Access door(s) in a dual rubbermaid grow

**MisterMan32** · 06-07-2012, 11:47 PM

I'm currently putting together a dual Rubbermaid DWC grow.

Each Rubbermaid is 107l, so fairly large. They are 16.5" tall, 18" deep, and 28 1/2"
wide it is quite a bit longer than tall. I would really like to do a scrog grow, simply to
maximize the amount of horizontal space used.

At this point I have already built a DIY carbon filter of my own design. It is basically
a can filter. Next time I'm at Home Depot I'm going to pick up some 4" straight
ducting and convert it into an inline filter. This will give me a few more inches of
room to play with inside the grow chamber itself.

I have a 150 CFM 120mm fan that will be the main pulling force in the passive
intake system. There are three 2 1/8" intakes

I will be growing two plants at a time, each in it's own 3 gallon bucket. My growing
medium is coco coir.

The nutrients will be the beginner friendly 2-step General Hydroponics FloraNova
Grow & Bloom. For supplements, I have currently have a Vitamin B booster (which
I plan on returning, and purchasing Superthrive instead), and I want to experiment
with food-grade blackstrap molasses ($5.99 from Bulk Barn, I BBQ with it

.

For lights I have 4 2500k 26w CFL bulbs along with 3 6500k 23w CFLs. I am thinking
about buying a 150w HPS, or even a 250w. That will wait till the next grow, but by then
there is a good chance I will have converted a dresser into a perpetual grow.

Speaking of perpetual, I also have an old PC case that I will be lining with black on white
poly to serve as a cloner.

Anyways, I've put together an album (@ http://imgur.com/a/HjrRy ). Check out the pics!
I will have more coming shortly, my cell phone is dead at the moment. As of right
now, one half of the box has been retaped, it is much cleaner now. The 3 fans will be
beside the passive air intakes, directing air into the lower foliage of the plants once
they are trained into the screen.

I'm not sure what breed the first two will be, I will be getting two clones. After that, my
first seed grow will be AK-48 and Lemon Skunk.

For my DWC setup, I purchased an Elite 802, along with a 10g 'AirPod' from Pet Land
which I'm not sure whether I should return or not. I was thinking of using it for my
cloner. I just bought plain round air stones, I think I will buy a bigger one.

Edit:

I just realized I forgot to talk about my main issue: having a good space for working
with the plant while training it to the scrog. To try and solve this issue, I've thought
about cutting most of two sides off, then attaching them again to be hinged. After that
I would attach a flap. This would be nice, as I could open up an entire side of the container.
I'm just worried that making these extra cuts might let a lot more air in to the box. To
account for this I made one less intake hole then I should of. Will this be feasible?

I should have results by tomorrow.

**problemsolver** · 06-08-2012, 12:39 AM

To be honest, I stopped reading as soon as you wrote "...food grade blackstrap molasses...". That's a negative. Although, I will strongly advise to use it in the final flush ( if you choose to do a reduced ppm flush cycle in the last few days before harvest, do it with 300ppm molasses/75 ppm of your part a+b, I get excellent results with this flush recipe and I've tried so many different flush regimens, my meter is a hanna with a .5 conversion so if you use a .7 conv. meter just multiply those numbers by 1.4 ). DWC ( and aerogardens for that matter) do not respond well to organic ferts. I always had hell to pay when I ran organics in any of my dwc grows ( 2-twin rubbermaid 12 gallon tote mini cabs, 2-44gal rubbermaid brute pails and 6-20 gallon rubbermaid brute dwc at the moment). My theory on this is the high aeration of dwc combined with organics giving too much of a foothold to the brown slime menace, which I cured by purging organic nutes (except for the flush cycle, because they are going to be chopped within 3 days anyway so bacteria is not a problem) and switching to my generic GH lucas ratio regimen ( ie inorganic (not to be confused with synthetic, thats a horse of a different color) ).

**problemsolver** · 06-08-2012, 12:47 AM

I'm back. You don't have to do this yet, unless you feel like making a mistake. Purchase a 50-100 watt Danner Pondmaster air pump along with a minimum of 2-8" round aluminum oxide air stones per rubbermaid tub. This is the gold standard of aeration.The stuff can be sourced from drsfostersmith.com and found in the pond links of that website. Anything less is actually much less than ideal. I've used every aeration configuration imaginable. This is the only aeration combo that makes brown slime non existent without the use of microbes. I have never seen brown slime since using this bubbling equipment, only bleach white submersible wigs.

**MisterMan32** · 06-08-2012, 01:31 PM

All I want to do with the molasses is use it for a pre-harvest flush. I would also like to try just sugar.

I will not be buying another pump in the forseeable future. To combat brown slime (if we get it) I
have been looking in to using H2O2 treatments

**MisterMan32** · 06-08-2012, 02:45 PM

So does anyone have an idea about how to make 2 little doors on the rubbermaid air-tight?

Here are some pics I snapped just now.

This where I would like to be able to get at the insides of the box from. The top part will also have a hatch.

This is the top part

Where the hatch will be on the back side of the bottom container

Another shot

From the inside

A look at the containers on top of each other, with my sketch of how I would like them to go together

Any ideas on how to get them to stick? I ordered some velcro off of eBay, and
I have some magnets sitting around somewhere