plans for 3 chamber grow closet

[captainfrag]

So Ive been lurking on this forums a long time to help friends but never got around to my own grow.
Its gonna be hard to find enough space for a whole room so ive taking ganjamans idea from over at og and customized it for a stealth box 3.25'x2.25'x6 feet and would look like a cupboard. it will have 3 chambers(seedling/clones,mother/veg,flower)each will have a diy hydro system on a heavy duty roll out shelf.
seedling/clone chamber(A) will be 1.25x2.25x1.5 with a SWC in a rubbermaid(1x2x.5) which will hold 8 3.5" net pots for seedlings (seedlings will be germed and put into a plug then into net pot with hydrorocks). all seedlings cause i have no axx to clones.i was thinkin bout using a cfl for this chamber.
the mother/veg chamber(B) will be 2x2.25x2 using a SWC in a rubbermaid(1.5x1.5x.5) with 6" netpots(will transplant from smaller cups to bigger ones(could this cause problems?). i was planing on using some 2 foot flouros for this chamber and i could use the SWC to do bonsai mothers in this chamber.
flower chamber(C) is looking to be 3.25x2.25x3.5 with a 4 bucket biobucket system. I was planning on using a DWC setup with 3 gallon buckets to save space, but when i came across biobuckets i had second thoughts. has anybody been able to do biobucket with 3 gallon buckets or has no one figured out how to beat the gravity issue? so right now plans use 4 5 gallon buckets and a 10 gallon resovoir for my buckets.
I was going to use a scrog(greenline) to keep myself from having any height issues in the flower room itll be like a foot or so above the buckets. the rest of the space above the screen will be empty as a hole will be cut in the top of this section for a 400W MH bulb with an exhaust hood.
this will all be in a compartment (C) above the flower room that will be a half foot high which will contain all cords exhaust fan(180cfm its 3 times the cubic space of closet) carbon filter and lamp. each chamber will be sealed to remove light leaks and air leaks and will be coated with a reflective liner.
The box will use negative pressure like most boxes to ventilate. air will circulate from chamber to chamber using a series of pvc tubes(orange lines) from each chamber(intake->A->B->C(outputs right underplants to prevent mold in undergrowth)->Exhausthood(light)->fan->filter->exhaust).


Ok Here are my questions is a biobucket system overkill or do you think i will have overgrowth problems in a scrog setup? Also Is there a bio bucket setup done with 3 gallon buckets to save room? And i havent seen how to flush a biobucket to change nutes or am i missing something?

Will a 400W MH be too much for 4 plants in the flower room and will flouros cut it for the 2 other chambers?

I plan on growing SD IBL, SsSDH, cheese, blue cheese, and la confidential in this box(not the same grows) And i was wondering if any of these strains were known to be hard to A)train for scrog or B)keep from growing to tall?

As This is my first personal grow i am open to all comments and help.

OOPS I forgot to mention i am planning on working on the kinks on paper first with yall help, so i have minimal problems when i plan to build it in a week or so.

 

[Guest]

That looks like a pretty good plan.

You may find you don't have enough air intake for your garden, but it's much easier to add intakes than it is to cover over extra ones. The general rule is 2X the area for passive intakes as you have for the active outtake.

The 400 watt light should be fine. This is just under 60 watts/sq ft.

Fluoros are great for seedlings/clones & vegging. Get the cool spectrum lights (4000K or higher; 6500K works great). They are frequently labeled "daylight" or "sunlight". Warm spectrum lights for seedlings/clones/mothers encourage stretching; cool spectrum lights will prevent it.

I haven't run bio buckets, but I have built a small recirculating bucket system and am about to build the large one (the small one was to learn lessons before commiting my main flowering area). I am very impressed with the growth on the recirc system and having the reservoir makes it much easier & quicker to check pH & TDS levels (only once instead of once for each bucket).

Do beware that small swc systems will end up with big swings in pH & TDS levels. I have several that hold only a bit over a gallon of nute solution and my pH can swing from 6 to 4 in 24 hours. TDS levels also rise quickly when the plants are using a lot of water, but drop just as much when you add back water. Problems like this are why I built the small test recirculating system - that system uses the same 1 gal containers that I have the clones & seedlings in, but the constant circulation of the nutes means that large fluctuations don't occur.

 

[captainfrag]

i like the idea of recirculating systems instead of swc. but i dont see where i can make space for 2 more res. could you give me a link on such a small system? also those lines for pvc tub will be 3 seperate pvc pipes each like ganjamans design called for. so 3 intakes to room. 3 from other side of room a to the same room side in room b. then 3 out the left side of room b. the 3 will merge and split to 2 tubes which will vent right under the plants. I had a talk with a friend today and he said i might have problems with a light that isnt able to adjust up and down to the height the plants so im modifying a lil. compartment on top now split into two triangular compartments. compartment D for all electronics(powerstrips, cords). compartment E will be air tight and connected to the exhaust hood on the now adjustable light. E will contain the exhaust room containing exhaust fan carbon filter and light ballast to keep it from generating 2 much heat.

 

[Guest]

It's possible you could run the mothers & clone/veg area off the same res. If the mothers get light nutes for a week or two while clones are rooting or seedlings are growing, it won't hurt them. Mothers are generally kept on a low nutrition diet, anyway.

I'll be writing up a build thread as I build the new recirculating system, probably starting this weekend.

I'm also on the lookout for a shallow container to use as a res in my mother/veg/clone closet because I want to change that over to a recirc system, as well. The large 8-gallon bubblers I currently use are nice because the solution stays quite stable, but the bubblers use quite a bit of height that could be better used for plants. I'd like to get a res big enough to feed 8 of the shoebox-size plastic containers. My mother/veg area is two levels in a tent container that's about 25" deep x 29" wide; each section is 36" tall. I'll put the res in the bottom so it feeds both levels.

 

[captainfrag]

not finding a small enough res for either of my smaller containers is why i originally vouched SWC. can you explain a lil bit more on your recirculation system. how is the res connected to the other buckets. is it a one way flow from one bucket to the next or does the res pump to each bucket individually? problem with having clones and mother/veg room connected by a res is that i would have to make another opening or hole to acommadate the res between rooms a and b. and i wouldnt want the light leak risk. stacking on top adds inches i cant spare.

 

[Guest]

I have a feed line going to each container and a drain from each container back to the res. That way, every plant gets the same availablility to fresh nutes & oxygen from the res rather than running the nute solution from plant to plant.

My feed lines are 1/4" black tubing. Not hard to drill a tight-fitting hole in a shelf or divider. Besides, light leaks are only an issue with the flowering chamber, not the mother/veg chambers.

Something you might consider as an alternative to building a permanent cloning/seedling chamber inside your main garden is to use a Rubbermaid container. Since you only sprout seedlings or root clones every so often, a temporary container than can be hidden in a closet might be a better option. Check my Rubbermaid Garden for some directions & examples - the small one is my seedling & cloning chamber. The plants get moved into the mother/veg garden when they are ready.

 

[raygun]

Nice start Captn. Thanks for stopping by my thread and pointing me to yours. It is best to work out most things on paper or brainstorming especially when it comes to building your grow cab. But there are some things that you just can not put on paper so i do suggest that you do a mock up once you get most all your parts and see how it all fits.
I originally wanted to do what you are planing but i decided that i would not have enough room for every thing. I still could put in a small mom/clone room in 1/2 of my control/eletronic section.But i like to use that for drying my herb as the carbon scrubber will clean the stank air.

I decided to do what Ambre did but mine is a little more stealth but i do not have nearly the height you do Ambre.
I build mine out of a tool box like this http://www.homedepot.com/prel80/HDUS/EN_US/jsearch/product.jsp?pn=129583

I use 2 150 watt cfl's and used to keep my moms in a 12 gal rubbermaid bubbler. That is my sour bubble seed mother that is taking over the box in its bubbler. With her clones in the bottom left all in the same bubbler.
I now have my moms in soil and i can keep like 12 moms in there or like 6 and still have room for my bubbler cloner/vegger (shoe box rubbermaid bubbler)

This is a much lower maintenance system as i do not have to tend to 2 separate hydro systems all the time just when cloning and vegging( no longer than 25 days total every 2.5 months)

I just think that if you want bio-buckets you need to use that lower section for your res. That is where mine is and i can keep it climate controled with the cpu fan. My res stays at 68-70 perfect temps for benifitial bacteria to grow.

I am sure that you could make it work and keep it all contained in one unit but using bio-buckets along with that is pushing it but i always like to see stoner genious at work!
~raygun~