ok, about to go long on this one, I'll start out with a quote I like from Dennis Leary on the subject (kinda) Alright, to begin. I am planning a McGuyver style, (not entirely) stealth grow, a "closet box" about 4'-5' tall, 2 1/2' to 3' deep, and about 4'-5' wide (im still in planning stage, havent measured yet). I have a great deal of skill in electrical work and automation, so that part is covered, the part that isn't is the fact that im broke as hell. I have lots of crap laying around the house: aquarium parts, wood, rubbermaid containers, car parts, etc etc. I plan to improvise and use what I have around to put this together and buy as little as possible. starting out, I think I am going to go with an NFT SCROG setup. However, I am not sure what I need for this. I like a setup I saw that uses the shallow rubbermaid bins that go under the bed, I think that will do well to maximize my space instead of using the huge tall bins. From what I gather, and I could be wrong, it would seem that it just uses the bin with nutes, and aquarium airstones. Seems simple enough if so. I would use seeds germinated in paper towel method, polyfill as my medium, as I have a bag left over from packing my sub box. I got a "pool noodle" at the dollar store a few days ago, as I have seen this used in the net pots with medium in the center, but I am not sure on its usage. For lighting, I have a HID bulb and ballast from my car laying around, I put that in a simple reflector from one of those clip-on work lamps, and it seems pretty bright, to the point that it is almost painful to look at for a few seconds, but I want to maybe make a "hood" type reflector and put a computer fan in the top (got lots of those) for cooling, as it felt like it threw off a bit of heat. this is a small operation, so I think it would be fine. I am also going to back it with 8 100w CFLs. I was thinking about snagging 3 red CFLs to swap out during flowering, I have seen the blue ones as well but it seems they arent needed, I am just imagining that blue/red purpleish light I see in pictures. For ventilation, I want to put two ducts in, one up into the attic and tied into a PVC Tee on the sewer vent that runs up the wall behind the setup, so that the heat and steam wouldn't show up abnormally should it get IR'ed, as steam comes out of these all the time. I would make a homemade carbon scrubber, with a 12v bilge blower inline to draw it out into the vent. The second duct would pull air from the room/closet in, as the blower pulls the air out. This would have a filter on the end to keep dust/ insects, mites etc out. The HID and other 12v items would be powered off a computer power supply, with relays and stupid simple digital timers. the CFLs would be the same way, though with a solid state relay. My real issue is NUTES. What should I use? my searches seem to come up on "the best", and in time when I have money, the best will be tried. But right now, on my budget, I need something that is the best yield for the lowest money, and simple enough not to easily screw up. If there are simple natural nutes, or stuff I can get at home depot/walmart, all the better. Overall, if I had a fat wallet I'd be going with a full setup of nutes, a good HPS light, the whole nine, but I'm making do with what I can. any help with that understanding is greatly appreciated...
I'll pick out some questions you had and add to some things, I kinda skimmed over your post. Net pots: they are cheap, but if you want to save just take a small cup and drill a bunch of holes in it. Nice idea on the automotive HID's I've heard they work pretty well, but I haven't tried them so I don't have any advice for that. Nutrients: I use the lucas formula. You only need general hydropnics micro and bloom for the whole grow cycle. They are 10-15 bucks each per liter. The bloom will be cheaper than micro. You'd start out with a low feed, then gradually work your way up to the standard 8ml grow and 16ml bloom per gallon. It comes out to about 1000ppm at full strength if you use RO water, or tap water with a low ppm. I usually don't have to adjust ph either because it comes out to 5.5-5.8 all the time depending what else I add. Lighting: Those 6500k blue spectrum cfl's are good for flowering too. It's best to have a mix of blue and red. The blue will keep your leaves nice and green, strengthen stems, and add to bag appeal. It makes more resin, but the strength will be the same as if you only used those red lighting 2700k. https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=243060 thread for reference, it's a pretty good read. My whole grow room is made out of stuff I already had, besides my ballast and inline fan. Good luck. I'll try to answer anymore questions you have if I'm on. My plants on lucas formula and hempy buckets.