my single plant grow box, are there any problems?

wildmanweed

New Member
im going to be using a 1.5 x 1.5ft box that is about 3 feet high. im using 6 23 watt cfls. the box will be located in the attic which goes below freezing so i have a halogen lamp. (around 70 watts, i dont remember exactly) also the walls inside will have a small christmass light set wraped around them. (this and the halogen are for heat). over the x-mas lights will be tin foil, im going to have the lights sticking out through holes in the foil, so basicly the bulbs are in the box but the cords are behind the tin foil. the outside of the box is wrapped in insulating plastic. i have a fan hole on the side and a fan blowing at all times. i havnt finished it yet to tests temps but i had one similer to this but not well built and it stayed at 70-75 degrees.. im getting seeds for free from a friend, and this entire set up cost me 0.00$ i used all stuff i found around the house. are there any flaws you see in this? anything that im missing?
 
It's really hard to give advice site unseen. A picture is worth a thousand words. Many times something can be noticed in a picture that is just hard to describe in words. Post up a pic .... it'll help.


I think 3 ft is too short. 10 to 12 inches of dirt/pot and now you only have 2 ft. If your lights stick down 6 inches .... now you only have 18 inches of room. Your temps and humidity will vary wildly without enough room or proper ventilation.



The halogen is worthless for growing and will only cause heat and become a fire danger. The christmas lights are also worthless. You can easily buy dual T5 light fixtures at home depot for like 25 bucks. They would work so much better in such a small space.



It sounds like you are trying to hide your grow from family members. It won't work. It'll be noticable. If you are still living with your parents and you are trying to hide it from them. Well .... aint gonna happen. Respect thier house and wait till you get your own place. Then buy yourself a proper tent or build yourself a proper box (like the one in my grow journals in my signature block). You'll have less grief and better results. You don't have to spend a ton of money either. You can build a box like mine for couple hundred bucks ... especially if you can find used wood for cheap/free. Don't play around with the wrong lights and end up building a fire hazard in your attic.
 
Do yourself a favor and read everything you can about light spectrums and lumens.
 
i specificly said the halogen and the xmas lights are for heat only, their light dosnt matter, this is in my attic and gets below freezing, the plant will be lst'd and will only be grown small.
 
An easy way to control heat is to build a small contained area around your grow box. You can use tarp or plastic sheeting and just staple it up. So, lets say your grow box is 2ft x 2ft x 3 ft tall. You could make an enclosure that is 4ft x 4ft x 5 ft tall. And put a small space heater in the enclosure. This would keep the area around your grow box at a constant temp and would keep your temps from fluctuating wildly with the really cold temps. That way, you don't have to try to heat your whole attic. I just think putting halogens in that small box is a huge bad idea.
 
If growing a single plant you could always use a a heated propargator or heat mat to maintain a base level temperature through out the night/lights off period, i think they run between 18c to 20c.
 
That tin foil christmas light setup sounds dangerous, I painted the inside of my box with White rubberized roof paint (lowes 10 bucks) and it is way more reflective (i think 90% as opposed to tin foils 60%ish if your using the right side)

I control my heat with a space heater, and i am in a 6 foot box. 3 feet is way to small at least add another foot.

And in flowering stage you will need hours of complete darkness so that would be an issue with your heat setup currently.

I also started with a stealth grow (not anymore) I can be done but the stealth method is very unforgiving if you mess anything up and could be potentially dangerous.
 
my temps get below freezing aswell.what i did is run my lights at night(1000watter tho) and temps at night stay below 70
and during the heat of day when there on it only runs 75degrees.
Try that instead of the hallogen and christmas lights
 
well i plan on keeping the plant in veg till it warms up in like 3 months im going to lst and top it. and by time it gets to large i will cut a nice section out and make a clone for a sec. box. the box has a piece of like .5inch wood with white paint, with two 2x4s on each side, then in the gap the 2x4s make is xmas lights lined in a way none touch eachother. then across the 2x4s is the tinfoil, the tinfoil dosnt touch the lights... and i dont give a fuck about hot spots, wont be a problem that really matters in a cfl grow... and this is kinda test of how god i can grow with out spending a single penny.. this is all stuff i found around the house
 
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