First Indoor grow 1000w flower 400w veg/mother

I've been planning my first indoor grow for the last couple of weeks with lots of help and pointers from Sneakyleeg. I've decided on running a Veg room(that will also serve as a mother room) with 4 105 watt CFL's at the 6500k spectrum. Here is the basic plan for the room. I need to figure out how much CFM I need for venting a room this size and how to vent it in a way that seals it so no light gets in. We are going to build little frames for each light and attach them to the top with chains or wire that we can adjust as needed.

Today we went and bought materials for the box and did a little work on it. My drill wasn't charged very much and setting screws into 2x4's without drilling any holes wiped out the battery. Planning on getting the rest of the frame built tomorrow and hopefully get the OSB on there, get it painted and caulked, and maybe even work on the door, which we plan to seal with weather stripping.

I have to wait on funds to build the flower room. We want that to be a 4x4x8 sealed enclosure with an A/C framed into the enclosure, a 6inch inline fan for exhaust which will pull air through a carbon scrubber and then through our 1000w light and out of the box.

I'll be posting pictures along the way. Any suggestions, questions, and constructive criticism are not only welcome but encouraged. This is my first serious attempt at growing and I'm putting a lot into it. Plans for the Flower room aren't concrete yet, just have a general guideline that we will adapt to.

I can't wait to get this all built and get seeds popping and cut clones while I wait to gather some more money for the flower room. I already feel like I'm living the dream, and I haven't even really started yet! =)

Looks pretty good. those cfls do great for veg but if you have the money don't be cheap with flowering. You want that power for your buds. From the looks of your veg room.. one mother plant could fit that easy but depends what you want to do. Looks like plenty of light for that area. After you have the frame all built up like that I would look into getting that plastic white film that you buy not sure where but you can see it on jorge cervantes video. That's not much cubic feet to exhaust 4x3x6 = 72 cubic feet. So to my understanding you would divide that number by 5 and that would be the smallest cfm fan you would buy which is 14.5 cfm. Honestly though go buy a bathroom exhuast fan at 50 cfm and set that up. You can buy different ones where it hides the light.

Already have a 1000w HPS with a ballast and hood waiting. =)

Thanks for the info about CFM! I was thinking I would need more than that. Thanks for the tip on the exhaust fan. I can probably plug the exhaust fan into the power strip that is going to be connected to my timer right? That way it's only venting when the lights are on and it's closed when the lights are off?

I'm really only making it a mother room for right now when I don't have a flower room. Once I get my flower room I'm probably going to either build a dedicated mother room or just do a perpetual with the veg and flower rooms without doing a mother. We'll see how finances go. Money is a bit tight.

I would just run it 24/7. You can get them for $50 or less at a home depot or something, square shaped. You'll probably have to wire it yourself but that's simple.. Just remember. Everything needs to have equilibrium. Water, light, ventilation, humidity, temperature, oxygen, co2........ etc

Wiring isn't an issue for me. If I buy one of those bathroom fans do I just have that pull air out and make an intake hole and use pvc to block light flow? I guess what I'm asking is do I need two fans? One for intake one for outtake? Sorry for the noob questions.

Yea.. I mean it would be best. Having one on the bottom for intake and one on top for exhaust. Although, your plant will be fine with just an exhaust. I personally with that small space would buy a computer fan at a large computer warehouse which sell hundreds of different fans not just 5-10 like best buy. Use that for your intake and just cut it to size with both fans, having the bathroom one at the top because heat rises. You want a 4:1 ratio of exhaust to intake so a computer fan would be perfect. Just seal up any imperfections or light leaks with duct tape or the reflective tape.

I'm thinking about just using computer fans for the top and bottom to make it easier. What if I did like 4 of these fans up top and a couple on bottom? Is the CFM rating on computer fans inflated? Seems like it's way cheaper to do PC fans over the bathroom fans I was looking at that had reviews saying they were pretty noisy.

I have a spare power supply so that wouldn't be a problem for computer fans. I also have spare cell phone chargers and access to a lot of them.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103052

Quick update with some pictures. Got distracted with holiday stuff, but I'm hoping to get it all put together and start wiring the lights and doing the intake and exhaust in the next week.

Looks sharp so far, did a diy cab myself, running a 3x8 scrog with 1200w. Always nice to see a diy'r.

Awesome. I'm planning on a scrog setup. I spent a couple hours last night thinking about how I want to mount my lights and how I want to vent my system. I really want it to look nice and also function really well. I'm on a hell of a budget right now, but it's nice because it forces me to do more of the work myself. Allows me to learn new skills(don't have a lot of wood working experience) and also it's a ton of fun, and I think I'm going to love this setup even more because of how much work is going into it.

Taking a gander at your grow right meow.

Deleted previous post because there was a license plate in two of the pictures. Much thanks Mike91sr for pointing it out. I totally didn't see them in the back round. Life saver. Going to spend more time editing images. Live and learn!

re post with edited images:
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I totally messed up with this thread and should have just posted a link to my album for this grow on the first post. Oh well. Here are some new pictures. Got a lot of work to do still.

Just as an FYI, there are two veg boxes being built at the same time. Painting, I learned, takes longer than one might think. The biggest problem was space. Moving around all those OSB boards trying to get good places to paint them and dry them was annoying. Overall though, much happier with these beautiful, smooth white walls than I would be with mylar.

i saw a thread where he put the box together, the dumped a quart of paint in it..=0 and spread it around..

and for havin minimal wood working experience yousure are lookin up to be a master crafter..=) hehe

I am going to paint the 2x4's by hand with several coats. I also need to paint the outside of my veg box white, so I'm going to need to buy some more paint. I was going to paint the boards afterward, but I thought it would be a lot easier to be able to paint them with a roller beforehand.

Took a break from building today to have some family time. Have relatives in town. Probably going to do a tiny bit of work tomorrow in between football and hanging out with the fam.

Thanks for the compliment on the woodwork!

Just wanted to give an update. The project temporarily on hold due to unforeseen circumstances, and I'm modifying my project to better suit my needs.

At the current time I am planning on scaling the grow down to a 600 watt CFL setup, non perpetual. I want to go bigger, but I also have some limitations so I have to be more realistic and safe. All part of the process, and I'm just trying to remain patient and do everything right and make as few mistakes as possible.

My Dad always taught me to do a job right or to not do it at all. I can't wait until I can get this up and running so I can learn more about the wonders and joy of growing. So many dreams, I just have to remain patient and work hard to achieve them.

storminmormon said:

Just wanted to give an update. The project temporarily on hold due to unforeseen circumstances, and I'm modifying my project to better suit my needs.

At the current time I am planning on scaling the grow down to a 600 watt CFL setup, non perpetual. I want to go bigger, but I also have some limitations so I have to be more realistic and safe. All part of the process, and I'm just trying to remain patient and do everything right and make as few mistakes as possible.

My Dad always taught me to do a job right or to not do it at all. I can't wait until I can get this up and running so I can learn more about the wonders and joy of growing. So many dreams, I just have to remain patient and work hard to achieve them.

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IMO if youre running 600w of cfl you should just run a 400/600w hps. CFL's will put off just as much heat at those kind of numbers and they're even harder to cool, as you don't usually have a cool tube/air cooled hood for CFL's.

I appreciate the input. Still doing my research before I decide. Thanks so much for the tip! You probably just saved me a lot of time. Time to do some reading and planning. =)

Glad to help

Quantum 600w ballast(I'm running 5 quantums right now and love them) - $138 shipped
This Hood - $75 shipped
Bulb - $35 shipped

Under $250(what's an ounce of decent bud go for nowadays?), your first harvest really will easily make up for any savings you could have possibly had by going smaller. Look at some 600w journals and see for yourself. Just make sure you can cool it. If you don't already have one, a 6" inline fan does just fine for two of my 600s daisy-chained, so it'll be more than enough for one. activeair is like $75.

Just my 2 cents

That is EXACTLY what I'm going to do. My enclosure would be perfect for that, and if I ever wanted to go up to a 1000w setup I could just change the bulb. For some reason I thought it would cost more than that. Way worth it to do it right, especially for those costs. Would you do an ac frame in and pull the air from inside the enclosure out for ventilation and cooling or would you just not get an AC and pull it from the lung room which will be ac'd? Never really thought about it as before I didn't have the option to pull from a room with AC.