :joint:

The exterior, taken at night time with all lights off to illustrate the intense glow this thing gives off!

Top of box, I used an exacto knife to cut holes into the lid for the light fixtures to fit snugly, trying to maximize my height!

The exhaust fan, had to mount this way to save space for the ladies. Not very stealth, but looks pretty nice inside the box. Todo: build a carbon scrubber!

Under the lid, the lighting array!

And here are my lovely ladies bathing in the sun!

Here is the exhaust fan again, from the inside this time, moves a lot more air than you'd think!

Here you can see the mini fan, it's directed at the lights, but it is also moving enough air to make every plant in the box "dance"!

My oldest and most developed girl, quickly approaching the three week mark!

Well, that's all for now, thanks for stopping by! Feel free to leave your questions, comments, (constructive) criticisms, and I'll respond asap. Peace. :wave:

elemtee · Apr 7, 2011

looks Good man! are you going to wrap black/white poly around the interior walls or? just curious.

always enjoyed the rubbermade tub grows.

Braddah Smokes · Apr 7, 2011

elemtee said:
looks Good man! are you going to wrap black/white poly around the interior walls or? just curious.

always enjoyed the rubbermade tub grows.

Thanks for the compliment! I haven't completely made up my mind on that yet. I am considering either poly or a few coats of paint. I think poly would be more effective to stop the glow. If you or anyone else has a suggestion on this it would be greatly appreciated! :thank you:

IwannatokeNbone · Apr 7, 2011

it looks pretty good but i prob would of just put a 150hps in there over them cfls, at 200+ watts i bet your temps are hotter then a 150 would of been and with alot worse penetration, but i luv rubbermaid grows, u can set one up for about 35 dollars if need be, ive done it. ofcourse assuming u have the lights already. for 3 weeks even in a rubbermaid your plants are quite small, its the beer cups n your light being to far away, hate to be a stickler but them iz the facts and by potting up and lowering them lights you could triple your yeild .

Braddah Smokes · Apr 7, 2011

IwannatokeNbone said:
it looks pretty good but i prob would of just put a 150hps in there over them cfls, at 200+ watts i bet your temps are hotter then a 150 would of been and with alot worse penetration, but i luv rubbermaid grows, u can set one up for about 35 dollars if need be, ive done it. ofcourse assuming u have the lights already. for 3 weeks even in a rubbermaid your plants are quite small, its the beer cups n your light being to far away, hate to be a stickler but them iz the facts and by potting up and lowering them lights you could triple your yeild .

Thanks for the advice. I went with CFL because it is more cost effective for me, and simple plug&play. Everything so far has cost less than $150, from the tub to the fans, lights, nutes, pH tester, everything. I will look into HPS for my next cab, which will be nice and proper. Also been thinking about CMH, supposedly these bulbs throw less heat than HPS equivalents.

Oh and not all the plants are 3 weeks. Actually, none of them are. The two bigger ones are finishing week 2. Thats from seed, and they have three nodes. The plants are within inches of the light when the lid is closed. They are short and compact because they do not need to stretch for the light. Now that isn't to say they aren't heat and pH stressed, because they are. But these plants never cease to amaze with how resilient they are. And the 12oz cups are by design, I want to restrict how big these plants get, I only have so much room. Inevitably I'll have to train them by some means (LST, screen).

Thanks for stopping by! :thank you:

kayaN0W · Apr 7, 2011

Another rubbermaid...Saawweeeet....tunin in for sure. I let my gals grow right up into my cfls...of course i position em so theyre not touchin the bulb hehe. cant wait to see how u utilize that lil cab, maybe i can nab sum ideas from ya

Braddah Smokes · Apr 7, 2011

kayaN0W said:
Another rubbermaid...Saawweeeet....tunin in for sure. I let my gals grow right up into my cfls...of course i position em so theyre not touchin the bulb hehe. cant wait to see how u utilize that lil cab, maybe i can nab sum ideas from ya

Thanks for the love kaya! I originally had the "Y" light socket splitters, but my babies were getting too close, had to install what you see now to raise the lights. Was worried to come home to prematurely burnt plants! Also theres a cut down cardboard box underneath them, I can take that out when they get a bit bigger. Thanks for reading, I'll be sure to watch your grow. :thank you:

IwannatokeNbone · Apr 7, 2011

u can get a htg gardensupply 150 hps for 69$ before shipping and its magnetic so it will run a cmh bulb as well, just someting to think about, your set up is nice though as it is.

also a future strategy to maximize that little space u have would be to build a bed over useing cups, that way your roots can go sideways as much as they want, u can even just fill your tub with soil and put drainage holes beneath it and catch the run off

Braddah Smokes · Apr 8, 2011

IwannatokeNbone said:
u can get a htg gardensupply 150 hps for 69$ before shipping and its magnetic so it will run a cmh bulb as well, just someting to think about, your set up is nice though as it is.

also a future strategy to maximize that little space u have would be to build a bed over useing cups, that way your roots can go sideways as much as they want, u can even just fill your tub with soil and put drainage holes beneath it and catch the run off

Thanks again for the insightful comments and complements! I am seriously considering CMH for next cab. A soil bed design did cross my mind, but I'd like to get perpetual harvests so I ruled it out. As a general inquiry though, would a soil bed cause the roots to get tangled and the plants to fight for dominance? I have no experience with that. Also did anyone have any advice on my glowing issue? Would black/white poly be my best bet? Thanks in advance, and stay tuned for a mini-update in the next day or two! :thank you:

kayaN0W · Apr 8, 2011

Braddah Smokes said:
Thanks again for the insightful comments and complements! I am seriously considering CMH for next cab. A soil bed design did cross my mind, but I'd like to get perpetual harvests so I ruled it out. As a general inquiry though, would a soil bed cause the roots to get tangled and the plants to fight for dominance? I have no experience with that. Also did anyone have any advice on my glowing issue? Would black/white poly be my best bet? Thanks in advance, and stay tuned for a mini-update in the next day or two!

The glow is easily nixed....just do multiple layers of white like i did hehe. Belive I used 2-3 spray cans to get the inside coated good n thick. Flat white of course

As far as soil beds causing bound rootz...im not onboard with that. Ive grown 3-5 plants per pot before...not saying that its right, but they did just fine. Sumtimes you just gotta let the gals do what theyre gonna do and trust that they'll figure it out under that dark abyss we call soil

But sounds like uve decided against that anyways. Id just stick with the cups and get em into flower tiny and keep em tiny, they'll do as theyre told :canabis:

Braddah Smokes · Apr 8, 2011

kayaN0W said:
The glow is easily nixed....just do multiple layers of white like i did hehe. Belive I used 2-3 spray cans to get the inside coated good n thick. Flat white of course

As far as soil beds causing bound rootz...im not onboard with that. Ive grown 3-5 plants per pot before...not saying that its right, but they did just fine. Sumtimes you just gotta let the gals do what theyre gonna do and trust that they'll figure it out under that dark abyss we call soil But sounds like uve decided against that anyways. Id just stick with the cups and get em into flower tiny and keep em tiny, they'll do as theyre told

Oh for real, spray paint? OK thought I'd have to use a paint brush! Good to know, thanks. It's not that I've totally dismissed the idea of soilbeds being a viable solution, I'm open to new ideas, just for this cab I want to be able to harvest a plant and replace it with another in a snap. Thanks again bud. :thank you:

Braddah Smokes · Apr 10, 2011

Some new pics.

Peeking inside

Group shot

The oldest

Top of the oldest one

Had to tie her down...

After LST

IwannatokeNbone · Apr 10, 2011

your already rootbound, would be really wise to pot up or your looking at a 5 gram harvest tops. go buy a small tub for washing dishes or something from target n fill er up with soil n place her in your tub, beer cups past 2-3 weeks isnt a great idea

Braddah Smokes · Apr 10, 2011

Thanks again for stopping by! Allow me to re-iterate: The tub is 16" high, the lights take up 3.25" and I can't grow right up to the bulb, so we'll say light clearance is 5", the cups' height are 5", so my maximum plant size would be about 6". I'm growing bagseed, so I'm not sure what to expect in size from these. What if I'm planting sativas? So my idea was to purposefully restrict their size by planting in small cups. Small roots cannot support a lot of foliage, and would stunt growth. That's what I'm aiming for. I want the plants to look like a bud in a cup, I've seen it done on these forums. 12/12 from seed in solo cups. I realize yeilds will be small. 5-7 grams per plant would be a good goal for me. If I can harvest a couple plants every once in a while, that will be fine.

Thanks again for the advice, I will probably end up getting a bunch of 5"x5"x5" square pots the next time I go to the store, at least I can maximize the volume of soil in the space I'm using with those. :thank you:

A is 4 PiMp · Apr 10, 2011

Just stopping by,

Its looking good so far! I was thinking about doing a rubbermaid setup for my next grow.

Idk about that "rootbound" comment, for example:

the sativa in the front (in the cup) was vegged for about 4 days and this picture was taken at day 12 of 12/12

it was also over watered for about a week and a few days, I eventually transplanted it because the cup was falling apart from my failed LST attempt

im not trying to throw a wrench between the gears iwannatoke but theres been PLENTY of grows pulled off in those 16-18oz party cups, sure they aren't 20G dry yielders but hey they've been working for dr. bud

but on the other hand you could raise the plants a lil bit closer, unless heat is an issue or your lazy like me

Chomp · Apr 10, 2011

Good luck man...my micro grow experience started in a rubbermaid w/ CFL's too :good:

Chomp

IwannatokeNbone · Apr 11, 2011

i was being generous with the 5 gram estimate, keep in mind plants roots grow even in flower, check the 12/12 thread there is a person getting 3 ounces from super silver haze in 83 days from sprouting.

Braddah Smokes · Apr 11, 2011

Thanks for the words of encouragement all! That sure is a tall one in that cup, Pimp! I have seen the grows you speak of, there is no doubt in my mind I can pull it off. I'm not going for big harvests here, only quality. And yes heat is a concern for me, I have no central air and I live in a hot climate, with summer temps already showing. In the coming week I'm moving the box into a room with a window AC unit, and installing some heat blocking window film... That should help tremendously, we shall find out! Stay tuned! :thank you:

A is 4 PiMp · Apr 11, 2011

You could cut a small passive intake into the side of the box, that would help lower the temps a bit, just remember to place it at the lowest point in the container

Braddah Smokes · Apr 11, 2011

Ah cool, thanks for the tip to place it low! I currently have cut a hole for passive intake, but it's not big enough to replace the air the exhaust fan is trying to take out... so... I need to go to casa depot and check out my options. PVC light baffle is still the norm, no? I was thinking somewhere along the lines of a darkroom louvre... I don't know throw some ideas at me. :thank you:

208 Watt CFL Rubbermaid Micro Grow

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