So...I have this filing cabinet// First grow

I gutted the inside of the filing cabinet, its 2 feet wide, 3 feet deep and 3 feet high; welded the filing cabinet drawers onto hinges and turned it into a door that I can lock. I've been doing a fair amount of research on growing over the last couple months, trying to figure out the science behind it and how technical I want to be about it. So here's what I've come up with.


I'm going to use 4 29 watt cfls, for lights. For fans, im going to get two 9 volt computer fans, splice my 12v phone charger, and run both of them off of 6 volts. One going to be for the intake at the bottom of the filing cabinet, the other is going to be the exhaust at the top with a charcoal filter. I'm going to grow in soil, obtain the nitrogen/phosphorus nutrients, use PH balanced water and just see what happens. I think for the first 3 weeks I'll have the timer on for 18 hours, and after that have them at 12. (correct me if i've made a mistake)

So I have a couple of questions
What is the best way to hang/set up my lights? What kind of budget fixtures are available? Something homemade would be good with no/minimal risk of any sort of fire
I'm going to try to find a plant that grows between 24-30 inches (any suggestions for strains)
What are your opinions in topping a plant in a space that would only let them grow to fill a maximum area of 2x3x3
What is the best way to keep a plant short without sacrificing too much yield

and just any general advice is appreciated, pictures of your current set up (grow boxes, cabinets, even smaller closets) would be awesome


thanks guys

autoflowering plants are short and yield pretty decent (~18in 30gs or so a plant) topping is not recommended with them. indica dominant will keep heights down also

Ive also seen people use what looks like a grill, pulling each branch through the grill and fanning it out. Is this worth doing?

Auto flowering? Is that a strain or a process? How would it take from a clone-harvest approximately?

bump bump bump

Um if your looking to harvest clones then you cant really go autoflowering didnt know thats what u intended on. But yea autoflowering strains take only 10weeks from seed to bud. at around week 2-3 under good conditions they begin their flowering process (displaying female sex and prebudsites) rapid growth and hardy eaters. There is no need to change the light cycle to 12/12 the plants autobud if i might say. it is actually recommended to give them as mich light as possible.

As for the grill/terrace lattice it supports the foliage giving your stalks extra support when big heavy buds come along. some people use this setup to also train their plants in a manner where they bend the plant under it to give light to the inner/bottom nodes and eventually the top will come back through. This training allows more light to penetrate the inner canopy for better growth and bud production.

look around on seed banks, ill suggest attitude but there are many other ones out there. they usually display approx heights and yields

k cool thanks dude,

just curious as to a common light setup

and do you think in a space thats 2x3x3 it's worth growing 2 plants? should I just grow one, top it and let it expand throughout the whole filing cabinet?

as to the light setup, the simplest/cheapest is the hanging power strip fixture
just take a power strip and attach to the top of the cabinet
hang cfls from short cords that plug into the fixture, got to be the simplest cfl setup
there's a thread over in the DIY forum that has details(i think)

hm, think I could use a power strip, use one socket for a dual light fixture and run 6 lights? a power bar should be able to handle roughly 150 watts? (I lack fundamental electronics knowledge )

So I read up on a lst grow, not 100% sure if I'm into doing that though; if I did, would I be able to keep my plant at around 24 inches in height?

Any other suggestions on how to produce the most yield but keep the heights to a minimum?

I've read so much about the distance to keep lights, cfls, fans, soil, hydro, ebb and grow etc etc etc

Anyone around to tell me straight forward "do this, this, this and this" then water/feed.

oh, and reps for anyone that can answer any single question ive asked

You can get just a plain power strip, surge protector whatever. You know, it's just a strip with 5 or six outlets. You can get these plug in light sockets at Walmart for about $1.50 each, that you can just plug into the strip and then the CFL's just screw into. I have this set up in a filing cabinet, but I just used to start plants that I'm growing outside. I could never control the light enough, and my wife wouldn't be cool.

I think you should check out this guy xjs or something like that that does the PC case grows, he has the best micro grow that I have seen and he uses regular seeds, not autoflower and just does 12/12 light from seed. Keeps 3 plants going at different stages about a month apart and gets like an oz every month.

hm, think I could use a power strip, use one socket for a dual light fixture and run 6 lights? a power bar should be able to handle roughly 150 watts? (I lack fundamental electronics knowledge

)

So I read up on a lst grow, not 100% sure if I'm into doing that though; if I did, would I be able to keep my plant at around 24 inches in height?

Any other suggestions on how to produce the most yield but keep the heights to a minimum?

Click to expand...

i'm just finishing up an lst now, the entire grow chamber height is 24 inches, so 24 inches could be a pretty large plant
lst is pretty sweet, i wasn't sure at the start, but i've started my 2nd lst in the last few days, excellent way to keep height down

@ Carolina green bud

Yup! thats what im planning on, just the simple cfls and im going to bend a piece of sheet metal & line it with some extra reflective sht to enhance the light
and 3 plants at 3 different stages providing an ounce each month is my dream. Its a little bit more than I need, but i'd rather have too much than not enough

@growone

yeah dude I just read all 16 pages of your grow haha, it looked pretty good even with the discolored leaves

what was your final yield? and do you have the approximate dimensions of the bucket/container you were using?

awesome job btw

thanks for the look, it was in a 2 gallon bucket
haven't cut her yet, should be in the next few days, should be a zip or a bit more

nice!


so now I'm trying to decide between lst and scrog

any suggestions on which one would keep the plants shorter and produce the most bud?

also, with a scrog, how far should you place your screen above the soil?

i haven't grown scrog yet, but i have built a chamber and read up on it
scrog sounds like the most efficient method of growing
downside is getting a male with a multiple plant chamber, it does not sound like fun to cut a male out

nice! I figured that I'm going to put the screen 12" above the plant, LST it a little bit until it grows to the 12"s to fit through the screen, then scorge.

Originally I was going to use soil, but after lots of research I think i would rather use neutriants & control what's in the plants.

Im leaning towards bubbleponics and just about to start doing some research on aeroponics. With bubbleponics, all that's required a couple of buckets, air stones, air pump and some tubing, correct?

I'm getting pumped for this lol

Oh, and what do you think is the most efficient way to stagger plants, so I could harvest 1 plant a month?

hydro i'm less informed on, maybe in the future, but that does sound right on the bubbleponics
i think 12 inches sounds right, i am eventually going to do a micro scrog which is going to 8 inches from screen
not sure on anything i can add to staggered harvest, start a fresh plant every month i guess

Yeah I'm going to go with bubbleponics. Any recommendations on nutrients? I wonder if it will get too crowded with 2 plants on a 2x3 screen. Also trying to figure out how often I need to flush the tank with the roots in it.

hydro nutes are pretty much unknown territory to me, don't want to give you any bad advice
the micro scrog box i've built is 4 foot long and 16 inches wide, planned to have 2 plants, so that's about 2 1/2 sq foot per plant
so your size would be in the micro range, you might pull it off, my box is untried but found other grows that were close enough to feel like it will work

picsssssssssssssss