Attempting first grow, confused about a few things.

What's going on all, I've recently decided to pick up frowning some personal smoke as i'd really like to get the best smoke I have ever had, and even some of the top shelf from my dispensary isn't as good as I think it could be. A few things about my situation and a few quick questions.

1. I'm a medical marijuana patient in california in a residential home so my growing will be legit.

2. Odors / worrying about getting caught is a non issue.

With that said, its hard for me to find any info or pictures of a closet set up that's actually using the closet lol. I understand a lot of people have to be discreet about their growing (I feel for y'all out there, I was in the same position), but its got me a bit confused and even the stickies seem to be lacking some info on this.

A. I want to use my rooms closet, it only has one entrance and is already painted white but I will still be lining it myself. It's winter here in southern California so it gets kind of cool in my room at night (I'd say about 65-75). The dimensions are a about 3' wide, 5' wide, and the height is 5'6" or so, but if I tear out my 2x4 holding the hangar bar in the back of the closet I have access to 9' feet of height, didn't really think id need that though.

Will I need some complex exhaust system, or is that mostly for smell? I understand the plant releases toxins and whatnot through its leaves, but would there be an issue with me just opening the closet door occasionally at night during the dark cycles? I just don't really want to cut a masasive hole in my door, and The door to the closet doesn't really have any gaps besides at the bottom, so maybe I could take advantage of that?

B. Any other general tips for a closet grow using the actual closet, or would it be better to build a cabinet inside of the closet (this seems kind of pointless to me). I planned to have my engineering roommate help me with a movable light fixture with some CFLs or possibly an HPS, I would at least have him and my architecture roommate (yea I have convenient roommates heh) to help me set it up if so, but I'm just trying to consider things they wouldn't since they aren't really accustomed to thinking about setting shit up with expect to growing nug.

Tl;dr version: any people out there with closet grows that can give some advice to someone who isn't concerned with smell/ getting caught? Just don't want to be building huge fixtures if they wre just to be stealthy, and hope everyone out there is smoking strong, thanks all.

What kind of system are you going to be running and how many plants?

If you're using floros you can probably get away without venting but I
definitely recommend venting if you can or at least keeping the door open
during light cycles.

Anything over a 250w HPS and I'd say for temperature sake you'll need
to vent the room. If your room temps get too high it will directly effect
your plants ability to breathe. If they can't properly breathe then you'll
never max out your yields.

For a closet you definitely don't need an architect/engineers help. It
should be VERY easy to setup and maintain assuming you buy the proper
materials for your setup and can keep your environment/nutrients in check.

I wouldn't bother setting up a smaller cabinet inside closet unless you're
having light leak issues. This will only constrict your growing space that much
more, not to mention if your girls stretch more than you'd like during flower
that could make your newly confined space pretty irritating.

If it were me I'd throw a 400w switchable ballast, a hood with 6" ducting,
6" fan, DIY 6" scrubber (I know you're not concerned with smell but the
shit really does stink to high hell) and just exhaust from inside the room to
another portion of the house. Setup an easy to maintain hydro system
and scrog the shit out of the closet.

This hobby really can get expensive, but once you get all the right parts
it makes growing such a breeze.

Just my .02 though

Good luck!

disposition84 said:

What kind of system are you going to be running and how many plants?

If you're using floros you can probably get away without venting but I
definitely recommend venting if you can or at least keeping the door open
during light cycles.

Anything over a 250w HPS and I'd say for temperature sake you'll need
to vent the room. If your room temps get too high it will directly effect
your plants ability to breathe. If they can't properly breathe then you'll
never max out your yields.

For a closet you definitely don't need an architect/engineers help. It
should be VERY easy to setup and maintain assuming you buy the proper
materials for your setup and can keep your environment/nutrients in check.

I wouldn't bother setting up a smaller cabinet inside closet unless you're
having light leak issues. This will only constrict your growing space that much
more, not to mention if your girls stretch more than you'd like during flower
that could make your newly confined space pretty irritating.

If it were me I'd throw a 400w switchable ballast, a hood with 6" ducting,
6" fan, DIY 6" scrubber (I know you're not concerned with smell but the
shit really does stink to high hell) and just exhaust from inside the room to
another portion of the house. Setup an easy to maintain hydro system
and scrog the shit out of the closet.

This hobby really can get expensive, but once you get all the right parts
it makes growing such a breeze.

Just my .02 though

Good luck!

Click to expand...

Hey man I appreciate it so much. I was thinking of going with floros because I'm a little low on funds right now, but I may just bite the bullet and invest in an hps system.

I was only planning on about 2-4 plants in there, wanted to keep them small in std of going for one or two large plants. Was gonna do soil just because hydro seems like overkill for 2-4 plants, and i'd like to master more or the science before I invest a lot of my money. Fortunately, the only window in my room is on the side of our house so I may be able to get something rudimentary going that just exhausts through the window, issue is like I said, I don't Really want to unnecessarily drill holes.



Holy shit though, I think. Ive got it, I can vent in into our basement right below us. And my room already has small holes in the ground from cable installations so that might work.

venting into the basement is a good idea but you want to draw the warmer air from the top of the room so a piece of PVC pipe with a pc fan to draw the air down would be a good way to go.the gap at the bottom of the door should be fine to allow air in. CFLs are a good way to start as they are cheap and have little heat. when flowering,you could consider switching to HPS or at least adding a small HPS to suplement the CFLs. I have used a 150 watt HPS security light like this
http://www.lowes.com/pd_
mine was less than 1/2 the cost but you get the idea
I remoted the ballast, (how to instructions on this forum) and ran a piece of 2 in pvc out the side w/ a PC fan to cool it. it worked great for the size box it was in(1.5x2X3.5 high).while a little small for your needs,add enough CFLs and you could do OK

mrmadcow said:

venting into the basement is a good idea but you want to draw the warmer air from the top of the room so a piece of PVC pipe with a pc fan to draw the air down would be a good way to go.the gap at the bottom of the door should be fine to allow air in. CFLs are a good way to start as they are cheap and have little heat. when flowering,you could consider switching to HPS or at least adding a small HPS to suplement the CFLs. I have used a 150 watt HPS security light like this
http://www.lowes.com/pd_
mine was less than 1/2 the cost but you get the idea
I remoted the ballast, (how to instructions on this forum) and ran a piece of 2 in pvc out the side w/ a PC fan to cool it. it worked great for the size box it was in(1.5x2X3.5 high).while a little small for your needs,add enough CFLs and you could do OK

Click to expand...

Good to know, I plan on getting some pics for my room up in a little bit when my roommate wakes up (he's got that iphone 4camera which shits on mine) so that you all might be able to give me more specific advice as well. Its really hard finding specific info to my situation up here as so many people are worried about the smell or getting caught so there's a lot of extraneous shit I'm trying to sift through to get down to the core fundamentals.

And that's what i was thinking man, switching to an HPS or at least augmenting them with a small HPS. I've had some pretty convenient ideas, but like I said once the pics are up maybe you all could help me out with some specific set up advice.


Also, have you or anyone up here built a movable lint fixture? I keep trying to search but its not coming up, and I'm almost certain I read somewhere about adjustable light fixtures (since, as I understand, the CFLs can be kept closer to the plants during veg stage correct? I planned to keep em about 2-4 inches above and just slowly raise them until flowing period where I should have enough money to either replace the whole setup with a 1k hps or add another in).


Edit: oh mr mad, if I only use cfls, with the roof in my closet being about ten or eleven feet and them only growing till about four feet it shouldn't be too hard too cool right? Fortunately for me, there's one of those 2x4s that you can put shoes on top of and shit at about six feet so I'm thonking I could put set something up there to keep it cool and also have the added effect of the light circulation which should help with stalk and stem strength correct?)

Hyakku said:

Also, have you or anyone up here built a movable lint fixture? .....I'm almost certain I read somewhere about adjustable light fixtures (since, as I understand, the CFLs can be kept closer to the plants during veg stage correct? I planned to keep em about 2-4 inches above and just slowly raise them until flowing period where I should have enough money to either replace the whole setup with a 1k hps or add another in).

Click to expand...

adjustable as in to move up as needed? thats easy, hang the fixtures from a light chain and just adjust it up as needed. if you mean to move the light from side to side,that is a little harder.I have never seen a homemade one that works safely,they are more for HID lights(MH or HPS)and will allow you to get the plants closer.

Hyakku said:

Edit: oh mr mad, if I only use cfls, with the roof in my closet being about ten or eleven feet and them only growing till about four feet it shouldn't be too hard too cool right? Fortunately for me, there's one of those 2x4s that you can put shoes on top of and shit at about six feet so I'm thinking I could put set something up there to keep it cool and also have the added effect of the light circulation which should help with stalk and stem strength correct?)

Click to expand...

CFLs should be no problem to cool but you still need air moving in & out of the room & i think you are confuseing light circulation w/ air circulation, a fan blowing on the plants will strenghten the stems.
also if you plan to move up to a 1k HPS, you might want to set up serious venting befor you start,its not hard to pull the plants out of the closet for a few hours to swap lights but you want to have ventilation set up so as not to roast your plants.