Gustavo's Indoor Closet Grow

[Gustavo]

Quick background about me; I am an online professional poker player so I have a load of free time on my hands. I needed a hobby and stumbled across this place a few weeks ago. I've become fascinated by the growing and journals on here so decided to give it a go myself. I started reading here with near enough zero knowledge on this subject. Everything I now know about growing I learned from this website. I am the most unhandy man in the world (as you'll see from my attempts at improvisational construction). So if I can manage the slightest amount of success, anyone can! Let's get started...

Plants: 4
Strain: Auto-Flowering Northern Lights
Indica/Sativa: Indica/Sativa mix.
Day: Currently on day 1 of veg as typing this.
In/Outdoor: Indoor.
Space: Closet, 62x62x167h (cm) ... 2x2x5.5ft
Soil: I'm using BioBiz All-Mix, which is soil (20%), compost (35%), worm castings (10%) and Perlite (30%) as well as a special 'pre-mix' (5%) of biologically active organic ingredients.
Pots: My pots are 10cm deep and 10cm wide square.
Lighting: I'm using is a 600 watt HPS Proxima light with ballast and reflector. It is not air cooled. The bulb is dual spectrum for both stages of growth.
Tempterature: Current temp of the closet is 89°F with the doors open half way, with the door closed it is about 110°F.
Humidity: Humidity seems to be around 30%. I've added a pot of water which now sees it sit around 45-50%.
Pests: It is only day 1, no pests yet thankfully.
Watering: I'm about to water for the first time since planting the seeds.
Fertilizers: Biobizz Grow for veg and Biobizz Bloom for flowering.

Having a little bit of an issue with the photo uploader right now, it seems to just go onto a white page which won't load after each time I try to upload any photos, I'll get pics posted as soon as I get it working...

 

[Gustavo]

Here is my closet, it is 2x2x5.5ft.

Started by putting down some rubber matting so that the plants are not on the cold ground.

Then cover it all in Mylar Reflective Sheeting. My stapler broke early, a lot of it is held up by sellotape. I am impatient and didn't want to stop working just because of a stapler issue.

Testing light on.

Here it is with the door closed and lights off. My dark hours to begin with will be 10pm - 4am so the light gaps won't be a huge issue (or will they?) as my room will be pretty dark between those hours anyway. I have a blackout blind so the only light will be from a laptop screen.

 

[Gustavo]

Better begin the germination process. Obviously this will be boring for any growers but if any beginners are reading and want to follow my steps, here we are...

Dry paper towel folded once. (incase you didn't know what a dry paper towel looked like.)

Get those seeds on there.

Fold it over and pour on half a glass of water. Making sure the paper towel is nice and soaked. Pick up the paper towel and let any loose drips come away before continuing.

Put in an air-tight ziplock bag.

Then store your seeds in a cool, dry place. I put mine at the back of a drawer in my room that I don't use often. Check every 12 hours for 3 days and make sure the towel is still damp.

 

[Gustavo]

Something I've noticed when trying to do construction on an area already loosely covered in reflective sheeting is that its a shit load harder than before it is covered. Don't be like me and get impatient, do ALL your construction before putting up the mylar, otherwise you tear and ruin your sheeting.

 

[jdlemon25]

i think youll be ok. thats a great set up but you should really look into a small computer fan for the exhaust as wellas a small fan to sit inside.... blowing right on your plants..... the will help make the base structure much stronger and hold more weight of those tasty tasty buds... also your heat needs to stay at or under 87 or around there... the fan will help slightly as will the tiny exhaust fan. hope it goes well bud,

 

[Gustavo]

Ventilation

I fucked up. I bought computer fans which I thought were double the size they actually are. I accidently bought 50mm fans instead of 100mm fans. Oh well, gotta carry on anyway.

Let me start by saying I have never wired a thing in my life. This was completely new to me and I was shittin myself touching these wires even while they were unplugged. But it worked, and could help out some people. Here's what I did...

Take an old 12v mobile phone charger. Everyone has old chargers.

Cut that end off. If you have proper tool use a wire stipper. I did not, so I used a kitchen knife which you can see in the back. Seperate the wires.

Now strip the wires to reveal the copper wiring.

Thats the plug read.

Now the fans.

My fans each had an end like this, I assume to plug into a PC. I took the hammer (pictured) and lightly smashed this little plastic connection.

This revealed these little metal connections which I treated as exposed wires.

From what I've gathered from reading up on this, black is always live. And I just assumed that black goes to black and red goes to white. I also discovered that the yellow wire acts as some kind of trip switch for the fans, so it is useless when connecting to a plug. I just wrapped the exposed copper wire around the metal connection on the end of the fans wires.

Do the exact same with the 2nd fan, also connect that to the same plug.

And finally don't forget to wrap it all up with electrical tape. As you can hopefully see here, 2 red wires connecting to 1 (white inside) wire, and 2 black wires connecting to the 1 black wire of the plug.

I then plugged it into the wall, switched it on with my toe and ran out of the room, cos y'know, I'm faster than electricity. But thankfully it worked.

 

[Gustavo]

As it turned out my first plug was not powerful enough and the fans were slow. I used another plug and got them up to pace. Here is the plug I used incase anyone is interested in the details. I used to the same technique for wiring.

 

[Gustavo]

Makin Holes

I do not have a core drill. I don't even own a drill. This is my friends drill and bit he left at mine. It is all I have.

Here is the side of the grow room where the holes need to go.

So to make 50mm holes I had to improvise. I measured out where the holes needed to go. Then in my moment of genius I decided that if I just drill a million holes, it will eventually weaken the wood enough that I can hammer and create a perfect 50mm hole. Wrong. This is hardwood. Even after all these holes it still sounded as strong as ever when hammered.

I don't want to admit how long I spent drilling in every direction to eventually break the wood into submission. However the hole it created was awful, it was jaggy, oddly shaped and horrible looking. But it has to do. However I knew I couldn't do another one in the same fashion. Luckily my friend had a spare 30mm fast drill bit which he gave me. It did the trick enough to get the fans mounted. However the fans themselves are near useless, and the fact that the holes are not really big enough for them makes it worse.

Here are the mounted fans.

They give about as much air flow as someone standing breathing lightly into the closet. But I suppose they will need to do for now.

 

[Gustavo]

That was my attempt at getting air in. Now for ventilation to get air out. (I'm so bad at this stuff, as you'll see from my thermometer 'reading'). I have a small compartment at the top of my closet, up here...

This is where I want the air to escape so. However when the door of the closet is closed, this is also closed off. So I want the air to flow through the part and up out the top of the closet. So I decided that 4 ventilation hoses should do the trick. So lets do some more drilling.

Might be hard to see whats going on here. But with only a 30mm fast drill bit, I had to settle for drilling 5 holes per tube section. If I tried to drill any more to make 1 big hole the drill went nuts and it snapped all kinds of wood and shards went everywhere. I also drilled with my eyes closed since wood was spraying me to death. Goggles are for the weak.

4 holes at the top, 4 at the bottom, now connected with tubes. Duct tape is amazing.

So I thought my ventilation would be sorted. Cold air in through the bottom/side, and the hot air will rise and escape though the top. Wrong...

 

[GlasgowGreen]

Re: Ventilation

I then plugged it into the wall, switched it on with my toe and ran out of the room, cos y'know, I'm faster than electricity. But thankfully it worked.

Just for future.. Red is pos and Black is neg. don't want you blowing your self up lol

Good to see another uk member too.

 

[Gustavo]

I went for a trial run. I added a big fan in the corner and a pot of water for humidy as it was about 30% at first. Here is what it looked like.

Little bit messy but I was genuinely proud it. Thought all was well and the grow would be smooth sailing from now on. I closed the door and went to watch the football. Came back at half time to check the temperature and humidity. This is what I saw.

It melted my thermometer! I now realize that for a 2x2x5.5ft setup a 600watt HPS light was a bit ambitious. But I didn't expect this kind of heat. I took my thermometer out and let it cool off, the melted liquid inside went back to normal. I put the "outdoor" sensor inside the closet with the door closed and the temps reach around 115°F. Right now I am stumped.
I'm not entirely sure how to get my temperature down with the door closed without spending a fortune on air extracting equipment that I probably wouldn't even be able to install myself. And obviously with this kind of deal, I can't pay for installation.
Once the seeds germinated I'm not sure how long you can leave them without planting, it had been 3.5 days so I planted them. I've left my door open since, the temperature right now is around 89°F and humidity 49%, however my light is about 3 feet away from the plants and with the door open I'm wasting a lot of lumens. If anyone can give advice to help sort this it would be much appreciated. Right now I'm just considering going and buying 2 12" oscillating fans and mounting them on the wall, one facing up and one facing down. But I don't think that would help much as air getting in/out seems to be the issue.

My main question right now is will my plants still grow even though my door is open about 45°? It will be closed during the dark period.

 

[GlasgowGreen]

Your plants will grow under 24hr light in the veg period so that will give you a few weeks to get the cooling thing under control.
So your door can be open all the time if need be.

 

[GlasgowGreen]

I was just thinking.... instead of getting 2 big fans, get this Kit

I got one a while back and for the price its a good buy and will help loads with the cooling issue.

I would even give you a had putting it in if you was not to far away lol

 

[Gustavo]

I was just thinking.... instead of getting 2 big fans, get this Kit

I got one a while back and for the price its a good buy and will help loads with the cooling issue.

I would even give you a had putting it in if you was not to far away lol

Thanks for the reply. I wish I looked on here sooner, I've just been to Argos and bought 2 12" fans which aren't helping much at all. They are doing what I expected really, just blowing the hot air around the place. I might still look to invest in that kit, and I'll keep these fans too since if all goes well I may look to expand, they won't go to waste.

Thanks for the offer of help. I checked out your grow room and it is top notch, you're definitely 10x more handy than I am on the construction front. And judging by your name, I doubt we are too far apart from one another haha.

 

[GlasgowGreen]

If I don't know how to do something then I always look for a video online.

There is always someone who has took a vid of the things I am trying to do lol.

I even made some nice brownies last night via a how to vid. They even taste good lol.

 

[negativeions]

Hey mate.

You are going to have massive problems with heat in that area. I had a 400W MH and HPS and it overheated my closet really badly. I got a nice cool tube and that took care of things, but it was still nearly 80 in there.

My advice is to get:

a) a decent air filter cause it will start to smell (of course if that doesnt matter then dont worry so much)
b) get a cool tube
c) a decent fan that can push around 140 cfm through ducting.

I found that fluffing around with anything less in such a small space was simply a waste of time. I moved to a tent and now my temps are perfect.

If you look at my grow journal you can see I went through a lot of stages of evolution before ending up where I am now, and at the start it was similar to yours. Temps are gonna be killer in there, you wont be able to get the light anywhere near your plants.

Cheers

 

[Gustavo]

Hey mate.

You are going to have massive problems with heat in that area. I had a 400W MH and HPS and it overheated my closet really badly. I got a nice cool tube and that took care of things, but it was still nearly 80 in there.

My advice is to get:

a) a decent air filter cause it will start to smell (of course if that doesnt matter then dont worry so much)
b) get a cool tube
c) a decent fan that can push around 140 cfm through ducting.

I found that fluffing around with anything less in such a small space was simply a waste of time. I moved to a tent and now my temps are perfect.

If you look at my grow journal you can see I went through a lot of stages of evolution before ending up where I am now, and at the start it was similar to yours. Temps are gonna be killer in there, you wont be able to get the light anywhere near your plants.

Cheers

I could tell from early on that you were absolutely correct but I was too late and had already started (and was too short of cash) to sort it out. I need to leave my door open about a 20 degree angle which I know is terrible as I'm wasting light, but the temp goes insane otherwise.

 

[Gustavo]

Here's a small photo update from me and I'll be asking for advice as things are starting to go a little wrong, towards the end of the post.

After 2 days from planting, I was so proud when this little thing popped up.

The next day

Day 4

Day 6

 

[Gustavo]

Excuse some of the "stylized" photos I had just got Instagram and was messing about with that.

Few more pics over the past 2 weeks

 

[Gustavo]

This is where I'm starting to get really worried. The bottom leaves of my plants, onces closest to the soil are starting to go very yellow and crispy/dry and die. Here's some photos of that

Very big yellow leaf.

This plant looks a little messy from the side, I feel as if it isnt growing upwards very well, it is more growing bushy instead of up.

This is my tallest plant and has been the strongest of the 4 throughout (not a good angle) but again you can see the yellow bottom leaves, and the tip basically fell off of that one as it appears to be dead.

I'm not entirely sure what I'm doing wrong at this point. My temp is between 82-89 during day, and 71-75 at night, I'm on a 19-5 cycle. These are non-flowering seeds so I know I can do 24 hours of light but I wasnt comfortable leaving a 600watt light on 24/7 in my room. I am watering them roughly once every 36 hours on average, I'm basically juding it by the feel of the soil 1 inch into the pot and watering til a little runs out the holes at the bottom. My humidty is 57% right now however the past few days it did get up to 64% which I know isnt ideal. I currently have 1 large fan and 2 small outside blowing air in and 1 last oscillating fan and 1 tower fan inside blowing air up/out. I am going to buy an extraction kit with carbon filter soon but I'm not sure that would help with the current situation a whole lot.

Any help would be much appreciated, I feel like they are dying from the bottom upwards and I'm not sure why, it's a horrible feeling.