NEW Closet Set Up for L.E.D. Stealth Grow

Let me start briefly shouting out to all the others that have gone out before me and posted journals, guides and tips. I have lurked and studied for nearly 2 years and finally made the move. I ordered 10 feminized Bubbleicious seeds from Nirvana as well as a germ kit and fert tabs to cover germination and feeding while in vegetative growth.

I decided to go LED simply because this is a stealthy set up without a high power bill or heat and heat signatures that can be picked up easily by police chopper cams. This set up stays at 84 degrees with fans off.

The closet is a walk in, 52" x 72". I am only using 2' x 52", however on two levels. The level below will be air tight and utilize 4 x 40w T8 Cool White 4100k 4' that sit right on top of cuttings or seedlings. The top shelf and the front of the bottom will be finished with insulation board. A 6" duct brings air in from outside closet near floor level. The baffle on the diffuser is adjustable, so I can somewhat control air temp inside by increasing or decreasing air flow. Ventillation will be passive/aggressive with timed air flushes of 10 minutes per hour.

Intake air is drawn in through diffuser by a 6" inline Home Depot duct fan that pulls 160 CFM into the lower veg space. A 6" wall pass through fan will draw exhaust out into an adjoining master bath room near the ceiling.

I've covered the rear wall of grow space with 12" x 12" LED panels bought off of eBay. These things are bright. They were plugged in and tested, then fastened to wall using velcro tape with a super strong adhesive on backs. I have a couple of 120W HTG TRiband LED overhead lights on the way, hopefully by Monday. The walls closet adjoins to are cinderblocks and concrete. Room doubles as a storm shelter.

Comments are very welcome. I intend to clone and grow cuttings below and have 3 cycles flowering above. Please don't advise me to use other lights. I've made the investment and I'll suffer a slightly smaller yield.

I'm using 3 totes that each have 6 6" black pots. Fox Farm soil for vegging plus the sol tab from Nirvana means I can veg for 3-4 weeks without feeding. I'll flush soil when I move to flowering and begin a liquid, low Nitro, high Phospherous diet for the flowering stage.

More to come on the build. Here is what i have so far....


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nice set-up man...im lookin forward to seeing how the plants are gonna grow. LED's are a mystery to me.im subd man and cant wait to see more pics of ur plants.
peace

Thanks. I've gone over this design so many times in my head that this is coming together rather easily. I didn't expect to have to get so much of the stuff from online. I even found a great deal on worm castings shipped right to the door. I'm still looking for a net or mesh to support upper growth. Thought I'd use a chicken wire, but damn it's exoensive.

I'll be starting a journal as soon as Nirvana blesses me with her presence.

np. i hear ya...my setup have gone smooth too, like it meant to happen lol. ive been waiting for HTG to bless my presence with a 150w hps. it came this morning and im so fuckin stoked. you know whats cheaper than chicken wire?.....string, if you can intertwine the string in little squares is works great...been doing that for a while.
ill be starting my 150w journal on my already flowering plants ans soon as i get it setup if you wanna check it out. right now i have my cfl grow if you wanna check that out.
ok peace man

subscribed. good luck.

Thanks guys. I'm waiting on UPS now, they are bringing me intake fans and an exhaust fan pictured here..


I hope to get these and the black out panda poly curtain installed tonight. I might also finish light proofing the nursery below. My HTG 120w overhead won't be here til Monday. I'm debating giving LEDlady some business for the next one, maybe a 206W. I'm not sure yet. Anyone have experience with the HTG 120W 3rd generation overhead? The footprint they suggest seems exaggerated to me. I would not expect a 120w to cover 25' sq for flowering. I hope to update tonight after installing what the UPS man brings me today.

Peace out!

I have the pass through fan installed. It exhausts the upper air in the closet directly into my master bath room. I've decided to go overboard with ventilation, in case I have to switch to hid or mh lighting. My goal is to stick with LEDs and keep the bills down. I have a second inline duct fan on the way, but will hold off on installing it for now. I'm maintaining 82 degrees with the exhaust fan alone. I'll get the nursery light proofed and update again tomorrow after intakes and exhausts are active.. Fingers are crossed for Nirvana delivery soon. One or two of those beauts will become a mom. Here are shots of the wall pass through with 3 prong plug.... Neat way to pass air between rooms.

Love the set up.
Ill be keepin tabs on this one.
Can not wait to see the out come.
--subd--

Power power everywhere. I bought plenty of strips, just not enough extension cords. I need run to Lowes yet again to take care of that.

I did get the intake fan wired and installed to the intake duct. I also cut a vent hole in the top of my shelf to allow air to exit the nursery below and enter the flowering room. The air will be blown across the plant by a 10" wall fan from Lowes and then sucked out by the wall pass through fan that was installed earlier. I think I'm going to put the intake and exhaust on a timer to allow them to run for about 10 minutes per hour. This way, If I do introduce co2 in the future, I'm not wasting it with a constant flow. To be honest, I may use seltzer water in a mister to get co2 into the garden. I do need to do more research on that. I'm not savy about going through sugar and yeast. Several website forums on growing and a couple of devoted magazines all agree that it does work, so I'll be trying it.

AS I wait for seeds and overhead lights, I'm starting to consider how I'm going to introduce water into the garden. I have a master bath right next door to the garden, however our water is very hard. I'm going to read up on rain water harvesting and see about setting up a timed watering system for my soil pots. If I find that too difficult, I will still set up a water reservoir with an air pump and some stones to aerate the water and introduce some oxygen to the roots.

I'm open to any suggestions or ideas or comments on what I've done. This is my first grow set up and I'm excited. I've been waiting and planning for more than 2 years and finally have the means to do it.

sub'ed, Nice setup. I have 4 tri-band panels like that setup in a very small space, are those dual or tri-band? Cant wait to see your results!!!!

The side lighting panels are dual bands from Evo-Lux. The overheads are tri-bands.

The fans are super quiet. I'm sitting right outside the closet and cannot hear them. I have all lights and fans running 24/7 now to ensure their integrity before the grow begins.

I hope you figure out the watering system. Sounds like you have plenty of time since you could always hand water for a bit. It will take a few weeks for the seeds to grow into any decent height plant. One tip I would giv eis make sure you have your lights just a few inches away from the tops of the plants. Adjustable lighting height is a MUST in my mind. I have an LED UFO style light fixed to the the top of my 39" flowering cabinet and the buds don't form if they are too far away. Right now my plants are tall enough to be close to the light, but that is an adjustment I will be making to my grow in about 3 weeks. I will mount all lights onto a board that is suspended by chains that I can raise and lower as needed.

If you have the time, you might want to browse my grow journal (link is in my sig.) I have a few issues that I have battled through that might help you jumpstart your growing career! I have only been growing for a year, so I have lots of "growing pains" that I have documented.

Best of luck!

I have finished the work on the nursery and closed her up.

I ditched the 4100k flouros and went with 6500k cool daylights. A 2 pack at Wally World was only $5.**. What a difference. The Basil plant is eating it up.

The intake and exhaust is finally hooked up to a timer. They run 20 minutes every 2 hours to bring in fresh air.

check out the pics. The insulation board is glowing. The light is passing through a bit, but it's ok. Bottom of shelf will have panda poly and a black out curtain is going up as soon as overheads and fans are in.

The blue storage tote will be my water reservoir. I have an air pump for a 60 gal aquarium and a 2' air stone. I also got a big bag of gravel for the bottom to keep the air stone down and to keep from having to see a bland bottom

Will I need to worry about algae? treat like a fish tank?

Comments, suggestions, flames? All welcome.

luckyskindaguy said:

I hope you figure out the watering system. Sounds like you have plenty of time since you could always hand water for a bit. It will take a few weeks for the seeds to grow into any decent height plant. One tip I would giv eis make sure you have your lights just a few inches away from the tops of the plants. Adjustable lighting height is a MUST in my mind. I have an LED UFO style light fixed to the the top of my 39" flowering cabinet and the buds don't form if they are too far away. Right now my plants are tall enough to be close to the light, but that is an adjustment I will be making to my grow in about 3 weeks. I will mount all lights onto a board that is suspended by chains that I can raise and lower as needed.

If you have the time, you might want to browse my grow journal (link is in my sig.) I have a few issues that I have battled through that might help you jumpstart your growing career! I have only been growing for a year, so I have lots of "growing pains" that I have documented.

Best of luck!

Click to expand...

I appreciate the tip. Since this may be a staged flowering unit with various stages of bud, I'm gonna keep the light height adjustments separate. I will be using a rope and pulley system with wall cleats.

thanks for the help, I'm off to view your grow!

Serapis said:

I have finished the work on the nursery and closed her up.

I ditched the 4100k flouros and went with 6500k cool daylights. A 2 pack at Wally World was only $5.**. What a difference. The Basil plant is eating it up.

The intake and exhaust is finally hooked up to a timer. They run 20 minutes every 2 hours to bring in fresh air.

check out the pics. The insulation board is glowing. The light is passing through a bit, but it's ok. Bottom of shelf will have panda poly and a black out curtain is going up as soon as overheads and fans are in.

The blue storage tote will be my water reservoir. I have an air pump for a 60 gal aquarium and a 2' air stone. I also got a big bag of gravel for the bottom to keep the air stone down and to keep from having to see a bland bottom

Will I need to worry about algae? treat like a fish tank?

Comments, suggestions, flames? All welcome.

Click to expand...

I have found using 1 tsp Hydrogen peroxide/gal of water keeps my algae in check and adds to the root's health. I use it in veg and flowering

I'm interested in how the L.E.D. will work for you. I'm sub'd.

luckyskindaguy said:

I have found using 1 tsp Hydrogen peroxide/gal of water keeps my algae in check and adds to the root's health. I use it in veg and flowering

Click to expand...

That is an awesome tip. I had read that somewhere else before. They said to use food grade? I'm also running an aerator set up and the reservoir is dark. I'm hoping that, and your idea keeps algae in check. I'm getting some buckets for catching rain water. I hope for rain soon or I'll have to start off with store bought distilled.

The closet is nearly complete. Today I installed the flowering chamber fan and panda poly. I also made up a black out curtain using panda poly, an adjustable shower curtain rod and shower curtain rings. I just used a hole punch every 6" and left a 6" flap on both ends in the center. I left 2' on each wall end, and folded it in and stapled it to the side walls. Velcro strips seal the curtain at the center. The top has a piece of plastic stapled to ceiling and pulled down in front to ensure no light gets in.

My next project is to get the water reservoir and aerator set up. If I had any nute and hydro experience, I'd run a drip system on a timer, but I may mix that in with soil. I'm potting soil, however pots will sit on bed of river rock to keep pots above run off. I'll be keeping my eye out for a large tray for an ebb and flow system for my flowering chamber. In the mean time, the water reservoir will serve as an aerator to oxygenate the water for healthier roots. I have a nice long air stone and a 60 gal air pump. I've got 8 gallons of distilled water, so I'm going to set that up right now.

Vertical LED GROW? That looks pretty crazy man. I assume all those lights are running on... 360W of power?

The panels are side lighting. I'm waiting for the overheads to be delivered. The total wattage on the sides is 56w x 2 = 112w. Just keep in mind, as I'm sure you know by looking at your avatar, you can't compare LED wattage with other lights. The LEDs only put off what the plant can use. There is no wasted light, wattage. I'm going to be pruning and topping, possibly installing a screen. I haven't decided yet. The cost on side lighting alone was $225. The overheads are about $700.