Complete Grow Box - 150 HPS

@ blizzard420:
Nice avatar!! You motorboatin' son of a bitch...Lol

@ johnni blaze:
Nice setup. There is one thing I noticed that nobody has said anything about yet though. When you built your cabinet/stand, you erred in your design at the bottom. You are puting a lot of weight on top with the fishtank which gets transferred to the main vertical supports at the corners and you placed your bottom horizontal pieces inside of them as opposed to under them. Then you have your casters kind of under both the vertical piece and the horizontal piece. There is a possibility of the vertical pieces splitting and shearing under the weight of the tank. If your cab was sitting on the floor instead of on casters it wouldn't be an issue but you're setting yourself up for failure with it on the casters like that.

I'm not trying to be a downer here, just hate to see all your hard work and time get wasted due to one small mistake in design. I'm a finish carpenter and I make custom cabinetry so I'd like to help if I can here with a little suggestion. You should think about making a new frame for the bottom that has your horizontal pieces running the entire length of the cabinet to transfer the load from the vertical pieces to the casters better. Then the next time you do a water change on your tank you can take the tank off, pull the plants out, lay it on it's back and screw the new base in place between the casters and existing bottom of the cabinet.

PM me if you have questions

your tank will be just shy of under 200 pounds so it ought to be alright. one of my hobby's is growin live plants in my aquarium. if you check out my grow you will see that its the first pic i posted. its a 55 gallon, with about a hundred pounds of rock in it. all together probably weighs close to 600 pounds. i built the stand for it myself. those things are expensive if you go to try and buy one. my fishtank was one of the main reasons i wanted to try a hydroponic plant. hell i pretty much had most of what i needed. its goin good so far. you are definately going to have some odor problems later on. the one great thing about your design is that if it catches on fire you have 20 gallons of water sittin on top thats goin to put it out.

rolledupdriver said:

To grow in small area's and still get a decent harvest you need to train them LST (low stress training) works wonders, also a grill can help. You can train your plants to grow in almost any kind of space just requires the right training

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Can you point me to a link explaining LST? And how does a grill help? Are you talking about a bbq grill or a different type?

During my surfing through this forum I found some mention that if you are using CFL bulbs, which I plan on doing, you can put them just an inch or two from the top of the plant and it won't grow as tall.

Igabod said:

Can you point me to a link explaining LST? And how does a grill help? Are you talking about a bbq grill or a different type?

During my surfing through this forum I found some mention that if you are using CFL bulbs, which I plan on doing, you can put them just an inch or two from the top of the plant and it won't grow as tall.

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Heya Igabod. I have just pulled off a sweet small lst grow. It is real easy, I don't have a link for you but basically I just vegged my plants until they were 8 inches tall then bent them over to a 90 degree angle and keep tying the plant down as it grows so it grows horizontal. Any side branches should also be tied down to this height. I grew mine around the edge of the pot about 3 inches above it. Kind of like a halo floating above the pot. You get it? The height that you decide to grow horizontal at is important to consider as you will get several colas growing vertically from bud sites along the horizontal stem. (I got 10 colas per plant). So you need to think through leaving space for the colas to grow up when you switch to flowering. This will determine the height you keep your plant level and horizontal at during veg.

I hope this makes sense man. It sounds tricky but trust me, it's piss easy. I managed to get it right with 3 plants first time. Check out my journal for ideas. or PM me. I'm happy to help.

chainseeker said:

Looks good. My next cab I would like to build from scratch unless I find something real close to what I want . Yeah you def need a carbon filter for the smell. Also have u checked the temps yet? High temps have been my only real prob's so far. Knock on wood! Looks like ur on top of it keep us posted.

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Hey thanks man. yeah my temperatures without the lights on are about 68-72 depending on what my room is and when the lights are on, the highest ive seen it is 82 so i figured i shouldnt be too concerned about it. thanks for stopping by too

Bagz said:

I am definitly subbed to this man. Good work with the cabinet. I have a real similar setup using a 150w hps in a set of stealth shelves and LST. Temps and smell will be a huge issue for ya. It was for me anyway. I am just about to harvest.
I love what you have done with the fishtank cabinet. It should serve you well.
+rep for another 150w hps stealth lst grow. There aint many of us around.
I'm not trying to steal your journal. Just give you an idea of what you can work with in a small space. Best of luck, I will keep an eye on this grow.

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Dude thanks so much. i actually got my idea of doing this from when i passed by your journal once. i could never find it ever again and you came onto my journal! haha sweet deal though dude. what can you tell me about what i should do for temp and smell though? i mean my temps arent bad at all right now so im not too concerned but im thinking about adding in a couple of cfl's so that might increase the temps. let me know man and ill definitely be coming back to your journal soon- this anatomy class i'm taking is kickin my ass right now haha

teryy said:

Very dope
just got theses babys hope they come out like youresView attachment 944218got a journal going myself maybe you can stop by give a helping word or 2.plus rep cab looks great 1st grow dr60 150 hps

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hey thanks dude. do you have a link to your journal? ill definitely stop by to see what youre doing

kcweedguy said:

have you lined the inside of your box with a reflective surface or painted the inside a bright white? that will help light penetrate everywhere without getting absorbed. and a couple of carbon filters or any filter will help i use dryer sheets also and just change em every week or so. it works great for me in hiding the smell

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nah i havent lined the inside or anything, but i plan to very soon with some mylar or something i order from htgsupply.com and how did you set up your carbon filters or even use dryer sheets? thanks for the advice

brandon873 said:

your tank will be just shy of under 200 pounds so it ought to be alright. one of my hobby's is growin live plants in my aquarium. if you check out my grow you will see that its the first pic i posted. its a 55 gallon, with about a hundred pounds of rock in it. all together probably weighs close to 600 pounds. i built the stand for it myself. those things are expensive if you go to try and buy one. my fishtank was one of the main reasons i wanted to try a hydroponic plant. hell i pretty much had most of what i needed. its goin good so far. you are definately going to have some odor problems later on. the one great thing about your design is that if it catches on fire you have 20 gallons of water sittin on top thats goin to put it out.

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dude i will definitely come check out your grow haha thats awesome that you built you own 55 gallon stand... like thats crazy to me. i had a 55 gal but gave it to my friends little sister (shes old enough to know what to do with fish haha) and i had a stand for it to and i remember that tank was heavy as shit. but what did you do about smell?

haha i hope it doesnt catch on fire either

Igabod said:

Can you point me to a link explaining LST? And how does a grill help? Are you talking about a bbq grill or a different type?

During my surfing through this forum I found some mention that if you are using CFL bulbs, which I plan on doing, you can put them just an inch or two from the top of the plant and it won't grow as tall.

Click to expand...

dude you can put your lights however close you want them, but just never let them touch your plants- ever. i have mine about 10 inches away and i'm putting in my racks so i can easily adjust the height of everything.

johnni blaze said:

Dude thanks so much. i actually got my idea of doing this from when i passed by your journal once. i could never find it ever again and you came onto my journal! haha sweet deal though dude. what can you tell me about what i should do for temp and smell though? i mean my temps arent bad at all right now so im not too concerned but im thinking about adding in a couple of cfl's so that might increase the temps. let me know man and ill definitely be coming back to your journal soon- this anatomy class i'm taking is kickin my ass right now haha

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Good luck with your anatomy class. I'm a uni kid lol. I know what that shits like. My shelf setup just sits in my closet as a side project from uni. Glad I inspired your grow box man. You have done a sweet job of it. And if you are not having temp problems with the HPS then you are doing better than me, my temps have been sitting just over 80 the whole grow. Plants don't seem phased but it's not ideal.
When it comes time for you do deal with smell hit me up. I got a DIY carbon filter that cost me less than $15 and it works a treat in my cab.
I only have a week before harvest, it would be good to get your opinion on my grow too. Go the 150w HPS stealth cabs.
Hey I forgot, you're training your plants using lst too right?

Bagz said:

Good luck with your anatomy class. I'm a uni kid lol. I know what that shits like. My shelf setup just sits in my closet as a side project from uni. Glad I inspired your grow box man. You have done a sweet job of it. And if you are not having temp problems with the HPS then you are doing better than me, my temps have been sitting just over 80 the whole grow. Plants don't seem phased but it's not ideal.
When it comes time for you do deal with smell hit me up. I got a DIY carbon filter that cost me less than $15 and it works a treat in my cab.
I only have a week before harvest, it would be good to get your opinion on my grow too. Go the 150w HPS stealth cabs.
Hey I forgot, you're training your plants using lst too right?

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yeah man, the tallest one is about 4 maybe 5 inches (too lazy to measure right now) but i figure i'll wait until i can see the sex and then transplant and start LSTing. it'll probably be in about a week or 2 and they'll be maybe 7 inches tall. how'd you do it for your plants?

That's a good way to do it. I vegged mine for about 4 weeks. Waited until they were about 8 inches then trained them over. I trained mine around the rim of the pot, worked well. They are fully mature and only 16 inches tall total, from the bottom of the pot. Worked out well. I didn't wait till I could see their sex though, ended up training one male lol.
Your way should work fine. You cant do much wrong with LST. Just keep everything at the same horizontal level until your colas start shooting up and your away.

Bagz said:

Heya Igabod. I have just pulled off a sweet small lst grow. It is real easy, I don't have a link for you but basically I just vegged my plants until they were 8 inches tall then bent them over to a 90 degree angle and keep tying the plant down as it grows so it grows horizontal. Any side branches should also be tied down to this height. I grew mine around the edge of the pot about 3 inches above it. Kind of like a halo floating above the pot. You get it? The height that you decide to grow horizontal at is important to consider as you will get several colas growing vertically from bud sites along the horizontal stem. (I got 10 colas per plant). So you need to think through leaving space for the colas to grow up when you switch to flowering. This will determine the height you keep your plant level and horizontal at during veg.

I hope this makes sense man. It sounds tricky but trust me, it's piss easy. I managed to get it right with 3 plants first time. Check out my journal for ideas. or PM me. I'm happy to help.

Click to expand...

Ah my friends' hippie parents call that vining. I never actually took the time to figure out what they were doing when I saw them tying the plants down way back in highschool though.

Should I just take a piece of twine and tie the top central stem to the bottom of the central stem or do I tie it to the edge of the pot?

Igabod said:

Ah my friends' hippie parents call that vining. I never actually took the time to figure out what they were doing when I saw them tying the plants down way back in highschool though.

Should I just take a piece of twine and tie the top central stem to the bottom of the central stem or do I tie it to the edge of the pot?

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Poke a couple of holes in ya pot and tie it there. I actually use wire hooks that I poke into the soil.

its also better if i transplant them into a bigger pot too right? how big are those pots you used in your grow bagz? and also... haha sorry for all the question but if i use a bigger pot does that mean more roots and bigger/denser buds?

So i just added 3 120 mm computer fans. each puts about 75 cfm, says 90 cfm but my 4in 80cfm from htg seems correct and the computer fans just a little under that. anyways i plan on adding in like the refrigerator rack type thing in there as my shelf. home depot and lowes has them for pretty cheap and they can cut them out to however big you need them.

i plan on adding in a small oscillating fan too and screwing it to the top near the light and point it down towards the plant(s) when they get bigger.

not too much to say haha let me know what you guys think...

johnni blaze said:

its also better if i transplant them into a bigger pot too right? how big are those pots you used in your grow bagz? and also... haha sorry for all the question but if i use a bigger pot does that mean more roots and bigger/denser buds?

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My pots are only 12 cm tall and 14cm diameter across the top. So fairly small. I don't know if it's better to transplant. I was just worried that if I did they would grow too tall, however I could have got away with it actually. So I would say go for it and transplant. And then just keep the horizontal level of you lst down and allow for room when those big ass colas of bud shoot upwards. You will find what works for you. Oh one thing, I can't look back through ya journal atm, how many plants are you growing under your HPS at a time? If it is just the one then transplant it into a bigger pot. I actually have 4 plants but there is only enough light for three, the forth gets neglected. So three plant max will do you well.
Don't worry bout the questions. You should see my journal. I have had to call for help many a time.

It's better having more fans for exhaust than for intake... this creates negative pressure and insures more fresh as is being pulled in and all of the stinky air is going out where you want it to.

Iron said:

It's better having more fans for exhaust than for intake... this creates negative pressure and insures more fresh as is being pulled in and all of the stinky air is going out where you want it to.

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thats pretty good logic man. so would it be better if i had the fans at the bottom just blow out rather than in? because i have the top one blowing out and the two bottom ones blowing in and also an exhaust on the light.