Little space,money, and time...can some one help

get like 3 clf lights but the more the better hook a litle computer fan up. build a litle box or put this in ur closet r somthing

some simple suplys to get u started

 

Use a seed you have laying around or ask a friend. Go to store and purchase a few cheap CFL bulbs, maybe 5$ worth, and maybe a few cheap light fixtures. Then just build a box out of anything. People on this board with def tell you that the box should be leak free, meaning no light should escape, but its not totally necesarry. If you just have the lights on the plant it will grow. I am not an experienced grower, but just offering what I have learned

 

Lightproofing the box is not about stopping light from escaping (unless stealth is an issue), it's about stopping light getting in.

During the flowering phase, your plant needs 12 hours of complete darkness.
Any light getting into the box can screw up your dark cycle and turn your plant hermie.

Lightproof your boxes people.

 

Get a pot for like a dollar, 2 26w daylight CFL's will start you off well for another 5 dollars, and a bag seed. The only thing is the soil. If you have a compost pile outside, that stuff works great, just watch for bugs. I think you can kill em with a pack of cigarettes though. If you have to buy soil, careful because a lot of the cheap ones suck and have time release chemical nutrients in them which can screw up your plant. Look for something organic. A good size bag of Fox Farms is 20 bucks at the only place I know to go in my area. But it's well worth it.

 

I read someone else on here say that light getting into the chamber when flowering also slows down growth.

if it's in your closet which is in a room then you have 2 avenues to control the light levels. 1) your door and window and if there's a skylight - they need to be properly modified, and then your closet. the door would usually be simple just closed at the appropriate time and a towel or snake along the floor. for the window just putting in proper curtains will make you room much darker than cheap curtains without backing on the outside part of the material that are on a simple pole instead of a runner rod.

get good blackout curtains on a runner where you have hooks along the curtain top that hook onto the rod holes and with the string at one side to pull to open and shut the curtain. the proper rods have a bend at each end so you can hook the curtain close to the wall so it bends around and stops light getting in the side of the curtain/window. made a big difference to my main bedroom not for pot purposes but to make my room dark and stop me waking up with the light each morning now I get an hour plus of extra sleep-in time because I'm not waking up. the old curtain gear was just a fabric with no backing behind it and the light came filtering through.

I'm sure your buds will appreciate the option to have your room darker as well, and a darker room means any deficiencies with your closet with light getting in around the closet door openings are reduced. I also need to put up a top bit on the window think it's called a pelmet a piece of wood or curtain that stops the light getting in through the top part of the window it's mounted onto the wall above the window and runner rod.

 

Dude, you're talking about lightproofing a whole room, to avoid having to lightproof a small box.

It makes little sense.

 

I'm talking about lightproofing a whole room, but not to avoid having to lightproof the box or closet. that bit you made up. I said there were 2 avenues available.

different options isn't a bad thing. a closet to grow in usually sits within a room and if the room's overly bright and the closet lightproofing is marginal or flawed then room-level mods can cut down total light levels all the same. it has an effect on reducing light reaching the plants.

my closet's an antique one and the doors are a bit of a rough fit around the edges, and while I've attempted to seal the closet as best as I can it is not perfect, but in a heavily darkened room in the first place (using blackout curtains) it doesn't have to be - for me it's easier for me to have the curtains clean installed than muck about to fix the old closet doors. so this fixed the problem with my own setup and maybe someone else can learn something from it.

I also have the reassurance that if my closet isn't a perfect seal like I might think it is then light penetrating the grow is only going to be minimal from the very dim room in the first place so it's no sweat.

 

I just have my plants sleep when it's dark outside. And what about when you're in the room, you aren't gonna navigate your room with night vision on are you? A simple closet door keeps enough light out, I've never had a problem even with a light in the room on all night. If your doors are that bad, I'd rather put a curtain on the inside of the closet door or something. I only have a curtain on my window so you cant see my glowing closet from outside. But that's just me.

 

it's just a potential way to stop the light bro you can do whatever you want to navigate at this time or that I'm not stopping you. if you wanted to do a whole room setup it would look normal the curtains instead of blocking off the window for example with plastic or something else. just sharin' my experiences. still learning the ropes myself and are open to ideas thanks for that.

 

Then here's a few ideas for you;

Lightproof your box, and you don't have to worry about the rest of the room.

If you're concerned about how the window looks from the outside, then do a proper job. Stick your curtains/blind up, and then box the window in from inside. It looks right, and it keeps all the light out/in, not just some of it.

It's nice to share your experiences, and I'm glad wandering round in the twilight worked for you, but there are better ways around the problem, lightproofing your box being the simplest.

 

to be honest I never had to do the night goggles thing I just thought doing work on the garden during grow-light on hours is ok and then stay out from the room and leave the setup alone when it's sleeping time for the plants.

your box the window from the inside is a top idea the only thing is if my folks ask me about it if they are visiting. I could place the closet in from of it that would work or some other piece of big furniture.

I'll need to lightproof my box some more, down the door edges and across the top and botom of the doors and see what I can come up with.

 

That's ok for a single box, but if you want to run a veg and seperate flower box it'd be really frustrating.

How about boxing the window in as previously stated (keep the box as shallow as poss) and then hanging some more curtains to hide the boxed window from the inside? Just a thought. Another thought would be to stick a lock on the door, cos you 'keep your valuables' in there.

Have a nose at thisHiding light that leaks thread for an idea.

 

for the Original Poster, check out the link in my signature. its my recent grow in a small cabinet in my closet. started out just like you wanting to spend very little money, and i had VERY little space. my cabinet was in my closet, with power cords running into it that kept the door open just a crack. the fact that it was in my closet with my closet doors shut kept anything bad from happening though. basically you have 2 sets of doors to keep light out/in, the cab doors and the closet doors...you should be fine if you take this route.

check out my thread, itll help you a lot.

in the end i spent about 70 bucks, for a bigger cabinet, 3 cfls and necessary fixtures.

 

hell yeah. I have to revise my setup now I have just one closet for veg and flower, using an MH retro/conversion bulb for the veg. I want to have another smaller closet that allows for the maintenance of mother plants and clones. so this is a bit different to a separate veg and flower box in that my veg and flower main stages will still be in the big closet, but when I finish a grow with my proposed setup I'll be able to move in waiting rooted cuttings straight away from the smaller maintenance box. Is this much different to running a separate veg and flower box like you state? if you had a separate veg and flower box do the clones and mothers sit in along with the vegging plants inside the veg box (ie shaded under the canopy) so you don't have to have a third maintenance chamber?

something I wanted to ask is regarding the window and accessing outside fresh air, is it a better to have the window open so fresh air is fanning into the room for the closet intake to use. like do the plants perform better than if the window was closed. perhaps I could either leave the window open slightly or even design ducting to connect from the intake fan up to the window, although this might be a visible factor. if I have a boxed up window the design of the box could take into account this design for fresh air and have an opening in it somewhere.

that's a good one, I had thought of it too. I was going to justify the lock by having my filing cabinet in the room with all my ID docs (bank statements and so on) to avoid identity theft if anyone broke into the house. the room door lock is another sensible layer of security and shouldn't arouse suspicion.

will do.

 

So you currently run 1 cab for flower & veg. If you only run a single chamber in that cab, and switch it over from veg to flower when the time comes, then yes it's different. The idea of twin cabs is to keep all vegging plants (including seedlings clones and mothers) in the one cab, leaving the flower cab permanently on 12/12. If, for example, you currently veg for 8 weeks, and then switch the cab to flower for 8 weeks (or however long your strain takes to finish), you get to harvest every 16 weeks. By dedicating the cab as 'Flower Only', and running a seperate cab for all vegging plants, you could be harvesting every 8 weeks instead.

My veg cab is split into a big main veg chamber, and a small top shelf for clones & seeders. Mums stay down in the main veg chamber. You can arrange your veg cab to suit yourself, but anything in the shade is gonna struggle. It doesn't need to be a seperate chamber for clones etc, but they do need some dedicated space and light in the cab.

Undoubtedly.

Yup, commonly, one might crack the window open a bit, then box it in, and run a duct to a hole in the window box. You'd need to change from a curtain inside the box to something that will allow more airflow, like those raffia or bamboo blinds. It shouldn't be visible from outside, but visitors to the room may have a few questions, which is where your locked door comes into play again.