MrEDuck
Well-Known Member
Very shortly I have to stop my current grow. We're moving to a new house that's split into an upstairs unit and a downstairs unit. The basement is shared between the tenants and has a washer and drier. The landlord is cool with us keeping the back room locked (there's already a lock from a previous tenant), there's no windows and there is plenty of space for a small stealth grow and storage. There's a closet with shelves that will be perfect for rooting clones and for storing nutes and all my other supplies. So I need to build a box for veg and a box for flower. The veg area just needs to be able to keep a mom and veg the girls for whatever length of time is required to fill my bloom box. I plan on having 4 plants in 5 gallon buckets in bloom.
The greatest threats to my security are odor and sound.
Odor elimination will be handled by running two fans with carbon filters recirculating the air in the room, using a carbon filter on the exhaust fan and finally I'll be using some ONA gel. It's by the laundry, it should smell like clean clothes. How much does the ONA smell? I've seen tons of posts where people rave about what great stuff it is.
Because sound is such a big issue I've decided to use CFLs for lighting. All of my HID ballasts are magnetic, and I would have to air cool them which involves a getting a quiet and powerful fan that I just can't afford. The total heat output of X watts of CFL is probably pretty similar, but the CFLs are spread out as opposed to having this giant space heater that HIDs are.
I want to make a big X of lights, with 5 lights each 3" apart, and probably 3 lights high, with a few bulbs (2-4) above each plant.
Ideally I'd like to use a 30" x 30" tray, but I don't know if they come in that size, a 36" x 36" would work though. I'm not sure how much space I need underneath for something to catch the runoff, ideally as little as possible to preserve as much vertical space as possible for the plants. My buckets are 15", and while I'm going to do everything I can to keep the plants about 24", I'd like room for 36" because I'm growing a sativa dominant strain that can be stretchy as fuck. If the stretch isn't bad I can always add more layers of lights and grow em a little bigger in the next crop. So without the space for the drain 57" after adding 6" for the top lights. I'm sure 9" is more than enough for the drain and it makes the math easier. So with 30" tray the box could be as small as 34 cu ft. Making the box 3.5'x3.5'x5.5' would make it 68 cu ft. It would make it possible to expand the grow a little if I wanted, and should, I hope, help keep the temps more stable, and the extra space would avoid clutter which drives me nuts. I have a little 4" 100cfm that should do nicely for ventilation.
As far as construction I'm thinking of making a frame with either PVC or 2x4s and using Panda film for the walls. Is there a better/easier option?
Thoughts, comments, suggestions, insults aimed at my design skills, intelligence, heritage, etc?
Thanks in advance.
The greatest threats to my security are odor and sound.
Odor elimination will be handled by running two fans with carbon filters recirculating the air in the room, using a carbon filter on the exhaust fan and finally I'll be using some ONA gel. It's by the laundry, it should smell like clean clothes. How much does the ONA smell? I've seen tons of posts where people rave about what great stuff it is.
Because sound is such a big issue I've decided to use CFLs for lighting. All of my HID ballasts are magnetic, and I would have to air cool them which involves a getting a quiet and powerful fan that I just can't afford. The total heat output of X watts of CFL is probably pretty similar, but the CFLs are spread out as opposed to having this giant space heater that HIDs are.
I want to make a big X of lights, with 5 lights each 3" apart, and probably 3 lights high, with a few bulbs (2-4) above each plant.
Ideally I'd like to use a 30" x 30" tray, but I don't know if they come in that size, a 36" x 36" would work though. I'm not sure how much space I need underneath for something to catch the runoff, ideally as little as possible to preserve as much vertical space as possible for the plants. My buckets are 15", and while I'm going to do everything I can to keep the plants about 24", I'd like room for 36" because I'm growing a sativa dominant strain that can be stretchy as fuck. If the stretch isn't bad I can always add more layers of lights and grow em a little bigger in the next crop. So without the space for the drain 57" after adding 6" for the top lights. I'm sure 9" is more than enough for the drain and it makes the math easier. So with 30" tray the box could be as small as 34 cu ft. Making the box 3.5'x3.5'x5.5' would make it 68 cu ft. It would make it possible to expand the grow a little if I wanted, and should, I hope, help keep the temps more stable, and the extra space would avoid clutter which drives me nuts. I have a little 4" 100cfm that should do nicely for ventilation.
As far as construction I'm thinking of making a frame with either PVC or 2x4s and using Panda film for the walls. Is there a better/easier option?
Thoughts, comments, suggestions, insults aimed at my design skills, intelligence, heritage, etc?
Thanks in advance.
