Building single-plant growbox, I want your opinions!

you need air circulation

I had good circulation and my apartment never caught fire for the 3 months I had it running. Call it luck if you want to. I had a successful learning experience with no expenses because if you put weed in terms of money, I broke even and still have all my supplies. If you're careful in your design, this is no more hazardous than cabinet or rubbermaid growboxes, but to each his own. If you don't like it, don't copy it. I've already proven it can be done.

By the way I've been smoking away lately and loving it. I left probably 1/4 of my harvest where I was living before with my friends just because I wanted some feedback from everyone. And I smoked a bunch too before I ever weighed it. I still have 15 grams left and it's about half of what I started with (visually). I think I harvested too soon for the couch lock effect, but I'm very pleased with it. The buds dried and hardened like rocks, the high is strong, energetic and makes you laugh a lot haha. Overall I'm a happy camper. Thanks to everyone who helped me out!

congrats!

i am vegging my plants under 2700k lights and are soft/cool and they are doing ok

Probably not. I don't think it would hurt them because your bulbs are most likely full spectrum, but it won't make them grow very fast because the majority of light being produced is for stimulating flowering in your plants. You want to be above 5500k for vegging, less than 4500k for flowering. Also, you may have difficulty initiating your flower cycle because your plant responds when you switch to 12/12 and when you change the lights to lower Kelvins. You should probably pick up some 5500s/6500s whenever you can. That's my opinion. Cheers!

fire hazard

So are hot air balloons but they still make them right?

what up buddie, glad to see you enjoying your harvest

i m pumped about a bill that being voted on that means i might be able to grow legally like all these lucky calli suns of bitches

i tried this in my first apartment and the only problem i had was with algae growing in the sides if the styrofoam, even with the 84 cfm ham radio fan i had going all the time i was able to get rid of it by getting a micro computer fan that blew across the plants to push the humity out. but all in all, it should turn out pretty badass.

Questions I have concerning this set up

1. Is it possibly to grow maybe 2-3 in this?

2. How did you change the lighting fixtures once it out grew the first cooler?


Fractus you've inspired me fully on building something like this. My only concern though is if I'm gonna spend all this money with the lights and etc I definitely want at least 2-3 plants inside

I don't think you could comfortably grow 2 plants, start to finish, in a box this size. I started with with two until they got about 10 inches high and I could determine sexes:

At this stage, I had a divider in the top half of the cooler which allowed my lights to hang closer to the plant. See how low I have the lights in the following picture:


One turned out male, the other female. I killed the male, and shifted the female over to the center of the box. She grew up fast and then I took out the "compartment" of the cover-cooler and ran my lights direcly through the top, like you see in the next picture. This allowed an extra 6-7 inches room to the ceiling.


After that, instead of adjusting lights anymore, I just tied her to accomodate for the fixed positioning of my lights. That way she didn't get too close to the bulbs and all the buds got equal lighting. Here you can see the strings holding her down, and 1 plant pretty much filled up my box:


I hope this answers your questions, if you have anymore feel free to ask.

i'm struggling to search back that far, but i just cant find were it shows how you powered your exhaust system, and what parts u used. how did you?

It is different now than it was originally. When I described how I did it the first time, it was two 12V DC computer fans, powered by a 12V ac/dc adapter. Plugs right into a 110/120V outlet. It's very simple, but eventually I decided I wanted more airflow than that so now what I have instead is a 4" steel axial fan that I found at a hardware store that actually runs on 120V AC, so now I just put that one in place and plug it in. It looks very similar to the one in this picture:


I would recommend this over doing it like I did at first. You can get this fan for less than the price of a AC/DC converter alone around here lol. This provides great circulation for the size box I used.

what store do u think has those?

I found mine at Princess Auto. I'm sure you would be able to find them somewhere else as well.. It depends where you live and what stores you have access to, lol..

Hey, for anyone who is interested in seeing how the next styro-grow turns out, I'm starting a new grow in the next couple of days. This time I'm putting it in a grow journal where it belongs though. I do welcome anyone's opinion or advice on that thread, I'll be updating it weekly if not more. The details and differences of this grow compared to the last one will be described as well.
Thanks for all the support so far!

New thread link:
https://www.rollitup.org/grow-journals/292455-fractus-back-second-styro-grow.html

dam thats crazy she yielded hella great job

You know what though? I'm currently working on a slightly larger scale grow in a closet with a 150 W HPS bulb + 4x2700K 23W CFL's, and the progress so far is less than the progress of my CFL styrofoam grow. That plant grew like it was on steroids and this one is growing totally normal and after 35 days just showed pistils. So yeah.. I'm starting to think the reflective styrofoam case was the best idea I ever had haha. Somehow the results were much more immediate, and the crop ended up being more valuable than the setup itself after the first grow. 100$/oz where I come from would be a damn silly price. I only spent 100$ on the entire styro setup.

I tried it for my single plant - great grow box!!!


The container I decided to go with - A styrofoam cooler, air tight, spacious, easy to work with, inexpensive, and already white!


The red squares are where I intend to install my fans. Later on, when I need it I want to install a carbon filter on my exhaust fan.
The black circles are where those light fixtures are going to be mounted horizontally, I think all of the lights together will give an even and adequate light distribution for my plant.
The lights consist of 2 pairs of soft white CFL's, 1600 lumens/23 watts (=100 watt incandescent)


The cover to the box - that is a 3300 lumen soft white CFL @ 55 watts (= 150 watt incandescent). I plan to have this mounted in such a way that I can adjust the height of it to sit just over the plant at all time. (And when the plant is too high, I have an extra cooler, and will set one bottom piece inverted on top of the other and remount my dome light)


All advice & criticism is welcome, I'm a newb [/QUOTE]