Roast my cheap grow box (or help me make it better lol)

Hey everyone! This is FAR from gold standard, but I am hoping for creative ideas to make it better. Background - I currently live on a tiny island with a couple of stores, so buying (a lot) better shit isn't really an option. We have some stuff periodically, but you just have to go every day to see what they are selling. We aren't allowed to grow outdoors here. This is DECENT bag seed (plus a tomato and a cucumber seedling). I am just trying to get some experience (and fun) in before moving back to Colorado in 2022. This is my second go at it, and my first time with a dedicated space. I got a male to flower in my downstairs bathroom, but it was a pain in the ass, so I think I'll be much happier with this if I can find a way to make it work.

So here it is. 32 Gallon garbage can spray painted inside flat white, and a PVC frame inside of that to hang lights form. I just lift the full garbage can off of the frame to get into it.

Air Flow:
8" fan drawing air out of the top, two 2"x3" passive inlets on the bottom. The temp just under the lights is the same temperature as the room (78-85 degrees - It's the Caribbean and our AC sucks, so temps are never going to be perfect). The temp of the air coming out of the top light trap is about 12-15 degrees warmer than the ambient room temp.

Today I stuck a 4" fan in there to circulate air better. The ribbons in the top of the box moved around without the 4" fan, and the tomato plant was shaking some, but everything else was completely still. I stuck my gopro in there with the 4" fan running, and everything had a nice little shake to it. Should I pull this fan? Should I install it in one of the passive inlets and make it an active inlet?

Light:
I've got 2 65 watt CFLs that I keep in place with a chain and clamp from the fixture. There are clips on the chains, so I can fully adjust the light height. They are on a cheap timer, so I don't have to be home to turn lights on or off.

The passive inlets and the exhaust fan both have cardboard light traps. The bottom has the thickest weather stripping I could find around it. Excuse the absurd amount of duct tape. I used it to seal off all of the light leaks, and from what I can tell, it worked. With the lights on inside of the tent, no visible light leaks out as observed from a dark room. The weather stripping on the bottom lets no visible light through either, but I do have to toss a dark towel over the spot where the power cords come out.




My hope is to use this to grow a single plant. I am hoping to switch to 12/12 at 3 weeks so that I can show sex as early as possible, and flower 1 female plant short enough to stay in the bucket in a plastic 3 gallon pot. If I end up with 2 females, could I put each in a 2 gallon fabric pot? Because I could definitely fit the two 2 gallon fabric pots I have. I've seen videos of people flower in solo cups, so I am guessing it'd be possible. Not ideal, but really none of my situation is. Feel free to roast or offer any creative ideas you may have.



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I’d ditch the frame and hang the lights from the top and the fan from the side. You’re going to need all the space. Don’t point the fan right at the seedlings. They don’t like wind. What K are the cfls. i guess I’d use the cool white through the stretch to keep it short the switch to warm white or one of each. Check out https://www.spacebuckets.com/

Yeah the frame wasn’t in the original plan. You should see what happens to two of those light bulbs when they swing into each other as you lift the garbage can up. I’ve got a way to mount them to the can at the top once the pant grows that tall. That way they aren’t swinging on a chain.

I don’t know what K the lights are. There were only 2 fixtures available, so I grabbed the brightest lights I could get.There isn’t a lot of variety available. I’m trying to get an LED grow light imported, but it takes like 6 months to get stuff here haha.

It may say on the bulb base the K. Are there any street or parking lot lights you could maybe “borrow”?

Now THAT is the type of creative problem solving I was looking for! Thanks!

let your imagination go wild!

good luck man!

I think in that small of a spot, and with heat being an issue. You're going to really need LEDS

Merlin1147 said:

I’d ditch the frame and hang the lights from the top and the fan from the side. You’re going to need all the space. Don’t point the fan right at the seedlings. They don’t like wind. What K are the cfls. i guess I’d use the cool white through the stretch to keep it short the switch to warm white or one of each. Check out https://www.spacebuckets.com/

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lol beat me to it!

maybe make it so the lights are fixed and you can adjust the plant height with risers
My buddies use old DVDS or books or whatever then a catch tray on top of that , then you could just mount the lights to a lid and it wont swing

They are 6500K lights according to the base.

I am just going to keep the frame in until the plant is bigger. It works for the space, is easy to use, and space isn't an issue yet. I have a way to mount the light to the garbage can when the plant outgrows the frame. I just prefer that to stacking a bunch of books or something under it haha.

I am hoping to import an LED grow light at some point, but it sometimes takes 6 months or longer for stuff to get through customs, so I am trying to get family to visit with one in a suitcase. Any advice on an LED that'll fit in a suitcase and work for this tiny space? If I had a single LED, I'd just hang it from the bucket since it isn't going to smash into another swinging light waiting to shatter all over the place.

Nizza said:

let your imagination go wild!

space-buckets

Space Buckets - DIY indoor gardeners

www.spacebuckets.com

good luck man!

I think in that small of a spot, and with heat being an issue. You're going to really need LEDS

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Drooling over this. I miss amazon prime so bad. There are so many cool ideas here! I am going to have to try to modify them to fit whatever I can manage to find during my store rounds haha.

Zspot said:

Drooling over this. I miss amazon prime so bad. There are so many cool ideas here! I am going to have to try to modify them to fit whatever I can manage to find during my store rounds haha.

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Man this design deal is wild. Thumbs up for this recommendation. What a chill ass way to spend the evening? Way too cool!

I think your first step is deciding circular bin vs rectangular. If you have them where you live I would base my design on one of the brute barrel builds or the tuffbox type tote build stacked two high seems easiest

honestly though there are ways to make good grow chambers that aren’t teeny like these with limited materials. If u want to just do it on the cheap with what u got now though man I my will be a fun rewarding experience either way!

I currently run multiple space buckets and my biggest is for flowering, I'd definitely ditch the frame, flip the bin around, use the lid as a way to hang your lights and put and exhaust on them, CFLs put out a lot of heat , LED bulbs work better for these builds.

Cut a hole in the bottom so the pot of your plant can sit under the spacebucket frame. This way you have the entire bucket to train your plant.
Id also stick with one plant under a scrog, just veg a bit longer, after multiple runs with more than 1 plant it's just not worth the hassle in my opinion.

Everybody starts somewhere man and I still have pictures of my EXTRA janky space buckets from recycled parts when I first started, it's still savage but it works. I started with CFLs, moved to LED bulbs then eventually to a cob setup which I will use until it dies.

Bonus pics of my bucket attached.