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tokeup1

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hello my fellow stoners..im a newbie here and i would like to thank all of you for accepting me into your circle..a couple of questions if i may ask....first off..im looking to grow maybe one or two plants..auto-flowering if possible..but i need to do it in a way that is very stealthy and hidden..only place i have to do the set up is in my bedroom..so i was thinking of creating a awsome stealth hydroponic dresser chamber so it will look very normal to the untrained eye..will be doing deep water culture on account of i have tried soil grows that went nowhere fast..plus i think it may less messy..so one of my questions is if it is a auto-flowering plant..as i understand it..there needs to be no on-off light cycle for those strains..right?..also do i have to have a exspensive light for this small simple grow?..or could i get away with a cheaper light set-up? going to rig the exaust and duct down into my bedroom vent under my floor to get rid of excess smell as well..thinking about slideing my dresser/ stealth hydro chamber over the vent to really make it look real stealthy..anyone have any tips or suggestion?...would love to hear them..thank you toker1
 
Welcome to The Passion :) The few tips I have to offer is:

1. rather than trying to use a dresser which is not very deep, go to the flea markets and find a wardrobe or entertainment cabinet that has opening/closing doors to make it more easily accessible for doing the maintenance on the hydro system and tending the plants. Also this unit should be a little deeper than a standard dresser which will give you a bit more room.

2. get some mylar or reflectix and attach to the inside of the cabinet. Spray adhesive sprayed onto both the inside of the cabinet and on the sheet of reflective material and allow to dry to tacky to touch then press together for solid hold.

3. I recommend getting either shallow plastic totes that will fit in the space or line the floor of the cabinet with a rubber matting to protect it from water spills.

4. You will still need to use light cycling with auto flowering plants. so you will need a couple timers so that you can run the lighting on 18/6.

5. I recommend getting T5HO lights that will fit inside the cabinet. 4footers if the cabinet is long enough, or 2footers if it isn't. Just remember that you need to get as much light as possible without burning up the cabinet. Ideally you need about 40,000 lumens of light to get good healthy flowering for building nice fat buds.

6. The next and very important thing is making sure you have very good ventilation or at the least the plants will die, and at the worst you will burn down your house. You need to be able to draw fresh air into the space at a rate that the cubic air space is replaced at the very least once a minute. This serves 2 very important purposes. removes the heat from the grow space, and continues to give fresh CO2 replenished air to the plants.

7. Make sure to do some reading here before starting your grow as growing MJ is a very involved project that takes a lot of work and dedication to produce decent yields.

Lastly; be fore-warned, growing MJ is a highly addictive hobby that is difficult to quit, especially after achieving your first harvest. Once that happens you will be hooked :) :D
 
If you have other people living in the house, it is going to be very hard to keep your grow secret. And, if so, consider that if you are busted, they will be busted, too.

Fans and air pumps are going to make a certain amount of noise that you are not going to be able to get rid of.

Hydro is going to take more time than soil and requires more precision. You are going to need pH and ppm meters. You are going to have to have a place to mix nutrients and let them sit and do your res change-outs.

You will not be able to exhaust into your bedroom vent as this will send the smell throughout the ducting and into other rooms. You will need a source of fresh air and a place to exhaust CO2 depleted airt. You may need a small A/C of some kind.

What is your budget for this?
 
Welcome Tokeup1!

On Hushpuppy's list all is great advice. For me #7 is the most important after security as The Hemp Goddess listed.

Had I read more and planned out more I would have made better purchases and not spent money in the wrong direction. Live and learn.

Plan out your grow from all aspects. Cabnet, lighting, exhaust, gear for growing(hydro or soil) right down to ph meters, other meters, nutes, space for resivoir if hydro. Can you keep the hydro resivor at proper temps comes to mind. I'm way out of my league here on hydro knowlege. I'm working on nute free soil style of grow, but had I planned it out more my first grow would not have had a rough and expensive first start.

Read, Read, Read and plan it out from poping seeds to curing. This will help save you time and money.

Alot of us use tents. To me the nice part of a tent is its easyness to move/ breakdown if security becomes an issue. As well as tents have the built in places for passive air intake and exhaust ports.

The grow journal section has been very helpful in trying to emulate what others have done. I feel like I'm walking down a road that others have walked and have left a map. I just have to read their journal and try to gleen from the sucesses and mistakes they have made.

Once again, Welcome to the best knowledge based mj grow site I have found on the web.

Good luck and green mojo!

Also hushpuppy's warning on the addiction of growing. You may not need to get your first harvest to find your already hooked. I ams:D
 
I'm sure you could do it for 650 since you only want to do a plant or two. From reading on here Autos do good 24/0 till they show sex then switch them to 20/4 light schedule.

I'm not sure how easy it will be to control the temps in a dresser, smaller spaces have more unstable temp conditions. With DWC you'll need to control the temp of your res to I think 68-75 degreese.
 
:ciao::welcome: To the Only Place :ciao::bolt::bong:
 
I think for that amount of money you should be able to set up a fine small space. The first thing you need to do is to decide on your space. If you decide on going with a piece of furniture, look for a large wardrobe or amoire that the front will open up for good access. You will most likely need inner doors or plastic to block the light. Make sure it is large enough to hold 2 5 gal buckets. If height is a problem, you could use 3 gal buckets or totes without a problem.

Light size will be determined by your space, but you are probably going to want a 250 HPS. If you get a digital ballast, you can run both HPS and MH bulbs. Although running autos, you can get by with just the HPS. I would get an air cooled hood and probably a 4" centrifuge type exhaust fan with a speed controller. I notice Amazon has the speed controllers for under $20, which is a good buy. One small wall mounted fan to move the air around should be enough. You can almost certainly run passive inlet.

Paint the interior FLAT white. This reflects almost as well as mylar or Panda film, but is so much cheaper, easier, and easy to clean.

You will need to do bucket changes every so often. Most people change their res every 7-10 days. I like to have extra buckets so that I can prepare the new nute solution and then just remove the lids and pop the girls into clean buckets with new nute solution. I pour the old nute solution somewhere outside in the garden and wash the dirty buckets and res change is that easy.

As Iams says, read, read, read. With hydro, you can kill your plants overnight by screwing up as they uptake nutrients right now. However, it also means that deficiencies show up sooner and you can correct them sooner. The roots taking up the nutrients directly means things happen fast. I do love hydro!
 

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