Newb's First Grow Stealth Closet Grow

Hey everybody, so I'll give you all a little background.

I live in an apartment, and will be growing in a closet. I am using a stealth hydroponics kit with 4 85Watt CFLS.

I am a medical marijuana patient in Cali, so have had the privilege to pick up 3 LA Confidential, and 3 Bubba Kush clones from the club last week.

My grow room is far from complete, as right now my Soler & Palau TD-100x exhaust fan is still on the way.

The babies got planted on 4/4 and are now 5 days old. I a only using two of the CFLs for now, until i can manage the heat (80 degrees seems to be average). They seem to be growing pretty well, and the roots have just started dropping into the water.

The first picture i have uploaded is what the babies looked like right after transplant.

I was planning on exhausting the fan through the ceiling into the attic, but the only intake i would have is the passive one from under the door. I will also be leaving the door open at nights as well to help ventilate. Do you guys think that would cut it?

My goal for this project is to have a completely stealth hydro closet grow, that nobody would know is there, even when walking right next to the door.

Well here are some up to date pictures of the babies, Day 5. The ones in front are Bubba, the ones in the back are the Confidential. Do they look okay?
I believe I corrected a PH problem I had yesterday, so that might be the reason for the browning.

Sorry guys yesterday was a busy day, but here are the pictures of babies before i got my 4 gallon humidifier installed in the late night.

Fan should be delivered some time next week, so temperatures have been pretty unbearably hot... even up to 85 with a heat wave today.

Well i believe that the humidifier for $25 bucks was an absolutely excellent buy, I've been seeing some craazy increased growth, and the moving air has really made the leaves fill out and get stronger.

Then again, I realize I don't have much experience with growing. It will be coming up on the 7 day marker for nutes, I only put in half for the first week, how much should I put in at this point?

I was thinking the other half, but maybe i should up it to 3/4?

As for the labels for pictures.

The First is the pretty ingenious humidifier fan deflector my trusted engineering buddy thought up of, which pretty much allows me to double up my humidifier as an oscillating fan. It is made of a crate and an angled piece of cardboard, which push the fan air right across the plants and lamps, which seems like the best of both worlds right now.

The next few pictures are bud, and then the last is my thermometer reading at 87 F and 59% Humidity.

When the room is sealed, the temp got up to 90 F and 80% humidity. (cant wait for that exhaust fan...)

are those 85W bulbs or 85W equivalent? it doesn't look too bright in there to me.

yeah I've only got 2 of the 85 watters in there right now, because I'm waiting on stealth to ship me out a replacement for one that broke in the mail.
Next week probably I'll be moving up to 2 65k 85 watters, and 2 30K 85 watters.

Okay so this morning I woke up to find that our 4 gallon humidifier runs empty if its not refilled every 24 hours!!...this morning the plants looked like they might have been getting a bit dry/crispy, theres been a big heat wave and I'm having problems keeping my own room under 90 let alone my grow closet.

Today I also switched in the other half of the nutrients, and flushed the reservoir. I pulled all of the irrigation tubings out of the net pots to make sure the roots that had started growing into them would not plug them, so I figure if I do this every time I change the reservoir I won't have any problems with root-clogs.

I switched the front to the back, so now the LA Confidential is up front, I'm not sure what is wrong with the lil guy in the middle, his roots have barely gotten outside of the net pot, where as the rest of them are all nicely set in the tank.

Could somebody let me know what I should do about the runt in the third picture...

I do not know if i missed it but are you running a drip to each plant under the tub? With my setup i had that same problem and i had to pull out the drip tubes and relocated them elsewhere in the pot and everything worked out.

motoracer110 said:

I do not know if i missed it but are you running a drip to each plant under the tub? With my setup i had that same problem and i had to pull out the drip tubes and relocated them elsewhere in the pot and everything worked out.

Click to expand...

Good advice! Yeah I noticed when I was replacing the irrigation tubes that tube felt like it might have been closed off a little too much, because it took more than the average tug to pull out, I'm noticing the roots have already dropped about an inch since yesterday in that net pot, and hopefully in another couple days they can hit water and this lil buddy will catch up with the rest of em.

Well our heatwave continues, yet surprisingly the temperatures have stayed decent in my closet.

The front middle La Confidential is getting lots of root growth, but I decided to clip one of the leaves (it had turned completely bright yellow).

Besides that the grow seems to be going well. I ordered a CAN 9000 filter today as a prevention to the stinkyness to come.

Can't wait for that tax refund check ... I'm sure it will bring summore goodies to my room

Hopefully the fan will be here this week so I can finish construction on ventilation.

Again any feedback is most appreciated.

hey, how did you get power in there? without running wires under the door?

Wish I could say I found a way. I still have a single extension cord running along a sideboard that I just cover up with clutter (messiness is often your friend).
I have about 3/4 of an inch of clearance under the door, and I was also thinking about making this the passive intake, to avoid cutting a major hole in the wall.
Eventually I would like to find a way to insert it under the carpet for about a 1 foot stretch, but I don't know the proper technique.

Do you guys think the gap under the door would make a reasonable intake? I'm running a 100cfm fan attached to a carbon scrubber, so I doubt the air exchange will be that large.

Hey guys big question, my 2nd 65k 85watter came in the mail today. I am going to hold off on using all 4 lights until I can get my exhaust fan, but my question is...

Should I use both 65k bulbs to promote growth, or leave it at the mixed combo that it has right now?

Well since nobody is giving me any direction, I decided to switch over my 2 CFLs to 65k only, and took the 30k out. If this was the wrong thing to do let me know...sooner rather than later

I am not a CFL grower so am uncertain as to what type you need - but i can safely say the more light the better! i'd recommend adding lights - not replacing them.

yeah for how cheap they are to run just run them all.

It's not the money I'm worried about at this point, its the heat, right now I have troubles getting below 80 during the day, and I've seen it as high as 86.

I'm worried that my plants are looking a little heat exhausted right now, but I guess the only way to find out is to hang the other two lights and see the end temps.
(I'll just have to be sure that I when the door is closed, 2 of the lights gotta get turned off)

Thanks for the input.

with CFLs? get some ventilation in there!

i agree... 100 cfm should be enuf to circulate a closet once a minuite... which should be enuf... problem is you want the air comming in cool so it lowers the temps a good amount... so open a window in the room the closet is in.... and mabe add an oscillating fan inside the box to keep the heat away from the plants...as for the lights... i would try to keep it 2 parts- 1 part 2 vegitation lights 1 flowering (when veg) then the oposite way for flowering.. for a good..(not equil mix). as for the cord... arnt carpets just held down by small nails along the edge's?so if you pull em out . put the wire under and nail em back down? i dont know ima go look at my carpets now... if anyone has any experience with this help us out

the plants need the constant supply of CO2 anyway - need a way to get fresh cool air in there.