Small scale shower stall grow, need advice on setup particulars

[2ndtyme]

Hi all

This will be my second grow - first one was in my old place in a large closet, pretty basic and I ended up having to chop bout a month early due to discovery by roommate (yup, learned my lesson about not trying to hide a grow from cohabitators).

Now I am renting a small townhouse, no roomates and I have a spare shower stall in my master bathroom that we don't use and are currently storing shit in. The stall measures 74" tall, 32" wide, and 26" deep. there's a drain right on the bottom for water spills and the stall is white so its really a great little gorwing area for tall plants.

I have been considering a number of routes such as putting some kind of cabinet in there, buying a really small toolshed, replacing the top piece with wood and using that (if yo ucan figure out how to cut an intake hole in this baby it looks like an awesome little cab- tell me how if you know how to cut resin molded plastic! http://www.suncast.com/outdoorstorage/21/gs1250/ they sell it at Target)

Anyway, I decided I don't want to deal with cutting shit and whatnot, i really am useless when i comes to building anything, doing electrical, etc. Took the husband and I like 2 hours to assemble a simple printer cart :D

So, what I am planning on doing it going to lowe's and buying a piece of pressboard that will fit over the top of the shower stall, thereby making kind of a giant box with an open front. I am going to buy some of that black/white vinyl stuff online from a hydro store or something and use it to cover the front of the box. I am thinking of securing it on the sides and bottom with sticky velcro or something so I can open it for access, or using some kind of vinyl zipper down the middle (would love ideas for how to do this/where to get one).

I know i need ventilation. like i said me+electricity = danger, so I don't want to mess with anything that isn't just a plug and go setup. I also am not planning on doing any wood cutting, just screwing in S hooks for the light chains. anyway, the problem is intake and exhaust. I was thinking, i can just cut a little hole near the bottom of the vinyl and attach a PVC elbow painted black inside for intake (would this keep out light? I don't get this "light can't go around corners" thing). For exhaust I am going to be really ghetto, cut a hole near the top of the plastic, attach some dryer duct or sumthin bent around to block light (again, how the hell does this work?), and attach the other end of the duct to a simple desk fan sitting on top of the wood cubby top.

so those are my major issues. I would love advice on any of the above. I understand the issues of light leaks and plan to address leaks around where the wood/shower stall meet with black vinyl taped over. I know flourescents aren't the best, but I'm just growing for me and my husband and the cat :) and don't want significantly upped electric bills or to deal with too many heat issues given my low-tech ventilation system.

So for lighting, hopefully I can find a couple bathroom fixtures that i can just plug in (anyone ever seen these? I don't want to be twisting wires together I just want to plug the thing in) and fill these with big CFLs and attach to a board with hooks on a chain and screw chain to top wood piece. Or I might do the same thing with a bunch of 3 foot tube floro fixtures. Is one idea better than another or is there another floro setup I should consider?

I am going to use soil, plain potting soil with perlite/vermiculite, no MG crap I killed my first seedlings that way lol. Final question, is there a big problem with planting germinated seeds directly in the 12" pots I plan to use for the duration of the grow? Transplanting last grow was a dirty mess. I plan to have 4 plants by the way. Is there another type of container I can use that will have the same amount of room for the plant as a normal 12" pot (something with like a 8" circumference), but that is taller and skinnier so I can start more like 6-8 plants and hopefully get 3-4 fems? I will also have a small osciallating fan in the area blowing on the plants.

OK, sorry for the incredibly long and detailed post. I appreciate any feedback (except being told to do non-floro lighting, really can't deal with extra heat, electric bills, and light cost). I've spent the last week or so glued to these boards after work getting ideas and thinking about how to best use my space. Can't wait to get started :dance: but I don't want to have results as rappy as my first run (I managed to hermie 2 nice sativa fems with high temps and light galore during the "dark" period while flowering).

Thanks all! I'm so glad I found this site, I almost had a heart attack when OG went down.
2ndtyme

[2ndtyme]

Seriously, anyone got any input or ever tried anything similar? I could really use some advice before I screw shit up again :)

[BlueBear]

I don't know but the way you put everything made me laugh. I will try to answer a few questions. 1. the black and white reflective/material you want is called Panda film, it's black and white just like a panda. You get it at your local garden or hydro store or online of coarse.
2 there are zippers that you can get for the film or other materials and they are called "Pill and Stick Zippers" Just the way it sounds, they are about 7 to 8ft and you pill off the adhesive tape and stick to the area that you cut out for a door then presto, you have a door that you zip up and down to open. 3. fan, you can do what your saying, attach a fan to the top of the board and it would probably work, but the power of the fan is going to depend on how intense the lighting you want is going to be.
4. CFL's are going to work and there are fixtures that you can buy at Lowes or Home Depot that have a hood around the fixture with a clamp that could attach to say a curtain rod in the shower and they have a plug in. Also you could get a couple 4 , 3 or 2 foot T5 high out put florescent lamps that could stretch across the whole shower.
To help out more I would need to have an idea of how much personal smoke your trying to produce. You say you don't want to use HID lighting, but you can get to a certain point where you are using just as much electric on florescent lighting as HID.
hope this helps.
Adieu

[HK Slyone]

Yeah I Agree with bear first you need to know how much you need to acchive and what type of grow then strain you are growing or bag seeds then once you know you can plan! I think if you are using floro's you wont have to deal with heat like with HID but you have to keep the floro's so fucking clode and move them all the time!

Don't know if I helped

[2ndtyme]

dudes

thanks for replying- you both helped me alot! those answers were just what i was looking for. bear with me casue i had a rough day at work and hence smoked a few tonite.
I am only growing for my husband and myself, sometimes we smoke 5-6 times a week but he's pretty busy working on his degree so we cut back to mostly just weekends. so, we only smoke a bowl or two two or three times a week.

I will jus tbe growing bagseed and some seeds I got from my first grow that i accidentaly hermied from light and heat stree.

i like hte idea of those T5s, i could get 2 footer fixtures in there right. I could maybe do two of those fixtures with two bulbs each, and two bathroom fixtures like blue bear said with CFLs. so 4 2-foot T5s and like 6 Cfls like 30-50 watts each. that sounds like a lot of light output right?

I want to get at least one more floro grow under my belt before moving to nicer lights; I also want to try hydroponics at some point but i heard you really do need nice lights for that. ANYWAY. yeah i just feel like floros are easier and HK I didn't mind movin the lights up my first grow, i actually thought it was fun to see how much i had to move them :)

thanks dudes. does that new info help? Ask me any other questions; i'd be happy to tell more if I can get some more of your advice.
peace
tyme

ps bluebear glad i made yo ulaugh, husband thinks i'm hilarious when stoned; i dont amuse myself as much though!

[BlueBear]

Ha, Ha, LOL your hubby must get laughs all the time, or at least on the weekends. Well, given that much smoke your goals should be very attainable. With that as a goal you could probably use a towel closet or something as well. In the shower, being that it is so high you will have those lights hanging to the very bottom of the shower at first unless you meet the lights half way by placing the plants on something. Shower will indeed work though. Let us know when you want to get the lights and we can dial you in on wattage, color and what not. Hydro is a better bet with HID IMO because of the time and effort put out you want to see a good return for your hard work.
Adieu

[HK Slyone]

He said everything I wanted to say! LOL I think all you wil be needing is no more than 4 plant maybe two but are you going to SCROG or not! then you have to think if you want to do LST or Topping the plants?

[2ndtyme]

I'm not going to SCROG- I have a ton of vertical space, 74" and I coul even go higher if I wanted, but i am planning to either LST or top to get more colas. I've not done either before. I'm more worried about floorspace, I only have 26" by 32" and I dont want to have too-small pots and round bound plants like I did on the the first grow with 10" pots. I'd actually love to start 6-8 plants so that i hopefully end up with 3-4 fems. I hear growbags are messy so I want to find a big enough container that is more tall and skinny then a 12" pot so I could fit more in the space.

Don't get me wrong, my main goal is having enough for the two of us but I'd like to maxmize my yield given my contraints of soil and floros, my 2 brother in laws could sure use a better supplier lol.

I'll get back to you on the lights sich, I have to pop my head in at lowe's, man i hate those stores i am so out of my element htere, and see about what kind of fixtures I can find. What do yo think about mixing CFLs and 2-foot tubes? IS is worth it to spend the extra on T5s rather than the regular tubes?

[BlueBear]

Hmm, pots to get? You are going to want to find some square pots IMO that you could use up until you sex and get the 3 4 that you want. I would look at your local $1 store if you have one or Wally World for square bathroom garbage cans and drill about a dozen little holes in the bottom for good dranage. You could probably use them up intil sexing even though they would be a little tight and then once you sex you could transfer into a few 2 or 3 gallon pots to give the roots room it would only take one transfer and once those plants sat in those pots until flowering they would have such a tight root ball there wouldn't be a root mess like you are worried about. Wo, hold on I just remembered the dimintions of your shower, why do you think that you couldn't fit 6 10in pots in there? How long do you want to veg for? They should have enough room IMO to handle the crowdedness untill you sex.
With the lights you don't just want the T5, you want the T5 high out put. If they are too spendy just get a nice mess of the CFL's. Don't get the bulbs untill you know the color skeem you need for veg and flower. Check out the wattages they have and get back to us.
Adieu

[ledgrower]

we were drinkin one night and just shootin the moon and we actually thought of a bunch of differnt ways to grow in a bathroom...our idea was with a garden tube or what not but a stand up would be just the same..well if u did hydro..your all set..u have the water and then the drain...in the same room..pretty sick..pluss u have an out vent if u have a power vented shower..iether use that or boost it with a inline and a carbon filter,