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Stealth Fishtank Grow (High Yield?)

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animosity2k1

Member
Alright, so I've never posted here before, I was a frequent to OG for a while, right now due to the cirumstances around I'm working on a stealth grow again, however I still need to do something of adequate size. Here is what I have come to figure.

I've got a 150 Gallon fishtank that I use so I'm going to build a cedar shelf for it to go on.

4c_1.JPG


Thats an example of the type of stand I'm speaking of, however I'm going to craft mine completely to my standards. It's going to be about 7ft long, 2-2.5 ft deep, and about 3.5-4ft high, prob closer to 3.5 as 4 seems a bit to high maybe an a bit out of place?

I'm going to use prob 5" wide cedar wood that looks nice instead of just plywood to make it look somewhat like a aquarium stand still and not a plywood box. I'm going to take a thin piece of wood and screw on from inside all of the cedar pieces side by side so that from the outside it looks like individual | | | | | cedar pieces makeup the stand. The reason I mounted it all onto one piece of plywood on the front is so I can swing it open as one big door and in the meantime it'll look like a solid piece of wood when not open. For this I plan to get a few hinges, shouldn't be to hard. Now one of the biggest issues I have in mind is how I am going to lock it... Theres deffinately going to be people walking by it all the time and such. What I wanted to do was fine a way so when it's shut the bottom of the door would land in like a
|_| type molding where I could insert two rods on each end to keep it from opening like illustrated here ----|DOOR|----- the door would only open when the rods are pulled out, and to hide the rods, I was going to just put a bit of putty to plug it up, or something to be later decided. Right now I need some ideas on a locking mechanism and maybe a better way of opening it besides a hinge?

Once that's taken care of I'm going to have a set of rails on each end inside and a tray that slidesout, the tray will be a bit smaller then the overall dimensions of the tank stand. Attached the the rolling tray will be a scrog and whatnot, this will account for the plants being easy to access and care for w/o to much trouble, just pull the pin, flip the door, slide them out.

Now given the dimensions again 7ft wide, 2.5 deep, 3.5 high (maybe 4) what size light would you advise I use? Is a 400watt HPS w/ cool tube to much? What about using 3 Evironlights, 400watt cool and 200 watt warm? I really havn't given much thought to howmuch light I'll be able to keep inside this setup as this is a totally new idea, also what size carbon scrubber / blower would you recommend?

The strains I'm looking to start w/ are Dj Shorts true blue, and probably some purple power from seeds I have leftover still.

Anyone have any comments or questions about this idea? Feel free to speakup, I'm up for any sort of constructive criticism... Also how many plants do you think I can fit in there, those dimensions seem pretty roomy, cimilar to a c13, or c22?










 
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Undrgrnd Armory

Member
1 400 w with a cool tube too much? No way. I would go with 2 400's in cooltubes, as a light hanging from 3.5 feet high will never make a big enough footprint to cover 7 feet. Definitely go with two lights, even of they are not 400's. You just may have to run your fans more often or at higher cfm ti dissipate the heat. As far as ventilation, I would suggest 4 inch ducting and one of the smaller carbon scrubbers like a CAN2600. Get a 449 cfm vortex inline fan. I know its more than you will need, but then you can put a solid state fan control speed on it and be able to fine tune your airflow.


Also, are you going to go from seed to flower in this one box, or will you have mothers and clones elsewhere. If you are going to go to the trouble to make a cabinet, you may want to consider making a small "aquarium storage area" above the tank and use it for clones and mothers.

I am sure you can have quite nice yield with this. In one of my current grows, I only have about 18 inches or less of overhead space above my dwc tubs and I have been getting almost an ounce per plant with a 600w in a cooltube.
 
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animosity2k1

Member
How would you say I go about venting the box out? I don't want the ducting to run out the back or anything to suspicious as I'm trying to make this as stealth as possible ;) and my 3ft iguanas will keep out the intruders.

I'm also planning on running another cabinent for clones and mothers elsewhere so that I can make this a relatively productive experience.

Also, how about those environlights, although they are costly, I could get away probably w/ 1k watts of floro in there easily, w/ little heat? Would that be more efficient?

Or my second thought was to get 600watts of HPS maybe and then like 400 watts of floros....? Any ideas anyone?
 
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Undrgrnd Armory

Member
I don't know much about floro's, but I personally would never use them for flower. As far as venting, I don't see what other options you have besides running your exhaust out the back or floor of the cabinet. The only stealthy alternative I can think of is cutting a hole in the floor under the cabinet and tank and venting somehwere else through the floor.

You could get a 600w in a cooltube in that cab easy. But one 600 won't have a large enough footprint to cover the size cabinet you have in mind (not at the low height you would have to hang it at anyway), and if you supplement that with floros, you will have uneven growth. I would either go with 2 400's or one 600 on a light mover inside your cabinet. If you really wanna go balls to the wall, you can put in two 600's but then I would upgrade to 6inch ducting and at least a 636cfm fan.
 
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animosity2k1

Member
I mean two 600's in there seems a little over doing it doesn't it? Also I may have given you WAY to large of dimensions, I went out today looking into custom building a stand like that one and I couldn't find the right pieces, I found base starter cabinent kits @ home depot which look like I can modify them a tad bit and use them, but they don't look as big or as stealthy as I wanted.

Dimensions are more like 60x24deepx36high

Still think I can pull off two 400's in there?

Also, what else can I do to contain smell, the air blowing out of the vent, will it smell extremely bad? If not, I can vent out the bottom, and cut some divets into the bottom of the stand so the warm air can lightly seep out around the bottom, not super efficeint but would be better then a hole in the back that someone could see.

My goal would be to yield around 10+oz every two months w/ this setup do you think that is easily possible? Predictions?

Also, how do I use two lights and a cooltube? Same piece of ventilation and same blower or two seperate?
 
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Crazy~Lazy

Member
I've been considering doing something like this, except with an aquaponic system that exchanges water with the fish tank, and just have it all on wheels and swing out and open in the back.
 
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animosity2k1

Member
:) Not a bad idea, glad to see others have thought of using this idea as well. Any ideas on good sites to purchase the equipment above?
 
killabrown420

killabrown420

Active member
man i don't want to sound like a downer but that seems a bit far-fetched (the 10 oz part)

As far as stealth, your going to have to vent into a carbon scrubber or use vaportek or something to eliminate the smell cause it WILL stink if you grow anything decent. also light leaks will kill you so use pvc spray painted black, sorta like TheGhost's 250 watt cabinet thread...he has lots of pictures that show you how you can vent stealthy I suggest you read up a bit more before starting this project...but start getting the stuff you'll need

also it will hum, which could be covered by the fishtank noise perhaps, use lots of airstones or something for the bubble sound

one 400 would be plenty, you would avg more like 5-6 ounces every 2 months if everything goes good

crazylazy, I saw a setup like that on OG once, was so cool...he just used a rubbermaid as a fish tank but still same concept
good luck
killa
 
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animosity2k1

Member
It's not a fishtank that it's going to be used for, but a tank for reptiles, so to deal w/ the noise I'll probably just leave a running fan on the stand as well or the like.

I'm gonna go w/ one 400w cooltube, and as far as purchasing all of those items do you have any good online sites to recommend?

The light leaks, your speaking around the venting correct? I'm going to weatherstrip and caulk every other crack.
 
Teadaemon

Teadaemon

Member
Considering that the available space is long and thin, wouldn't two 250W give better light distribution than one 400W? At the moment I'd expect (assuming the 400W is in the middle) that both ends of the cabinet would have significantly lower light levels than the centre.

I'm working on the design of a new veg cab somewhat smaller than this project (24" h, 18" d, 36" w), and decided to go with two 70W HPS rather than one 150W for that reason.

As for the carbon filter idea, what about putting it in a plenum (divided off space) at one end of the cabinet, pointing vertically down and with air eventually exhausting at the bottom rear of the unit. Depending on where abouts your air intakes are you may need to come up with an arrangement that doesn't result in the same air recirculating around your box, but that shouldn't be impossible.
 
Teadaemon

Teadaemon

Member
animosity2k1 said:
I agree w/ the two 250watts, I'm still trying to find a place to purchase everything thought :(
Click to expand...

Well I can't really help with that, since all my sources are UK-based, but I would mention that I've seen plenty of HPS and MH lights on eBay, and somewhere (not sure if it was here or OG) I remember seeing an online tutorial in turning standard lowbay lights (or floodlights) into remote ballasted lights, which is what I'm planning to do.

You really need to develop your instincts for finding grow equipment. I've spent a day or two learning about HID lighting and browsing through various electrical supplies stores (online, it's quicker) to develop a feel for what might be available and how it all fits together, and now I think I know what I need and roughly where I might find it.
 
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animosity2k1

Member
I've found 100s of sites, and of course ebay... but I'm worried about using a CC w/ my name on it to order HPS lights and hydro equip...
 
Teadaemon

Teadaemon

Member
Undrgrnd Armory said:
400w on light mover man. 250w is weak.
Click to expand...

Do you really think that will make that much difference in the situation we're talking about here? A light mover is going to add considerable complexity (moving parts for a start), may make some strange noises, and makes cooling the lights more difficult. I've got a 400W, but it's in an Ikea wardrobe with a considerably different footprint, a much larger volume of air, and a big fan.

Having seen what some of the micro-grows manage to yield using 70-150W HPS, I'd suggest that two 250W would be overkill by their standards. It does require a bit more discipline than when you've got plenty of room to play with, and some careful thought, but growing stealthily in a space this small requires both of those anyway. Possibly the biggest mistake that you could make in building a cab like this is to put too big a light in, as increasing the size of the light increases ventilation requirements, and we've already determined that air extraction and carbon filtering are likely to be the most difficult parts of this design (and buggers to retro-fit if necessary).

animosity2k1 said:
I've found 100s of sites, and of course ebay... but I'm worried about using a CC w/ my name on it to order HPS lights and hydro equip...
Click to expand...

Well at least online you can look at what you might buy from a store (if you can find it). I suppose it depends what you're buying, who you're buying it from, where you are, and how paranoid you want to be. I've bought a few bits and pieces from eBay, but nothing that might attract undue attention (i.e. I haven't ordered 10 1000W HPS low bay fittings all at once or anything silly like that), I bought my initial setup from an online garden centre, so it was horticulture-specific, but now I'm looking at modifiying floodlights/lowbays/downlighters I could just be doing some home improvements.
 
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G

Guest

Hey man, that's one sweet aquarium you have going there. I had a 60 gal that I ran for 10 years and then the glass cracked and I lost the tank.

Use the aquarium water to feed your plants with. There's a little bid of goodness from the fish and the water is de-chlorinated and nice and warm. You're plants will love you and so will your fish for the water change when you top up the tank.
 
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animosity2k1

Member
Alright, I'm going to be ordering the following:

VORTEX 400 Inline Fan
Can9000
400WATT HPS
4bulb t5 set for underneath the plants

***My question is, is the Vortex 400 going to pull enough air across the cool tube and through the carbon filter and back out of the stand?....or do I need a 6" fan?*****
 
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