Grow room plans, lighting suggestions/comments welcome... first post

So i'm planning on making a box for inside the closet in my apartment. I'm planning on low stress training the plants, and doing 4 plants in a box about 2 x 2.5 x 3 feet tall. The volume of soil for each plant will be a rectangle 12 inches by 9.5 inches by 6 inches deep.

The frame of the box is going to be made with like 1/2 x 1/2 pieces of wood, and i'm going to hang plexiglass as the walls so that i can easily remove any wall i want to at any time. This plexi is gonna have reflective sheeting on the inside so i don't lose any light. And as of now for lighting i'm looking at these:
New Wave T5 Fluorescent Grow Light 2ft 4 Bulb 96W so i'll have 96 watts of lighting and i was planning on just getting the 6500k for now and buying 4-3000k for vegetation, because it seems like it'd be more efficient than goign two and two and it's delaying the expense. I'm going to have vent holes at the opposite end of the box from the fan and run the 4 inch duct-fan from home depot that has about 80 cfm through a homemade activated carbon filter as seen on this site.


That's the plan as of now, what do you guys think?

The lights are giong to be dangling from a 1 x 4 going across the top of the box, and i'm going to be able to slide the lights side to side to enable to water the plants. I also am going to have about 4-6 inches of extra room past the 4 plots of land for the 4 plants in order to have seedlings/clones start. As of now i'm just planting some rego's seeds that i have and trying to perfect my technique and whatnot, and i'd like to buy some femenized white widow to grow/clone continuously in it. I'm starting the seeds right now just in my room on the desk with some desk lamps, just trying to get a little jumpstart before i build it and get everything set up.

My main questions are what soil to use and how far should the incandesants be away from the seedlings right now?

foxfarm soil is an excellent organic soil and is avaiable at hyro stores.

incandescents are too hot for seedlings. i'd use your fluorescent light and get it to within 4" of the seedlings.

the only thing i could spot in your plans is the grow box to hold the soil. wasn't clear in your post but you want to have a separate section for each plant so that the roots don;t compete for nutrients. its better if you use separate pots so you can move around individual plants as needed. if you make a change, get pots that hold 1 gal per ft of plant you want to grow and that preferably are taller than 6".

Yeah, i mean those calculations are based on a 3 gallon pot. 12 by 9.5 by 6 equals 693 cubic inches of soil. but actually i just looked it up and that's for liquid gallons. 3 dry gallons equals about 900 cubic inches, so i'll be slightly short with that. yeah, i mean i'm trying to keep the height of the box as low as possible, thats why i had the plans only being 6 inches deep, because i thougth i was still maintaining the same volume.

To make it 900 cubic inches i would need to raise the depth to 8 inches... which i could live with height wise but i mean i'd like to keep the box as short as possible. Thanks for the reply

Yeah, unfortunately i don't have the flourescents yet, so i was just using the desk lamps so i could get a little bit of a jump start before i build the box. I moved them up a litle bit, so now they're about 18-24 inches away (two desk lamps) because i felt like they were getting burned, they were about 10 inches away before.

one of the problems with incandescents is that if you put them far enough away so the heat is not a problem they are too far away to give good light. you're much better off buying a cfl bulb in place of yours. pretty cheap - $10.

two things about your pot. as your new calc shows, you are actually at about 2 gallons which might limit your plants. i have a plant right now in a 2 gal pot and it is stunted somewhat compared to the ones in 3 gal pots.

sounds like you're tight on vertical space but even going to 8" is going to help alot and get you your 3 gallons as well.

yeah, i mean 2 inches isn't going to kill me but i was just trying to avoid putting some foot tall pots in there...

How does low stress training affect any of these calculations really? because you're kind of growing to the side instead of up.

how tall is your grow area?

although the simple formula is 1 gal per 1 ft, you are right that if you're doing a lot of training then it would throw off that calc. have not seen anyone suggest an alternative however. anyway, it would work against you as you'd have to adjust the volume upward.

i mean, even if i trained it though, the main stem going around would still be around 3 feet...

However, if i'm planning on training, should i kind of seperate the pots a little bit so the plants aren't in each others way of grabbing the light?

bp4131017 said:

i mean, even if i trained it though, the main stem going around would still be around 3 feet...

However, if i'm planning on training, should i kind of seperate the pots a little bit so the plants aren't in each others way of grabbing the light?

Click to expand...

i top mine to make them bushier and have to separate my pots more as they grow. for my strain that means i have 4 - 6" separation between 3 gal pots at the end of flowering. different strains and different training techniques would require different spacing

First off welcome to riu! Great t5 choice, newwave is a very nice company with a unbeatable warranty. Had a light at work from newwave fall 30 feet and smash to the ground and they replaced it no questions asked even though it was our fault when we mounted it. I would suggest though that if you are doing trained growth that you will want to get a couple of those or cfls to fill the dark spots. 6" deep pots will not be enough, even though you are going to train them gravity says water goes down so your gonna need at least 3 gal pots. You can get 3 gal pots pretty cheap like a buck a piece at any floral shop. The only way I can see you getting away with 6" pots in a 3 foot tall space would be to 12/12 after third set of leaves.

they wouldn't be pots though, they'd literally just be like a rectangular prism 12 x 9.5 by 8 about...
but yeah i'm thinking about just getting some 3 gallon pots, if not maybe 5 just to be safe and raising the box... because i have plenty of room, i just wanted to keep it below three feet so its a little less obnoxious

Yeah, i'm looking at 3 gallon pots if not 5 gallon pots... because i know it'll be worth it.

I figure with 5 gallon pots i can have the soil height be about 10 inches and still have a ton of volume worth of soil. Any other comments on the grow room itself are welcome, because i'm planning on building it this weekend.