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Kermit's Kloset

K

KermitTheHermit

Hi all, I am just starting my first legal grow. I grew for a few years under the radar. I built a closet from scratch, in an outbuilding. The environmental conditions were pretty extreme, so I had to do some pretty complicated heating, venting and humidifying. I did one run with bagseed, then a couple of years of bought seeds. Good runs with good yields, more than I could smoke, and some to give away.

Now that I am legal, I can take advantage of the closets in my basement, where temps are moderate and I have just a little natural humidity. So my set up now is a 250 HPS in a basement closet. It's well insulated and has some natural airflow; it's not real tight. If needed, I can easily add in some venting and fans. Right now, lights on temps have been staying around 70 F., with humidity around 15-20%.

I'll use the 250 until the plants are ready to flowering, then I'll put them under a 400. Once that starts, I'll run one closet for veg and another for flowering; having separate closets take care of the light cycle differences for me.

So I planted 5 seeds a week ago, the strain is White Ice, from White Label seeds. All 5 popped, and the tap roots are starting to push out of the peat pucks, so I am going to pot up today.

More to follow as things progress.

 
Solidopc

Solidopc

Active member
Nice one man, great you're starting uo, i remmeber my first grow still. Looking forward to seeing what the white ice is like, it's one ive eyed a few times. Hope all runs smooth for you man, peace.
 
K

KermitTheHermit

Here's a new grow cab I put together. This is a Home Depot wardrobe closet - 72"H x 30"W x 20"D. It sits in an unused laundry closet; nice spot since there's power, water and an outside exhaust duct.

I'm running a 250W HPS with a remote ballast - the ballast sits on top of the cabinet. Ventilation is a 4" Fantech inline exhaust fan, and a 4" duct booster fan on the fresh air intake.

I read some of the threads about growing 12/12 from seed, and that's what I'm trying. I used to grow big plants under 250 and 400 watt lights, using a standard veg/flower cycle. I always wound up with a lot of one type of bud, but I really would like more variety. So if the 12/12 works, I plan to just keep popping different types of seeds, and take smaller harvests of different strains. I'm going to try growing my plants out in 1 gallon grow bags; I think I can fit about a dozen in this cabinet.

I have another closet I can use for a "love shack" to make seeds of whatever I grow, including some closet hybrids!

Right now, I've got some 2-week old White Ice seedlings, and I just planted a few HazeXSkunk SB freebies. The seedlings look good so far; within a week or two I hope to have something resembling plants to post up here.

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K

KermitTheHermit

Heh...think I'm finally getting pictures on this site figured out!
 
K

KermitTheHermit

I started sealing and lightproofing today. I covered the gap between the front doors with a door threshold strip, and I ran foam weatherstripping around the inside edges of the cabinet top and sides. It's a lot quieter, just from getting those air leaks sealed up.

After that, the intake was sucking so much more air that the vent started whistling; it was covered with a grate. I cut the grate away and stuffed some swamp cooler filter material in there.

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Now it's quiet.

Inside temps have dropped a couple degrees from the improved airflow, from high-80's to mid-80's. Plants are looking OK so far.

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M

mna

Looking forward to see this grow, a strain im thinkin of getting myself
 
K

KermitTheHermit

I finished caulking the cabinet this morning, so now it's nice and tight!

My temps have been running warmer than I like - 87 F or so. My humidity is also low (it always is here in the desert!); my meter has been stuck at 16%, which is off-scale.

I swapped out the 250W HPS for a 250W MH conversion bulb, since the MH has a lower rated output in lumens. I figure it should generate a little less heat. I also set up this humidifier inside the closet, right next to the cabinet.

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The temps have dropped down to around 82 F, with about 25% humidity, so I expect my little plants will be happier with that.
 
K

KermitTheHermit

Now that I've got the temperature and humidity under control, I added some small flouros for a few more Lumens (750 per flouro) and a broader spectrum.


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K

KermitTheHermit

I set up an auto-fill system for the humidifier. The aquarium pump in the reservior bucket is hooked up to an auto-fill switch; the pump output goes to the humidifier tank. There are two water level sensors connected to the switch, one in the reservior bucket and another in the humidifier tank.

Whenever the water level in the humidifier tank drops low enough, the switch senses it and turns the pump on to top it off. If the water level in the reservior bucket runs low, the switch shuts down, to protect the pump.

I'm using the bucket as a reservior when I'm around to keep it filled. This all sits next to a big laundry tub, so if I'm going to be gone for a few days, I can just use the tub for a reservior.

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G

getawaycar

New member
those supplement flouros are sexy,.

does the intake fan produce much heat?.. have you tried riding the cab passive and see what temps meter in @?
 
F

farmerred

That's a wardrobe in which I'd like to hang my shirt. I didn't see a fan on your intake and thought if that is the case you may consider using a larger intake vent to decrease the resistance of air flow. It may be that the top vent is not the intake but increasing it's size may still help. Keep in mind that since there is a bend to keep light in? that a larger sized duct would help offset this resistance. If you are really unsatisfied with current temps, another option would be to use the top section of the cab as the intake, by painting it matte black and inserting a panel or 2 so as to block light but keep the path traveled by the air as short as possible. I would probably remove the upper duct you have in place, make the holes it connects to slightly larger, and place 2 boards forming this shape < against the far right wall midway between the top and bottom of this top section. With these new panels and the inside black I don't think light would escape but I do not know this to be true. Keep up the inspiring work.
Farmerred
 
K

KermitTheHermit

Thanks farmerred. On the intake there is a 4" duct booster fan;that's it on the bottom of the intake duct in the top compartment. I think the temps are OK for now. If I need more cooling, I think I'm going to add a darkroom louver as another passive intake. There's enough pressure from the exhaust fan to suck the front doors shut, so I'm thinking another intake will allow it to pull more outside air through the cabinet.
 
F

farmerred

I appreciate the terminology Kermit. Is a dark room louver similar to what I described? Also, you will know when your intake has reached maximum efficiency when the outtake stops sucking the doors shut. Depending on how well sealed your doors are, you may be growing in a slight vaccum, simulating high altitude atmosphere. I wonder what the effects of growing in a vaccum would be?
FR
 
K

KermitTheHermit

Darkroom louvers are just passive vents designed to vent nasty chemical vapors from darkrooms. The ones I've seen are 8"x8". They're designed to provide free air flow while blocking any light from entering.
 
K

KermitTheHermit

The HazeXSkunk seeds just popped. They were little tiny seeds!

I moved my shelf up as high as I could under the flouro tubes.

The White Ice plants in the 1 pint pots are planted in organic topsoil, a mixture of "composted cotton burr fines and native topsoil". I like this soil, since it doesn't have any peat it in. I used cheapo peat-based soilless mix many times in the past, and always got gnats from it. No gnats from this soil, but it's a bit heavy. I found some perlite; hard to get this time of year, so my next batch of soil will be cut 1/3 perlite, 2/3 soil.

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