First Cab Grow - Stealth

TheDude0007

TheDude0007

Active Member
Started a stealthy cuboard, looks like a clothes cuboard from the outside.

Inside

2 X 105 Watt Cfls
1 X Box fan
3 X Pots - two with a peaty pearlite mix and one with soil and pearlite
1 X 12 Watt heat pad
2 X Timers - one for lights and connected with a relay switch and the other for the heat pad

Cab design

- Bought Cab as a flat pack unit
- Lined with panda film
- two vents at the top and two at the bottom (back , made by drilling about 24 holes for each vent
- 120mm diameter vents covered with curved cardboard and lined with panda film
- 4 X 120 Pc fans to be added to vent holes soon. 2 for extract and 2 for intake

Future

Will be adding a 250 Watt HPS when flowering and also a second cab to serve as vegging/mother room.

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:joint::hump::peace:

Comments welcome....
 
medicalman1983

medicalman1983

Member
subbed :) glad to see some one else using 105w cfl's. i would try and find away to hang the bulb sideways tho, that way your plants get more light from your bulbs. you can buy porcelain light fixture from lowes or home depot for like $2-3 that you wire and can screw into the wall to hang them.
 
TheDude0007

TheDude0007

Active Member
medicalman1983 said:
subbed :) glad to see some one else using 105w cfl's. i would try and find away to hang the bulb sideways tho, that way your plants get more light from your bulbs. you can buy porcelain light fixture from lowes or home depot for like $2-3 that you wire and can screw into the wall to hang them.
Click to expand...
Thanks for you comments and advice. I get what you are saying regarding haning the bulbs sideways sideways. Those bulbs will go into my veg cab as soon as these babies are big enough and will defo do them sideways then.

Cant wait to get a nice 250 watt hps in there. I am going for a magnetic ballast so I can put a 250 watt MH bulb in first for 2 or 3 weeks and veg them under that, will then switch to a 250 watt hps and veg one more week before switching to 12/12 for flower.

The reason for 250 watt and not 400 watt is simply to keep heat down, but the ballast will allow me to upgrade to 400 watt if all goes well and heat is not a problem.
 
medicalman1983

medicalman1983

Member
sounds good man :) you can veg under using the hps bulb you dont have to buy the extra mh bulb that way you can save some money. as long as the light is in range it should do ok. ive used my 330w conversion bulb to veg before, because it gives off alot less heat then the mh bulb and my plants didnt seem to mind at all.
 
TheDude0007

TheDude0007

Active Member
medicalman1983 said:
sounds good man :) you can veg under using the hps bulb you dont have to buy the extra mh bulb that way you can save some money. as long as the light is in range it should do ok. ive used my 330w conversion bulb to veg before, because it gives off alot less heat then the mh bulb and my plants didnt seem to mind at all.
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I have never vegged under a MH but have been told the plants will grow faster if I do. What do you think ?

BTW something I have not mentioned is that I only water with natural bottled spring water. lol I am a psyco. lol I buy this big 15 liter container and it last a week and I use it for personal use also. :-)
 
medicalman1983

medicalman1983

Member
ive never done a side by side comparison between the 2 light but from what ive read the mh is a little better because of the light spectrum. but the way i see it is were growing a weed not an exotic rare plant. i used to use distilled water when i grew a set of plants in home made water farms(5 gallon bucket and water farm kit from hydro shop) but that got expensive once the plants started drinking lots of water. i just use my well water now, it kinda sucks tho its about 480ppm and high in calcium and some lime. but it works and dont cost me no extra. i buy the spring water also to drink tho because i dont like drinking my water im kinda weird about it lol. just made sure you have an exhaust fan to circulate your hot air out of your cab and you should be ok. my closet gets in the 90's some days even been over 100 degrees but if you think about it, so do all plants outside.
 
TheDude0007

TheDude0007

Active Member
medicalman1983 said:
ive never done a side by side comparison between the 2 light but from what ive read the mh is a little better because of the light spectrum. but the way i see it is were growing a weed not an exotic rare plant. i used to use distilled water when i grew a set of plants in home made water farms(5 gallon bucket and water farm kit from hydro shop) but that got expensive once the plants started drinking lots of water. i just use my well water now, it kinda sucks tho its about 480ppm and high in calcium and some lime. but it works and dont cost me no extra. i buy the spring water also to drink tho because i dont like drinking my water im kinda weird about it lol. just made sure you have an exhaust fan to circulate your hot air out of your cab and you should be ok. my closet gets in the 90's some days even been over 100 degrees but if you think about it, so do all plants outside.
Click to expand...
Yes air circulation is very important my two 120mm fans should be here any day now and then I will install and get another 2 X 120 mm fans. If that does not work well enough I will upgrade to a bigger extractor fan. You are right about keeping costs down. The water out of my taps taste kind of like iron or rust. Have not tested the ph and that is part of the reason I have not used it on the plants, but soon I probably will need to start using tap water. So I will get a ph meter and check that the ph at least is ok.

Thanks again for all your feedback.
 
TheDude0007

TheDude0007

Active Member
I will have to change my approach now. It will be impossible for me to have a seperate cab for veg.

So now I will have to devide the setup above in two and go for an all CFL grow. Bottom half for veg and top half for flower. Just CFL's, this is not forever but my first two harvests at least will have to be this way.

The reason for losing the HPS is only because of the heat in such a small space. I know it wont work. I have grown with hps before in a room and I know how hot they get, there is no way that it could work in such a small space. I also know with CFL's I will probably not even harvest half as much :-(
 
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