Plans and questions for my growbox

[jmnz]

Hey all, I'm new here so a big warm 'hello' to everyone

I've been doing heaps of research about growing some plants of my own (The internet is so good for so many reasons) and have come up with some ideal plans for a growbox. Most of the questions I have have been asked by many before, but I think that each situation is different so my case may need further clearing up.

I'm trying to be discrete and I have a smallish house so my box isn't going to be massive or anything. I haven't bought any supplies yet - bar the seeds - but as soon as I can spare the cash (hopefully less than a month away) this is what I will be spending my hard-earned coin on.

The size I'm looking at will be around 2ft wide, 4ft long, and 5ft high. I will be growing in soil as I think that will be easier for my first grow and I will use a 400W HPS light. I bought some White Widow seeds from PlanetSkunk which have arrived already and are sitting here tempting me with their potential

Now, I'm just after a some answers to a few questions I've got:

Will 400w be adequate for my setup? I am considering getting a 600w instead, but I'm a bit worried about the heat it might produce int this smallish space.
Speaking of heat, what sort of fan setup would one recommend? Are both input and output fans needed? The fans I am looking at will either be 120mm or 290mm, but would the 290mm fans be too big for my space? I will definately have an internal fan in there.
How many plants would be good in this sized space and how high will they grow? THis is just a straight frow, no scrog or anything. And, just out of curiousity, what sort of yield would I be expoecting off each (providing they grow well and nothing goes wrong during their growing)?

Thanks in advance to anyone who can provide a few answers, sorry about the load of questions, it's just that as this will be my first grow I want to make sure it all works out

[kayakbubbler]

Hey, glad you're getting started, it's a lot of fun once you do. I think the 400 will be plenty fine for the space you have. You could probably expect to grow 4 or 5 nice plants with that set-up. As far as the size goes, that's entirely up to you. You let them veg until you're ready then expect them to double in size during the flowering stage. Ideally you want to wait till the plant is at least a foot tall before you flower. As far as the fans go, if your'e using a box, you use passive intake, which is just open holes on the bottom of the box using the extractor fan to push the hot air out the top of the box. As I've never used inline fans like those, I can't really help you with the size, but i would think the 120cfm would be ok. As long as you have a desk fan or something in there moving more air around it should stay cool. Hope I aswered some things for ya, lemme know if you need any more info and I'll answer to the best of my ability.

[provin1327]

My first time I used a min fridge, and one 80 watt florescent light, and one plant, and it turned out really good actually. Your set up sounds good, but id go low profile and low work and do mine

Oh yea and welcome to GC

[jmnz]

Thanks for the quick replies guys

What I might do is plant 6-7 plants in there until flowering as I'm expecting some of them to be males.

Thanks for the fan advice kayakbubbler, I will probably go with the 120mm fan and, luckily, where I am planning on putting the cupboard is next to an unused open fire so I can extact the fan up there to rid the smell.

Oh I'm so excited! I'll start a grow journal when I start growing it so I can share my growing pleasure.

Peace out

[toastybiz]

400w is perfect for that size footprint. If you are thinking of building the box, you should first take a look at a pre-fab closet cab, try at Home Depot the brand Mills Pride.

The right fan will be a function of heat management as much as airflow. For airflow you want to look at the fan's cfm (cubic ft per minute) rating and have at least three times the volume of the grow space -- in your case you have 40 cu ft so you want a fan rated at least 120 cfm. That may not manage heat, though, so in general I recommend the strongest exhaust fan you can reasonably fit in to your op.

You have decent height but you still may want to use a little LST to help the plants take full advantafe of the light coverage without gaining too much height.

No way to predict yield -- I would say a newbie did a pretty good job if s/he gets 1 oz or so per plant on the first grow (indoor soil). With experience and advanced techniques you could get many oz per plant.