SoG Grow Box, Advice and Suggestions?

A friend and I have been wanting to grow for some time and we finally have the opportunity and the want to do so.

We have most of what we are doing figured out but can always use some advice if something can be done a better way.

This is the setup we are going with for now with the hopes of future expansion:

Wooden box measuring 4ft x 4ft with two 3ft tall shelves.

The bottom shelf will be used for seedlings and their vegetative growth.

The top shelf will be used for the plants once it is time to begin flowering.

Each shelf will have 3 sets of 4ft flourescents (2 bulbs a piece) I think we know what bulbs we are going to use but suggestions are welcome.

The first batch of plants will be somewhere in the 5 to 10 plant range because we want to start out small and get the hang of things before we go all out.

I believe with this setup the max capacity could be as many as 64 seedlings on the bottom (4 per sqft) and 16 flowering on the top (1 per sqft), in the future we may make another box to house more flowering plants as to maximize the productivity given the 64 seedling capacity.

As for water we will be using 2 of the Claber Oasis automatic watering systems with drip emitters. We definitely want to go with this system but we are unsure of the amount of water to give and how often. The unit has a few different automatic watering settings so if anyone could provide some info on our best way of doing that, that would be great.

Plants will each be in a 6in square pot with a soil mixture.

Ventilation will be provided by using a duct that used to connect to a large heater for a industrial garage that already routes to the roof and is right next to where the box will be. Depending on smell a filter may be added if needed but I believe we will add a fan to give the duct the added strength to get the air out since it is all going up.

Originally we were not planning on adding anything for intake of air. It was assumed that the opening and closing of the doors and some gaps in the box would be enough for the plants each day. I am beginning to second guess that and would like any advice on whether it would be worthwhile to add in some sort of intake with or without a fan.

The box is already half made (the wood at least) and the seeds and watering systems will be here in the next week or two.

I believe that covers everything. We are not looking to go too complicated on this first build, however on future additions such as more boxes (there is room for expansion) we may go with more advanced systems and lighting as we learn. Any advice and suggestions are welcome however we are pretty set with our choices of lighting, watering, and dimensions on the box, the details of how each will work are still to be determined.

Thanks in advance for any and all help, I will update this thread as we go with pictures and a journal.

Bump, anyone have any advice for this?

how tall of a box are we working with? have u ever considered an hps for flowering? also what style of growing are u going to attempt?

Box is 4ft long x 4ft wide and 3.25 feet tall. This box is just for vegetative growth, will be moving to a similar (maybe taller and maybe better lights) box that will be made shortly for the flowering stage.

Following a SOG type of setup, using fluorescents but the decision was made to start off cheap and easy for the first time and see how it goes.

Not able to use HPS in this box because of the height of the box. There wouldnt be enough height for the HPS because it needs to be at least 14" -18" away from the plants.

I might consider it in the flowering box but that would require much more ventilation and setup for the HPS light. I might just stay with the fluorescents and just use cool white bulbs in them. Haven't made that decision yet.

The plants will grow to about 8"-12", then be tied down to its stem to bend it over a bit for one week. Untied, and soon flowering will be induced. Plants will be put into the flowering box and set to 12/12 lighting to begin flowering.

May want to make the flower box slightly taller and with HPS light, not sure if it's possible in my setup because of the stealth factor, might just be too much going on.

Thanks for the response

Trying to do LST and SoG are a little bit opposite, when you do SoG you're mainly looking to harvest the main colas and anything extra you get is just a bonus. Fluorescents are going to be a problem in a SoG because they don't usually put off enough light to take care of 20+ plants in a small area like yours without having at least 8-10 running at once. Make sure you're getting the right fluorescent lights (2700k veg or 6500k flowering). You'll end up with deficiencies and popcorn if you get the wrong one. I know you have height restrictions so seriously consider just making a reinforced plywood box for flowering, it won't cost more than $40 and you can have enough height for an HPS to go in. It won't be pretty, but you won't care once you see your harvest.

If you DO ever LST in the future, you need to start earlier than 8" - 12" to get the best effect, it should be done around 4" - 5", otherwise the plant will be stressed from changing its (relatively) stable stem shape, you might end up hurting the stem.

The SoG guide a read used LST in addition to the SoG methods to keep the plant height under 12" and then induced flowering to make the sea of green. I suppose it isnt really needed as you just could induce flowering at whatever height you want and don't need to bend the plant over, but thats what my plan was. Is there any advantage or disadvantage to one over the other?

As for the lighting, I have daylight fluorsecent bulbs for veg (recommended) and if I use fluorsencets for my flowering box I would be getting cool white (also recommended). Both are said to be the best bulb choice in my fluroesecents for each stage.

In that small area I have (3) 4ft fluoresecnt lights each with (2) 32W bulbs. It is covering my area to its maximum capabilities and the lights will be hung with chains and adjusted frequenbtly to the needed height over the plants.

For the first run I will be only going with somewhere between 5 - 10 plants just so see how it goes.

The reason for the height restrictions is that we decided we needed to keep our box lower to the ground so it is not as noticeable in the spot it's in. My only reservations to using HPS in the flowering stage are because of the added height, and the need for the extra ventillation/light box that needs to go ontop of the wooden box. A wooden box with a thing sticking out of the top of it isn't so inconsipicuas anymore, lol.

One advantage I could see for the time being is that if I went with HPS for flowering, the extra heat may actually help me during the upcoming winter months. The garage needs to be kept heated as it is, but the box needs to be a little warmer than the garage may get at night (65). So HPS may help a little now, but a long term solution would be needed when it's no longer so cold.

I wasn't aware of the whole process involved in LST, I just thought it was part of the SoG method because this guy did it with his plants. Any more info on it would be very well appreciated.

Thanks again for the advice and input, I'm going to get some pictures up soon of where the box build is at. It may be a stretch, but I'm hoping to test run the lights this weekend to see where the temps and humidity of my box are at.