New grow room

[Lastritez]

Ok so realising that despite the first crop being pretty nice, but wanting to ensure my girls have the best condiditons I can provide them, on a very limited budget, I am working on the design for the new grow room. I will have to go without smoke for a while longer, but I hope the end result will be well worth it, a short term sacrafice for some long term gain.

We live in a small apartment, very small, if I had a dead cat I couldn't swing it! I have managed to sort out a space about 70cm x 70cm x 200cm (although can go as high as 240cm if needed, but I think 200cm should be enough), this is the internal size of the 'box' I will build. I had thought about just making a frame and covering it with reflective material, but judging by the cost, adn they way the GF's cats seem to like to claw anything that stands still long enough, I may well build a solid box, and paint it white inside (matt or gloss?).

I have a 400w HPS growlux light, and am aiming for 2 - 4 plants at a time, it might be that I have to upgrade to 600w, but for now to keep the expense low I will stick with the 400w. This will be attached via a hanging kit to the 'roof' of the box, so I can adjust the height as the plants grow.

I will have a small desk fan fitted to the inside of the box to keep some air moving around the inside, although I am not sure when about on the inside this should go, maybe mounted on the wall facing down? and how high?

Ventilation will be via 2 x bathroom extrator fans mounted at the top of the box, on one side, the air will be then taken away via some clip together PVC drain pipes (handy having a few friends who work in the building trade) and some tumble drier hose, and then vented straight out the old chimney. A couple of holes cut into the bottom of one side of the box with some corner bends of the PVC pipes to stop light getting in will be added to allow air to enter into the box, so I will be sucking air in from the bottom and blowing it out the top.

A couple of hinges should secure the front panel to use as a door, or I could make it so that the entore front panel can be removed and set aside to ensure freedom of movement for when i need to work inside.

So whats the general thoughts? is this enough floor space to grow 4 plants? is there anything I am missing? I want to make sure I get this right first time, as i don't have the funds to replace it, hence why I am making this post before I proceed, always good to get advice from the experts.

I will of course post up pictures of the construction process and the end result, and am really looknig forward to making my first grow journal.

Its quite suprising how wanting to grow some weed to save some money on dealer prices, can turn into quite a fascinating hobby, I would never have guessed there is so much to learn about growing a couple of plants.

will start with a standard grow, nothing special, but am considering some of the techiques here such as LST for the grow after that.

 

[King Bud]

Its quite suprising how wanting to grow some weed to save some money on dealer prices, can turn into quite a fascinating hobby, I would never have guessed there is so much to learn about growing a couple of plants.

Just wait until you start growing other plants for the fun of it

I think you're on the right track!

That box seems a little small, but I don't really have experience with 400watt HPS, so I don't know how hot they get. Maybe someone else will chime in.

As a guess, I think you'd be better off with a bigger box, maybe more like 100cm x 100 cm x 200cm. You will probably find your plants growing into the sides of the box.

Use matte white paint.. NOT gloss.

For techniques like LST, which is fairly harmless (and a whole lot of fun), I recommend trying them on one plant, out of your expected 4. It's not the end of the world if you mess up one plant, since you have other 'standard' plants on reserve.

Goodluck!

 

[Lastritez]

thanks for the reply, going to 100cm will be difficult, we live in a REALLY small apartment, adn getting planning permission from SWMBO was hard enough as it is ha ha.

Great idea for the first attempts at LST will certainly do that!

As for the LST after reading a few threads I though it might be an idea to get a mesh tube thats just smaller than the lids on my buckets, and train a plant to grow around that, would this work? rather than tie the plant down just thread it through the mesh as it grows?