My First Grow

This is my first grow using 30gal rubbermaid tubs and cfl lights. I plan on adding more lights soon. I am using bagseeds from a good bag. Any tips or comments are greatly appreciated.

Front View. The outside is painted black to block light.


Back View. This shows the hood and passive intake.


Close up of the hood I made to go over the 120mm computer fan that is mounted on the inside. This helps block a lot of light


Inside of the top. There are 4 40watt(200watt equivalent) 2600 lumen soft white cfl bulbs. The computer fan blows out and the other fan blows across the lights. The inside of the tubs are painted white for reflection.




Everything is wired on the inside with only one wire coming out of the box. All opening are at the back of the box for stealth reasons.


This is the bottom half with the girls in it. These seeds were germinated 4 days ago and put in the dirt 2 days ago.


Close ups of the girls.

Good start, keep us posted as they get bigger!!!

Nice setup. It's like the darth vader of grow boxes.

oh!!! its you!!! the guy who likes to use the word nigger

Nice setup man. Have you tested the humidity and temperature levels yet?

nice tote looks just like mine. no i dont have problems with the temp. i moved my dresser over so that the tote would be directly underneath the air vent, plus my fan is on top sucking in the cold air . but befor i moved the tote it was in the high 80's.
https://www.rollitup.org/indoor-growing/57664-built-me-rubbermaid-tote.html

That looks great, but what happens when they get bigger? Spacers to stretch the box up? I may have to make one of those!

GrnMan said:

Nice setup man. Have you tested the humidity and temperature levels yet?

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The temp is staying in the high 80's and the humidity is in the high 20's. I am trying different methods to lower the temp and raise the humidity but nothing is working so far. Any ideas??

DS1983 said:

That looks great, but what happens when they get bigger? Spacers to stretch the box up? I may have to make one of those!

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I am going to try lst'ing them to keep them short and I will be flowering them soon so they don't get too big. This is my first grow so I am not sure what kind of space problems I will be running into but I will give it my best shot to keep them small.

Here is a little update on the girls. They are growing growing fast and looking great! I have also added two 23watt(100 watt eq.) daylight cfl's and an extra passive intake to help with the high temp.

Here is the pic of the lights. The two middle lights are the new ones. You can see the color difference.


Here is the new passive intake from the outside and the inside.



Here are the girls. They are 6 days old.
Plant A:



Plant B:



Plant C:



Any tips or opinions would be appreciated. Thanks.

I was also having temp problems. I had a passive intake and an exhaust fan just like yours. I switched the fan around so I now have a passive exhaust and the fan is sucking in cool air from outside. Made my temps go from mid 80's to mid 70's.

mattoak said:

I was also having temp problems. I had a passive intake and an exhaust fan just like yours. I switched the fan around so I now have a passive exhaust and the fan is sucking in cool air from outside. Made my temps go from mid 80's to mid 70's.

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Thanks for the idea. I think I will give that a try.

Here are a few updated pics of the ladies. They are growing much faster than I expected. I put a 2 liter bottle with fermenting sugar water in it to add co2 and have noticed them growing faster since I did that so I guess its working. They are now 8 days old. How do you guys think these are looking so far? For 8 days old are they looking ok?

Plant A:


Plant B:


Plant C:

sweet, keep it up

That looks so cool. Mind if I ask but do you live at home with your rents or on your own? I would like to grow and I was considering an AG or something like this and I was pondering on how bad the smell would be if I grew it at home.

I really like the set-up.

TLR said:

That looks so cool. Mind if I ask but do you live at home with your rents or on your own? I would like to grow and I was considering an AG or something like this and I was pondering on how bad the smell would be if I grew it at home.

I really like the set-up.

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I have a town house and this stays upstairs in my bedroom where no one usually goes. This is my first grow so I couldn't say yet about how the smell will be. I am looking into carbon filters for when that time comes. Hopefully it won't be too bad. Thanks for stopping by!!

RaginCajun420 said:

I have a town house and this stays upstairs in my bedroom where no one usually goes. This is my first grow so I couldn't say yet about how the smell will be. I am looking into carbon filters for when that time comes. Hopefully it won't be too bad. Thanks for stopping by!!

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That's pretty cool. I really really want to do this I'm just concerned with heating problems like you seem to have trouble with.

Do you think you could list all the parts you bought? I just might start to do this.

Also, do you plan on letting the plants grow to be huge or somehow keep them short? If so, how would you do that?

TLR said:

That's pretty cool. I really really want to do this I'm just concerned with heating problems like you seem to have trouble with.

Do you think you could list all the parts you bought? I just might start to do this.

Also, do you plan on letting the plants grow to be huge or somehow keep them short? If so, how would you do that?

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Here is the list of things I bought:
2 30 gallon tubs
2 18 inch 3 socket light fixtures
2 1-1/2 pvc elbows
4 40 watt 2700K cfl's
2 23 watt daylight cfl's
2 cans of Krylon Fusion white
4 cans Krylon Fusion black
1 120mm computer fan
1 4 inch desk fan
1 package of foam weather stripping
1 cell phone charger to wire the computer fan
1 extension cord
1 power strip
1 light timer

I think thats about it. If I remember anything else I will add it.

I plan on lst'ing these to keep the short and to expose more light to the lower part of the plant. Hopefully increasing the yield!

I have noticed today that the leaves of 2 of my plants are curling upward. Nothing is discolored. They look healthy other than the curling. I am thinking this is heat stress. The temp in the box has been staying in the mid/upper 80's. Does this sound like heat stress to anyone else or could this be another problem? I will try to get pics up asap.

Here is a little update on my ladies. They are now 11 days old. How do you guys think they are looking?

Plant A:





Plant B:





Plant C: