Max's PC Grow Box Journal - 2013

[Maxximilian]

Thanks guys, much appreciated. The smell though is making it a bit obvious in the apartment not like anyone cares just if someone were to walk in it could be a bit of a give away thinking of getting a 12v adapter and attaching the fan to that and having it pull through a homemade filter or something of some sort.

 

[Mono]

Put a curtain over the door of the room the plants are in, and buy some good quality air freshenera for other parts of your property. Unless you have a lot of visitors should be okay. A filter sucks a lot of fan strength.

 

[Maxximilian]

yeah regarding the fan strenght i was thinking of getting a 12v adapter seeing as currently its only running of a usb cable which's output is only 5v and its doing a good job well the 2 fans. if there isn't enough flow with one fan on a 12v adapter i could always hook up a second one for more suction.

 

[Micro man]

From my experience you won't push or pull air through a carbon filter with a computer fan, there for moving air around, not for pushing it through a filter even at 12v. Still getting a variable volt adaptor, will still be essential in the summer for keeping temps down!

For my PC grow, I ended up making a light lock for the back of the PC to stop any light leeks and lined it with "activated carbon sheeting" it's black so it stopped light reflecting and on my small grow it seemed to stop the smell :0)

 

[Maxximilian]

 

[Maxximilian]

LST Adjustments:

 

[Thunderthys]

Does the carbon sheet work well.. I made my own for the fridge hooked to a 80 cfm fan and it works well on my 4x2x5.5 veg box so it should do the trick on a small fridge..are you goin to try and get them lower to the ground low Ryder's get big big buds right.. Like enough to fill this cab up??

 

[Micro man]

I completed my grow and did several more in that PC, but never got round to completing the journal.

I think your really gonna struggle with 2 in there, I easily filled my case with 1 and I got the biggest awe I could find. Your bang on with the lst though, you won't get them in any other way! Be rough with the girls......they can handle it!

Do you mean get the lights lower? All I did was put books under the pots! As it grew I took them out! :0)


As for the smell, the best thing in the micro grow, is just to move lots of air, when your plants get a little bigger, there gonna be wanting all the fans on 12v just to get enough air moving past then to make them healthy. And the more air the more your effectively diluting the smell. But I lived on a small boat and smell would have been a big problem for me, but with the sheeting and a decent rate of air flow the smell only became a problem in the last couple of weeks of flowering! And of course the drying stage!

I have a photo somewhere of my lowryders the day before chop inside the box, ill try and dig it out and post it hear when I'm home :0)

 

[Maxximilian]

@ Thuderthys, I don't know what you mean by carbon sheet? if your refering to the walls in the case i just got some cardboard sheets from a school supply store and then bought the heaviest aluminium foil that i could find in the supermarket, i applied some glue to the cardboard and then used another straight edged object and spread it evenly to get no bubbles and good binding. As far as to answering the question how well it works. pretty well the reflections hitting almost all the areas that are vital. Getting them lower to the ground i have done that pretty well as you can see in the last picture they are very close to the soil, i'm doing this with LST (light stress training) which develops bends in the way the plant grows and will become permanent after a certain amount of time of stretching and growth.

@Micro man, Yeah I know i'm quite worried about having two in there, But I think i will find a way to manage it. Trial and error with trimming i guess. I've been doing some reading regarding the topic trimming some are against it some are all for it depending on the stage of growth and what needs more light. No i don't want the lights any lower it gets quite warm in the case quite a nice temp, thinking of getting a humidifier and attaching it into there from the back with a hose like thing to get some nice humidity in there two should be wicked. I will be tying up the lights once the plants grow bigger or repositioning them. I have this idea of making a home made filter ill try and draw it up tonight when i get home ill have two fans pulling air through a mesh like fabric lined in some cardboard and have carbon filter crystals lined between two of these fabric meshes and then have 2 12v fans pull through that i'm sure that it will be enough and make a difference. Regarding smell when buds are out, the weather here will be much warmer by then and the door to the balcony in my room will be constantly open. I find that these lights provide sufficient amount of energy to the plant that this distance for great growth been hardly 2 days in 12/12 and they've grown loads and great health color apart from some discoloration on one leaf which i'm not sure about but might have been from before i picked it up from the store.

Looking forwards to the picture.

I'm thinking for the next grow on doing it from seedling up and getting my hands on some Dutch Passion Blueberry, doing some topping early on to have more stems early on and having a fun play with them in the case.

 

[KingJohnC]

subscribed

 

[Maxximilian]

Cool

 

[Maxximilian]

Micro man i checked out your pc grow that you did looks pretty dope how much did you get from that one plant?

 

[Maxximilian]

Heres what ive been doing the past few mins working out how i'm going to make this filter. here are some pics for you to see what im getting at.

In the pic below the paper bits are a thin material just dense enough for the carbon not to fall through. the red thing is where the carbon will be in theory.

going to buy some more thick cardboard tomorrow to make the amount of carbon i can chuck in there a decent amount.

 

[Micro man]

Ok hears that photo,

I got about 14 grams off that one, the second plant (the little one that appears mid journal) I got about 6 grams off, she really suffered in the competition for light and space, I planted her about 1 month after the 1st.
For the 3rd grow I changed it up a bit gave her an overdose of worm poo and I got 24g off her, but she FILLED the box insanely, she is burnt from the cfls in this photo, but you can see the size they get in there!

-
As for your fan system, I have fiddled and messed with all sorts of ideas and the one thing that's for certain is that computer fans don't push!!! Doubling up doesn't work either.
The most important thing in closet grows is keeping your air flowing and fresh, if all you got is computer fans then don't put anything in front of them.
Also you have to create a "negative" air pressure in the box if you want to remove the smell, the easiest way to do this is have a fan moving the air out and then no fan pushing it in, or 2 fans moving the air out and 1 sucking in.
If you don't have a negative air flow the air will just be pushed out of every little hole in your box and NOT out of your carbon filter.

Don't get me wrong, I can see you know what your doing, your build looks solid, but I'm just trying to offer some advice :0)

Peace out

 

[Maxximilian]

We shall see how it works out. Im working of the same principle as the liquid cooling on my pc, so i really don't see a problem with it and as for the fan pulling fresh air in its doing a solid job now on 5v with the net in front of it once its bumped up to 12v there will be solid airflow in the case as atm with 5v the plants are moving just from that. So ill keep you posted once i've made some more changes also cleaned out the upper part where the other fans are and the lights are fitted to, also moved the lights around a bit think this will be their permanent position.

Anyways thanks for the advice and the pic looks wicked. so my estimations of getting roughly 30g from these two beauties isn't too far off a possibility.

 

[Brettjh1994]

Can some one help me I never grew b4 and my step dad got 15 plant going for me but I really don't know how to take care of them I think a few are dying...

 

[Maxximilian]

The Ladies Today:
Both:

Chronic: (looking good)

Euforiadeveloping splits very far down dont know weather to be worried or not regarding the growth of them that far back when ill have the chronic growing up vertical on the opposite side of planting and same vice versa)

The leaf i was talking about that had the discoloration, dont know what from nore do i know what to do with it leave it there cut it, Its the only leaf like that and it really bothers me . Meh.

I must say the ipad is pretty decent at taking these pictures.

 

[Maxximilian]

Finishing off the filter is going to take a bit longer seeing as my flatmate overslept and we didn't go to the diy store.

 

[jlt1202]

Looking good for the space man, i would look into sharing pots with you plants you may want a divider, iv herd of plants choking the other out or taking over the other and killing it. : / not positive but u should look up to be sure ; )

 

[Maxximilian]

ah thanks man, didn't know about that.