First time growing, in a cabinet and man am i excited!

Hey ya'll. This is my first grow AND my first post, and man am i thankful i found this website. It is simply an encyclopaedia of knowledge provided by YOU the members. I think this kind of online community is simply fantastic and will no doubt provide not only me with endless amounts of knowledge but all those yet to come too.

Now about my first grow.
I'm going to start growing, hopefully within the next few weeks, once ive ironed out a few little problems and gotten all the right equipment together, in what is an old converted set of desk draws. Due to this the dimensions are rather limited.
The grow 'room' itself is 70cmH x 35cmW x 65cmD. Yeah not an awful lot of space. This does though give me roughly two odd square foot of floor space which is going to be ample for my needs. I've already sorted myself out with 4 2x18watt fluorescent ballasts and globes as well as 3 7cm strong computer fans i plan on using as ventilation. The walls and roof will be lined with reflective Mylar, and ive found a pot measuring 30W x 55L x 20D. So yes its all going to be pretty snug. Ive figured out, that with 70cms total height minus 20cm for the pot (this will be a soil grow.. gotta love that au natural taste) and minus ~10cm for the lighting im left with about 50cm growing height. This set of emptied out draws still forms one side of my desk, and whilst everyone i live with is cool with me growing its still something id rather keep kind of secret. Loose lips sink ships so they say. So in the essence of this ill be mounting the exhaust fans up the top on the back side facing the wall out of sight, and run all wiring down the back of the unit as well. By all accounts I want it to be as inconspicuous as possible and it appear simply as a small chest of draws. The fluorescent ballasts and computer fans create negligible amounts of sound and as i have my PC sitting directly above it, its more then easy to pass off as the sound of the MOBO fans or whatever.
The intake is going to be passive, via some 1inch holes drilled in the bottom of the unit with light reflectors so no light can escape, covered with fly wire (and possible some fine filter material, not sure yet) with some pipes directing air flow to under and around the plants. My plan is to grow on 24 hours per day for 3 weeks or until the plants reach 20cm height whatever happens first, then switch to 12on 12off for flowering, leaving 30cm flowering height. The current fluoro tubes I have are in the cool white spectrum and im pretty sure even if there is direct contact to the leaves there will be no serious damage ie: burning, dehydration. All in all the plants will be getting 72watts of fluorescent light per square foot, which im hoping will yeild 1-1 & half ounces per square foot or 2-3 ounce total. Unfortunately i dont currently have the facilities to be running a mother / clone room so all the plants will be grown and harvested at the same time.
As you can tell im a little bit OCD when it comes to this sort of thing haha, but this is where you guys step in and i need your knowledge and help.

First of all i have no idea yet what the temp inside the cabinet will be, and ive heard that Mylar reflects not only light but heat as well, so should i just perhaps paint the insides flat white?
Also do you think that running 3 7cm comp fans as exhaust is a bit excessive, ive heard that you only need to replace the air inside your room every 10minutes which im sure these will do, so perhaps would it be better for me to mount 2 as exhaust and the third as a circulation fan blowing cool air from the bottomish of the room up through the canopy?
Do you think with this set up passive intake will be enough? There are virtually no restrictions aside from the fly wire and my room is kept at a pretty constantly cool temperature.
When it comes to plants and growing methods what do you recommend? Remember im growing in soil in one large single pot (which i may divide using plastic sheeting if needs be), so what do you think? 2-3 comparatively large plants or 8-10 SOG style? Id be tempted to grow SCROG but i have no experience and the limited space would make it hard to maintain and take advantage of.
Noise reduction. Now the two sides and back wall are made of 1/8 inch ply which im sure would reverberate like a drum with the slightest vibration, any ideas on how to minimise this? Please remember this is part of my desk so I want to make as minimal structural changes as possible.
Also I've previously worked as an electrician so i can wire everything myself, but are there any little tips or tricks I should be careful of as I've never designed or built this sort of thing.
I know this is a long post, and thank you for taking the time to read it.
I plan on updating photos as long as people are interested.
Any feedback or advice is greatly appreciated.
Thank You
Cabinetgrower

can somebody explain to me what sog and scrog mean?

I've never growing these methods, but my understanding is SOG: Sea of Green is when you plant a lot of plants close together to form a canopy, where as a ScrOG: Screen of Green you can form a canopy out of one plant using a screen or mesh and training the plant to fill up the screen before the budding stage, creating more bud sites on the plant, forgive/correct me if I'm wrong hope that helps

no thats pretty much spot on bobbutcher, except the best way to ensure female plants, uniform growth ect without the time consuming effort of raising a ton of babies is to use clones. Which unfortunately i wont be doing, as i dont have a mother/ clone room.
Quick update. Ive got everything wired and ready to go in, just need to bolt the lamps to the ceiling and get some spray adhesive for the Mylar sheets. I decided to use 2 of the 3 8cm comp fans for exhaust with the 3rd circulating air around the stems and under the canopy. It may not sound like much, but in my little grow cab it should be sufficient. Im still unsure if i have enough lighting, and as the lights are going to be bolted directly to the roof due to space constraints im considering getting some side lighting. On that.. ive been thinking and thinking about working out some pull system that isnt going to take up much room, yet be stable and easy to raise or lower.. anyone got an ideas?

cabinetgrower : one piece of advice. You are diff on the right track and sound like you have done your homework. My advice is to not get so caught up in "fancy" stuff for instance your light raiser. Trust me you will be so involved in this first grow and have so much on your plate you will appreciate the simplistic approach that you have so far.

If you have patience the weed will come!!! Good luck and enjoy!

s0high.. you might be right. I spent seriously about 3 hours today rigging the uhh.. rigging to raise and lower my lamps and in the end lost about 10cms of head room due to all the pulleys and shiz, only to be able to move them up and down like 30cms. While the loss of height is significant in my tiny little cab i think the advantages gained by having the lamps as close as possible to my babies is worth the time and effort. Otherwise they wouldve been over 40cms away from the lamps and wouldve stretched like crazy. haha i tried to play it safe and installed all the ballasts and rigged them up and wired them and got it all sorted with the globes out, so i had to lay on my back with my head and one shoulder squeezed in the door sticking the tubes in upside down.. sure made things interesting... especially as i was a hazed and i had Mylar all around me.. pretty uhh interesting experience.
Essentially i went with the tubes i had instead of copping out for like a 150watt CLF grow light was because i already had them lying around from one of my bros Veg rooms before he moved out (Thats kinda where i learnt all this from), as with the mylar and fans. It had all been sitting around unused for nearly a year so i figured id have a crack and see what i could do with it, still so far havent paid a dime for all the gear and set up.. just about 15 hours perfecting everything. Like i said in the original post, im a bit OCD with things like this.
Well anyways shes up and running, the lights make NO noise and fans are even quieter then i thought theyd be, just a really low hum, like a big ol amp thats been left on or something, just gotta do a little light proofing and we're done for the technical side of things.
Still having trouble finding seeds though. Anyone have experience with seed banks in Australia?

gday, apparently there are 'underground' seed banks form some of the threads ive read on here.. but they dont carry the same quality as other established overseas banks carry...

thanks pwee. Guess ill just have to look harder. Its odd though, i live in a pretty weed loving little community, most people i know smoke, but no-ones growing (or willing to tell me they are) or have seeds.

WHAT SHOULD A 6 FT CAB TEMP AND HUMIDITY B 3 PLANTS DWC
CFL GROW.

As posted in your other thread:

85 is a wee bit too high imo. Anything over 82 in my house is upwards of too much.

I strive for temps between 75-80. The prime Cannabis temp is 78. I like to give myself a little leeway.

If your temps are on tap, your RH should be ok. Also, ambient temp plays a huge role.

Whats a good way of regulating humidity? Im yet to put plants in the cab, and i dont have a humidity gauge, but my rooms pretty dry. Will the watered soil just slowly evaporate and keeps things nice and humid? What are some cheap and easy alternatives? A glass of water in there perhaps?

s0high said:

cabinetgrower : one piece of advice. You are diff on the right track and sound like you have done your homework. My advice is to not get so caught up in "fancy" stuff for instance your light raiser. Trust me you will be so involved in this first grow and have so much on your plate you will appreciate the simplistic approach that you have so far.

If you have patience the weed will come!!! Good luck and enjoy!

Click to expand...

i agree, make it as simple as you can. for my grow i set the lights in place and set my pot on top of a stack of books, boxes, video game cases, etc. to keep it as close to the light as possible. essentially, i wanted to use multiple planks of 3/4 inch boards with one 1/4 inch board and one 1/2 board so i could remove whichever board necessary to lower the plant the little-est bit i needed. this is easier said than done though, as i only had one plant to lower from my lights.
in the end its whatever works best for the grower.

i read through your first post, it seems you've got it down pretty well. i'd rather see a scrog net over a sog. you just get more control with the net and you have less plants to worry about. side lighting is key, not so much at the start but when it comes to flowering having hanging bulbs that you can position right next to the main buds will add just what your buds need when growing with cfl's.

oh and please, post picture updates... frequently! i'll be following this as much as i can. also, you should take a picture for me of your desk setup before you put the plants in.
thanks dude