<span style="background-color:rgb(250,250,250);"> </span> Hey guys i'm trying to to finalize my design for my grow box it'll be 3 feet wide, 2 feet deep, 5 feet high. it'll house 2 water farms and each waterfarm will have 5-6 cubic feet (3x2x1) of growth space after subtracting the size of the buckets and lights . with the remaining 10 cubic feet (1x2x5) i was going to allocate 4 cubic feet (1x2x2) to house a mother plant with the remaining 6 cubic feet to be a drying chamber. 1)i have questions regarding LED's, when i first did my research LED's were looked down upon, but that was 4 years ago, im curious to know the communities oppinion on LED grow lights. both for vegetation and flowering. 2) by using the cubic feet values i've given, how much do you think i could yield with my waterfarms, certain strains produce 500 grams per square foot but this seems unrealstic. 3) i'll be growing them using the SCROG method, is this the best method given my space limitations? 4) what kind of material should i build the cabinet from? are there any websites that just build cabinets according to my specs, i wanted the supercloset cabinet originally but i'd rather invest my money into better products than into a name brand. anyways, any help is appreciated!
Personally I'd buy a grow tent from gorilla grow tent, or secret jardin, instead of DIY grow box. That's my 2 cents, at least research tents before you pull the trigger. I'm glad someone told me the same advice before I bought mine. LED grow lights are the future. I personally recommend california light works, they are american made, 5 watt diodes, 3 year warranty, blinding bright. I personally own three of their lights and I wouldn't buy any other brand. I like the california light works, I hear the kessil are good and I've heard the area 51 LED's are pretty good. That seems like a lot of stuff to cram into a small area, seems a little cramped, but maybe that's just me.
500 grams per square foot is unrealistic. It's probably more like a square meter 3 x 3 , and even then it's a little hard to acheive
yes I was going to get the California led lights, the 200w bloom one for flowering and the cheap 100w for vegetation. I was thinking about getting a mylar tent and building a little box to put beside the tent for clones. The only problem with getting a tent Is that I won't have an area to let the buds hang and dry My goal is to yield 10 Oz dried off the 2 waterfarms with one month of vegging after the clones root (I'll be storing them in a fridge to delay them so I can achieve a perpetual harvest) https://mycotopia.net/forums/holding-tank/54907-dds-scrog-thread.html the guy in this thread yielded 12-15 Oz per plant using a 5x1 scrog screen (5sq/ft of growth room) with a 2 bucket dwc system.
you can get a propagation tent and use it for vegging/clones. I got my lighthouse hydro propagation tent for around $75 with shipping. It's small too, 30" wide x 18" deep X 36" high, and it fits perfectly in my bedroom closet. Everybody has a budget, so another option for veg/clones instead of the 100 Watt LED veg light, consider using a T5 fixture with 4 or more bulbs, and costs about $150+ less. If your budget allows, instead buy the 400 watt solarstorm, it will make a huge difference. Spend the money on the big light and use flouro lights for the veg. The 200 is okay for the size space you are talking about, but it's stretching it thin. I personally would go with a 3 x 3 tent and the california light works 400 watt light, you won't be disappointed and you shouldn't have any problem getting the kind of yield that you are looking for. I think with this setup you would probably be closer to that 400-500 gram harvest after a few grows under your belt.
Also if you are new to growing you might consider soil instead of hydro. Everyone has their argument for or against whatever grow medium they feel is superior. Personally I like soil, just because I believe I get better taste from my plants. I care more about quality than quanity as I'm a medical patient and I only grow for me and few other patients that are light users and we always seem to have more than we need. Unless you're a hydro expert, you're better off with soil
I am very new. I only know the science behind growing but nothing about the final results. I avoided soil because I heard it's more prone to pests and you can't keep a tight watch on the NPK values. But it seems like it would be less of a headache with soil. Given everything I've said, how much would I yield if I went with soil? The 400 watt is out of my price range for the time being but I want to stick with LED due to how well the lights are able to replicate a plants growth frequency and I'll save on the electric bill over all
So i've done some research and although mylar tents is a superior way, it just looks wayy too obvious in my garage. Im still trying to yield close to the numbers found in the pdf i've attached. This is my new mentality for how im going to build this set up. Please criticize me because i can only become smarter if someone point out my stupidity 1) im going to make this set up except with an LED yo yo light setup (400w solar flare california light works)https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=100698 2) this guy yielded 15oz off one waterfarm in about the same space i'll have (pdf has a bit less actually), im stuffing in 2 of these waterfarms (i wanted one sativa one indica) into this space. The 3 tubs will be 32"l x 20"w x 18.7"h. one waterfarm unit is 18" h so this is perfect for me to look under the mesh and over the mesh 3) im just going to grow from seed to maturity twice a year, i want to make enough overstock from one batch so that in the time it take me to find a male i;ll still have stuff to smoke and if ti is a male, i can kill it and focus on the other plant while still smoking my backup supply 4) im going to veg the 2 waterfarms for 4 weeks before inducing flowering, i'll try and keep the nitrogen low (for height) with the P,K values high just because i smoke in my garage and want my plant to be able to be resilient to any airborne toxins and i want the roots to grow think because im aiming for potency over yield.