Cabinet Concerns

[Jaxxxom]

Talked it over with the other half, since we have the addition of a little one to our happy family it's no longer worth having a large grow. While I wasn't supplying the whole town, I did sell to friends and a few family members. Now we just want enough for ourselves and enough left over to make hash with.

Concept here is this. To build a stealth grow and conceal inside a media center cabinet. This will entail building two 4' tall 2' wide, 2' deep as "speaker stands for my baby advent speakers, insideone will be my bonsi mom's and cloning area. The other will be a drying rack.

These I pretty much have worked out and have begun construction. But my main scrog box I do have some design questions.

First is lighting. My large grow consisted of two 400w HP's and 4 dual tubed floro's using aquarium bulbs. It's these floro's that I intend on using in my main scrog cabinet now. When I say aquarium bulbs, I'm not talking the run of the mill kind that you find at wal-mart, I got these at a pet shop. I have four "ultra sunlight 10,000 kelvin" 40w bulbs and 4 50/50 actrinic/6000 kelvin daylight bulbs at 40w a piece. The question being, with that much intensity, do I need that many bulbs? That's 8 bulbs in 4 fixtures for a total of 320 watts. They do cost about $30 a bulb, and I replace bulbs once a year religiously because they slowly loose intensity over time. So fewer bulbs would lower my over all costs. Both operating and maintaining them.

Next is ventilation. I have mixed feelings on this. I could use a few a/c muffin fans at, say one per ballist just to be on the safe side, again giving me 320cfm of air flow, but oder is the problem. I love my indicia! Right now I have a Snow White mother and just got in another order from Nirvana for Afghani #1 and Citral. Next order will prob be hash plant and one of the kush strains. ALL of these are super skunky in oder... What this means I need to have some type of oder control. Can't do that with muffin fans that I know of. That leaves me with using a bathroom ventilation fan. Lowes has a really good one, very high cfm and very low somes. But I wonder, how long does a carbon scrubber half to be, to work efficently?

Cabinet design... Let me describe how I intend to build this cabinet. I'm figuring 28" tall, 24" deep and 60" long. This will be my lcd tv stand (wife and I are saving for a 48"). The scrog area will be 48" long, 24" deep. The extra 12" I'm saving for timers, and a place for ppm meter, ph meter and other goodies. The reason I asked about how long a scrubber has to be to work right as you can see is where I place the exhaust fan. Ideally I would say dead center back of the cabinet. But that would let me build a scrubber any longer then say 26"....not long at all. I could put it on the end by the storage compartment and pipe throuth there using a couple of elbows, but will that lower the efficiency of the fan then? And what about uneven heat removal?

Added info... The bubbler I plan on using is a plastic tub that's 20" wide, 6" deep and 40" long. I plan in making a new top for it out of ply wood, painted white and then clear sealed with some poly. For air movement I'm figuring a screen size of 22" x 46". Just a hair shy of 6.5sq feet of screen. Now I'm wondering how high to place the screen. NGB from OG suggested 8-10" I believe. I'm not sure that's enough room though. If the cabinet is 28" outside diamention knock off 1.5 for the plywood (using 3/4 birch ply, furniture grade) then 6" for the resevior, and another 4" for the width of the bulbs, then another 2" for safty so plants don't grow into bulbs and start a fire. I've only grown the Snow White (simlar to White Widow and White Russian), as a bush, not sure how she's going to respond to scrog. Also would like to hear from folks that have grown Afghani or Citral in scrog as well. Perhaps I could get advice on how high to place the screen then.

tia,

Jaxxx

[Opie Yutts]

Just a word of advice: most stoned people don't want to read a question that long, unless it really has a good attention grabber at the beggining. Your real questions are in itallics below. Just a little too much info. I skimmed it, and thought fuck this. Then I had a change of heart.

do I need that many bulbs?
You don't need any bulbs except one, but more light equals more weed. I would use as many as you can. More light also means more heat, and needs to be compinsated for with more ventalation. The choice is yours.

how long does a carbon scrubber half to be, to work efficently
Of course the bigger the better, but you will also need more CFM for bigger carbon scubbers. I would get the biggest one that you can get into your cabinet. But I would also not put my grow in my entertainment area, and try to grow some really nasty smelling shit, and think I'll 100% get away with it. You are fooling yourself or extremely stoned if you think this can happen, no matter how steathy you think you are. And if your cousin Randy happens to find out, then all of your family will know. Trust me it will happen. If you are going through with it anyway, I would devote most of your cabinet area to odor control, that is if stealth is important to you. Why don't you do like I did, and put your grow in a back closit and put a lock on the door, or some place where there is less traffic? Really, you don't need that crap you've been storing in there for years. Throw it out to make room, or build a shed.

I could put it on the end by the storage compartment and pipe throuth there using a couple of elbows, but will that lower the efficiency of the fan then?
More elbows and fittings and longer runs means reduced cfm. Just compensate with a little bigger fan.

And what about uneven heat removal?
In a cabinet that small I don't think you have to worry about it. Temp in any given space tends to want to equalize. Just suck air and it will work.

Perhaps I could get advice on how high to place the screen then.
Most people recommend 8 inches above the medium. That's what mine is and it works great. Of course you may not be able to do this in a cabinet that small, and that should be fine. You will just have a harder time reaching the back, and the plants will need to go into flower sooner (because there is less room to grow first), thus reducing the yield a little.

Hope that helps a little.

[Opie Yutts]

Oh yeah, there are also odor eliminating fluorescent lights, but I have my doubts.

[Opie Yutts]

Sorry for all the after thoughts, but if you really can't bare to part with the crap in your closet, put the grow in your closet and the crap in the speaker cabinets.

[Jaxxxom]

Opie,

You're right, It was a bit lengthy. A friend just gave me some hashium and I was rather buzz when I wrote that, surprised it came out as good as it did. But once stoned, I do tend to ramble. Sorry!!!!

Hope I don't offend though, but "spare closet" + "Woman"="oxymoron". Just ain't gonna happen! :)

Guess I'll go with all the lights then. What's the ave penetration for fluro's? I was thinking of some kind adjustable shelf to mount them on, keep them right above the plants.

Got an idea about oder.... You'll see once I'm done building... Thanks!

Jaxxx

[Opie Yutts]

Not sure on the penetration, but one of the main advantages of fluorescents is you can get them right on the plant if they have a clear guard around them, and real close otherwise. Be sure you can easily adjust either the plant height or light height, so you can keep the light right on them as they grow taller.

Lookign forward to your odor solution.