I am looking into my first ever grow. Just got a new apartment with a garage and am excited to start. Any advice or critique would be really appreciated. Originally I planned on purchasing pre-fabbed "superbox" from supercloset but I feel like with some advice I could make something that will still work well for the moment and save a lot of money. This will be in my unheated garage that will have an ambient temperature around 40F. I am looking into building my first cab with the following: 2 stacked 50 gallon totes, which will give me 3.5' length x 3.5' height and 3' width. ($40) 400W Apollo digital ballast with 400w HM for veg and 400w HPS for flowering. ($120) A GrowBright 4" Inline Fan & Carbon Filter Combo (170 cfm) + 6" passive intake. ($120) Planting in 1 (possibly 2) gallon containers with composted manure. I feel like I'm forgetting something else here. I am curious what you guys think my internal temps will run with the 400w bulb? I was thinking the bulb in such a small space would run hot and the ambient temps would keep it somewhere close to where it needs to be with some tweaking. The strain I plan on growing is Fast and Vast auto from Herbies, planning on 3-4 for now. With lst I should be fine as far as height? Should I consider running T5 instead of the HID lighting? is the 400w HID system to big for my box, downsize to 250w possibly? I really appreciate any help you guys can give me and will hopefully learn and be able to contribute in the future once I get some experience.
If you can increase the size of the cab height wise a bit more and get a cooltube you should be alright. I'd look into building a simple box out of 3/8 OSB and 2x2. About $40 from home depot and they will make all the cuts for you! The 400 will get pretty hot in a small space, but it is manageable if you get a high cfm fan. I just put one in my third cab that is 16x30x69 and its about 84 77 ambient with my 8" vortex fan at 40V on my variac controller with your cooler temps you should be alright with a 4" but I'd look into a 6" since that what size cooltubes are for 400W. What are your plans for nutes? Also do you plan one eventually having a mother so you can clone? Sounds like you have a pretty good idea anyways hope you keep us updated Sent from my Spaceship using the GrassCity App.
Hey, I appreciate the response! I'm not sure what I want to run for nutes, any suggestions? And for my first ever grow I am just gonna run a few auto's I think. But recently I have been wondering if I would be better off running just one big normal plant? I really like that idea for the box, I didn't know that they would make cuts for me there. The only issue is I kinda need to keep this thing stealthy and am worried someone might think my big plywood box is a little odd because I have very close neighbors. This is what I am looking at now, I think it would look pretty normal next to my shelving and all my tools. What do you think? http://www.uline.com/Product/Detail/H-3108BL/Storage-Cabinets/Wardrobe-Cabinets-Black-36-x-24-x-72?model=H-3108BL&RootChecked=yes
If you could build it so it looked similar to the shelving and not very out of place I'd say it would work great! It would look less out of place than a few rubbermaids anyway IMO, so good idea there. I built all 3 of my cabs inside of my dressers and wardrobe, with boxes made out of OSB, but I don't think it would look out of place if you made them look like a tool storage box or something. I made a bunch of tool totes out of plywood and have em on wheels so I can load them up quick on a jobsite, so I don't think it would look very out of place, its a garage! I either suggest doing one big plant or having a second cab for a mother and you can do a perpetual Sea of Green like what I am attempting in solo Hempy buckets. The plants stay around 12" and are just one big bud, or at least that's my end goal, but in your space a large plant could work well if you trained it properly and maybe did a scrog. If you run an auto then this is probably your beat option, but if you run a photo then you can have a mother and a faster harvest every time. As for nutes, I've been seeing great results using advanced nutrients sensi pH perfect line, I like it because once you mix up about 2 gallons, it will keep the pH of that solution in he perfect range for about a week! I have no experience with any other nutes but I love this stuff, its always bang on for pH. And I've only used maybe 1/8 of my small container for 18 plants vegged so far. I grow in Hempy buckets and they are so fool proof, for my first grow I've found it impossible to over water and you have no silly pumps and airstones to worry about, its a nice simple passive hydro system, that can be used with all sorts of mediums like coco and perlite. I'm actually trying out a pure coco Hempy to see how well it works, so far its been great. I recommend checking them out at least because they are so simple, if my plants need water my cup feels very light, I water until I see some run off, then I'm good for another 2-3 days until its light again. Flowering will need water daily most likely though Hope this helps, sorry for the wall of text lol Sent from my Spaceship using the GrassCity App.