Discreet Grow Box

[Pfmohr1]

Well I've decided to go for my first indoor grow (I've done quite a few outdoors) , but have to be somewhat discreet about it. I'm only aiming for one plant right now, and I decided to go with a grow box like this one. I saw one like it on a forum 3 or 4 years ago, but I've been reluctant to mess with envirolites. A good friend of mine just finished a grow with solely envirolites though, and it turned out great.

Overall this is a pretty cheap grow box. I bought the shelving used to build the box for about $20, the CFL's for about $3 each, and the envirolites for about $30 each. The computer fans and light timer I had laying around. $86 for a full grow box including lights is pretty nice. The cheapest part about this grow is probably going to be the power; the envirolite uses 95 watts, and the CFL's a combined 30. 125 Watts is a nice, inconspicuous number.

Sizewise this is a pretty restrictive box, but as I said I need this to be discreet. I'm only growing one plant though (w/ some extra feminized widow seeds from a different grow), and the envirolites tend to keep the plants pretty compact so hopefully size won't become too much of an issue.

I thought it was pretty important that I be able to easily raise and lower the envirolite; it gives off very little heat and gives off approx. 22,000 lumens when placed within a few inches of the plants, so I want to be able to raise it as the plants grow. I'm using a blue for vegging, and then switching to a red for flowering. The CFL's are mainly for adding more lumens, and I may consider losing them if the plant gets too close. I may still add a mount for a UV-B light for flowering, but I'm still undecided about that.

Like I said, I'm a first time insider, so any thoughts on this would be great.

[PropheCy604]

Nice but not sure you will harvest a lot with it...?!?!?!

[Pfmohr1]

Naaah definitely won't get a ton, but it's cool since this is strictly for my personal use. I forgot to mention I'm growing in coco, and hopefully the combination of that, some training, and some good lighting during flowering will get me a decent yield. I may still work with a different strain though, since widow's fairly low-yielding. What actually made me decide to go with an envirolite and coco was my buddy's last grow; he LST'd the hell out of a blueberry in coco, and used nothing but envirolites. He managed to get 4.1 oz's off of a single blueberry which is pretty damn respectable.

*edit* btw prophecy, I just checked out your grow cabinet from your sig, very nice. Kinda wish I'd seen that before I built this box, I could have definitely borrowed an idea or two.

[PropheCy604]

4.1oz from one plant!!!!!!!! VERY nice!

I'm fairly new to this world and I'm not sure to know what is coco?

steeve

[Pfmohr1]

It's a grow medium made up of crushed coconut shells. It's a lot more airy than soil, and lets your roots grow out more easily. It's best to use with a hydro system, but I'm lazy and poor so I'm gonna go kinda half-hydro and just water. It gives some CRAZY fast grow speeds on the vegging phase, which could actually mess with me a little. I've only grown outside before, so I'm a little iffy on when to flower anyways, and with coco you generally need to flower a little earlier than soil.

*edit* I just keep finding little goodies in your sig prophecy, I didn't really read the whole thing before, definitely a badass little proverb there.

[grow buddy]

I would move those fans to the top of the box, and keep the holes at the bottom for intake.

For the lights, you can get those alot closer aswell, I'm talking 2 - 4 inches away from the plant.

Are you going to used feminized seeds, because thats a lot of work to find out you grew a male plant.

Thats a nice growbox design.

[Pfmohr1]

Definitely a good idea to move the fans, I'm a little worried about the CFL's though. The envirolite I can raise and lower in order to keep it close to the plant. What worries me it the plant actually touching the side-mounted CFL's; they don't put off much heat, but they can still burn the plant if they actually are in contact with it. I was giving thought to building two recessed boxes in place of the CFL's, and putting in some regular flouro's that would be flush with the walls of the box. The only problem with that is how much of the light would actually be hitting the plants initially. Once its tall enough, these would give some light to the lower branches, but since most flouro's are in the blue spectrum it won't do a ton to help for flowering. If I could find a UVB light to fit it though, it'd do quite a bit for getting some trichomes formed.

Here's a diagram of what I'm thinking:

[grow buddy]

If you are definatly going to use CFL's you could try this plan I came up with...

Cut out a square foot of plywood, mabye a centimeter smaller on each side so it slides up and down.

Drill 9 holes the size of a light socket evenly in rows of 3 on the board.

Place in 9 light sockets, glue them in for support and wire them all up together.

Mount 4 small chains to the back of the board, this will allow you to raise the light board up and down easily.

I could try and draw a picture of what I mean, but you should get the idea.

[Pfmohr1]

Definitely a nice idea, I can basically throw as many CFL's in there as possible, they barely take any power and don't make a ton of heat. I could put the envirolite in the center and have it surrounded by CFL's.... lol that's a ridiculous amount of light for one plant, especially with as close as they'd be to the plant. I don't know the lumen output on the CFL's when they're that close, but from 3 feet it's around 1200. That's actually about the same as the envirolite, so I'm assuming that they'll be around the same.