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Annom

Registered: 04/20/08
Posts: 316
Loc: Europe
Last seen: 8 years, 11 months

My Grow Box

#5344 - 04/21/08 03:12 PM (16 years, 7 months ago)

In this post I will try to give a good overview of my grow box and the methods and materials that I (and my friends) use.
This is not a grow log and can probably be moved to a special "building\grow room" forum when this forum starts rolling.
I'm not a very experienced grower, 6 grows so far, but I've learned a lot and all grows were successful.
This is a post in progress and I'll gradually try to add more info and make it more complete.

I grow with a few friends for our personal use.
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Welcome to our box!

Specifications
Medium: permanent soil
Light: 1x 400W HPS
Box: old closet
Area: 0.95m^2 (10 ft^2)
Dimensions: 190cm x 50cm x 200cm (75inch x 20inch x 79inch) (LxWxH)
Plants: 5-20
Inlet fan: 175m^3/h (6200 ft^3/min)
Outlet fan: 400m^3/h (14000 ft^3/min)
Smell combat: large carbon filter
Watering: by hand via drainage tubes
Nutrition: Biogreen organic nutrition line

Grows in this box
10x "commercial white", 400W HPS, soil, scrog

Box
We used an old closet as our box. This explains the non optimal dimensions of our box. A square box would probably make more efficient use of the light, but this old closet does well enough.

Lightning
A normal 400W HPS is placed in the middle of the box. The HPS is, as always, connected to a 400W HPS transformer (ballast). Transformer is connected to a simple timer to create day and night. White plastic is taped and screwed to the walls to reflect light. It is important to attach the plastic properly to make sure it doesn't touch the hot lamp.

Watering
Watering is, on average, done once every 3-4 days, when we give 10liters (2.5gallon) water that is fed with Biogreen nutrients. Watering is made easy by pouring the water from a can into drainage tubes that run into the earth, on the bottom of the box, where the water is evenly distributed over all soil. Moment of watering is decided by our tensiometer, an accurate soil moisture sensor. It is important that the soil doesn’t dry out too much because it then loses the “power” to absorb the water from the bottom of the box.

*last pic is not mine, it shows the drainage tubes watering system concept.

Nutrients
We use a concentrated organic nutrition line called Biogreen. A syringe is used to add the concentrated liquid nutrients to the water. No nutrients are added in the last week of the grow to make sure no nutrients build up in the soil.

Airflow
Air enters the box at the bottom left, where a fan is constantly sucking air. From there it is transported through a tube with holes. This evenly distributes the air over all plants. The air is sucked out of the box by a second fan that is placed in the left top of the box. From there the air is pushed through a carbon filter ant then enters the attic without any smell to it.

Soil
Our peat soil is permanent, we only remove and refill the top 1/8 layer after every grow. We also add worms and mycorrhiza (symbiosis between fungus and roots of the plants) fungus. We use Plagron light mix: "This potting soil is composed of a sophisticated combination of peat types: different types of white peat, chunks of white peat, black peat and Sphagnum in worm castings."

Temperature and Humidity control
When the temperature drops below 15C (60F) an electric heater turns on. The fans go on full-power when the temperature rises above 25C (77F).
In the first two weeks of growing we put a transparent plastic tent over the clones and use a plant sprayer to keep humidity as high as possible. Humidity is not actively influenced after the first two weeks of growing.

Fire Safety
Nothing should be able to touch the hot HPS, transformer/ballast and electric heater. We have a large fire extinguisher and smoke detector.

Price indications (from memory)
400W HPS lamp + 400W transformer + reflector = 100 euro
Biogreen nutrition line for at least 8 400W grows = 120 euro
Soil, 400liter = 50 euro
2 industrial fans = 120 euro
carbon filter for 6 grows = 50 euro
random building materials = 150 euro
drainage tubes = 20 euro
air tubes = 20 euro
electricity per 3 month grow = 60 euro
temp/humidity sensor = 10 euro
timer = 7 euro
electric heater = 50 euro

Edited by Annom (08/05/08 10:36 AM)

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