First time grow box - design, build, equipment - Feedback appreciated!

Hey there!

One of my first posts here... truly godsend community this is!

So as the title implies, I'm determined to build my first growbox. As informed as I am I still need some feedback from you guys so that my op goes as trouble-proof as possible.

Now some general info on what I'm planing to do.

Dimensions:

60 inch tall
about 20 inch deep
and about 23-25 inch wide...

2 compartments (rooms ) - veg and flowering, while veg being 11/20/25 and for flowering that leaves... you do the math.

Veg compartment lightning - 4 CFLs
Flowering lightning - 1 400w HPS

At the moment I'm planning on cooling this setup with 4 120mm intake PC fans and
4 120mm exhaust (should my exhaust exceed the intake?)

I'm not quite sure if I'm educated enough to cope with all the hydroponic theory so that leaves me with the choice of using soil medium.

I'll be growing White Widow strain ordered from Nirvana... I've read somewhere that these grow rather tall?

My initial questions:

1. Should I use white reflective foil or mylar?

2. Would 4 plants be 'pushing it'?

3. Is it a good idea to run 2 additional CFL's on the sides of the growbox's flowering room in order to supply more light to the lower parts of the plant?

I'm truly sorry for not having some photos but I thought it was better to educate myself a little more before I start...

Well... I think that is for now... Have a great day/night!

Ninjah - Out!

P.S. My English is kinda sucky sometimes so... apologies for that!

I have a cabinet similar to yours, maybe just a little bigger. I'm doing soil as well.

Ninjah said:

1. Should I use white reflective foil or mylar?

Click to expand...

I painted my walls with white roofing paint. It's cheaper on the pocket, cleaner,less hassle and has more reflectivity.

Ninjah said:

2. Would 4 plants be 'pushing it'?

Click to expand...

I'd start off with 3 first and go from there.

Ninjah said:

3. Is it a good idea to run 2 additional CFL's on the sides of the growbox's flowering room in order to supply more light to the lower parts of the plant?

Click to expand...

If you can control your temps that would be fine. Personally I don't. My only concern with your 400 watter is the heat issue. I don't think you have adequate fans to help you cool down your cab. Also, your intake wether it be a fan or passive hole needs to be bigger then your exhaust.

DocBrown said:

I have a cabinet similar to yours, maybe just a little bigger. I'm doing soil as well.


I painted my walls with white roofing paint. It's cheaper on the pocket, cleaner,less hassle and has more reflectivity.



I'd start off with 3 first and go from there.


If you can control your temps that would be fine. Personally I don't. My only concern with your 400 watter is the heat issue. I don't think you have adequate fans to help you cool down your cab. Also, your intake wether it be a fan or passive hole needs to be bigger then your exhaust.

Click to expand...

I just finished reading your thread Doc! Thanks for the reply and good luck with your new grow!


1. I'll consider painting the walls, since reflectivity is better! thx for the idea!

2. Wishful thinking aside... I don't think that I would get 4 perfectly healthy females out of 10 seeds anyway so I might as well start with 1 or 2 plants... But 3 would be great!

3. I'm totally sure that heat would be an issue, but I was thinking of building my growbox first, setting it up, running it for a couple of hours just to check how bad would it be... I'll adjust my cooling in the process

I saw that you are using 2 very nice "hanging type" fans... I hope I can get my hands on some of those!

Wiring, electrical setup and running it all safe is what bothers me most... I've never actually dealt with something like that.

That's why I wanted to use some 120mm fans... powering them with a PC power supply is super easy... I can run something with slightly larger CFM capabilities alongside the 120s, just for better circulation's sake. Cooling the 400w HPS would be a huge pain in the #ss. Doesn't have a glass or exhaust hole, just the reflector... I think I might go for the solution you came up with. What type of fan are you using to cool your lamp down?

That's the one thing that sucked about my light (no tempered glass or exhaust hole) just a reflector. I use a td-100 that I bought here http://www.hvacquick.com/spfnconfig.php?fm=td of course you will need something stronger for your 400 watter, a td-200x would be perfect. I use one for exhaust and one for intake I attached a ducting hose that is aimed at the light bulb (I also have a 4" passive intake hole on the opposite side) to cool things down. That still wasn't good enough to though, I had temps averaging 85 degrees with my doors closed so I got a wall AC that I luckily had laying around in my garage and put it in the window in the room my cab is in and can now drop the temps down to as low as 65 degrees if I wanted to. I wanted to have an average temp of 75-78.Here is a visual of my cab so you can have an idea.