How's my growbox? What should I add?

So here's the deal, I've been fiddling around with the idea of growing but haven't had the balls to do it yet. Then one day my homeboy and I split a quarter of some stuff called "berrylishous" (idk if that's really the name) and he found a seed, planted it in some random soil, and called me a couple weeks later. He said it looked like it was dying and may have been overwatered from the rain we'd been getting down in Texas the past few weeks.

I took her (i hope) home, transplanted into happy frog soil, and set her outside after a generous watering to see if she can come back from the shock he gave. There are only two little leaflets popped up from the soil and it's still growing upward, albeit very slowly. The leaflets are brownish and I'll start a separate thread about bringing her back after I finish the box.

I got a free afternoon today and when I got home I scoured my yard for something to grow in and found an old 90s looking fridge to gut. Pulled the interior out except for the cooling plate and hung three 23w 6500k CFLs and one 14w 2700k CFL from the inside. Cut the door up and added two small computer fans for exhaust and one bigger computer fan for intake, then cut up a computer power supply to make a fan controller. I set a wireless thermometer inside and the receiver on top and a manual hygrometer/thermometer on the bottom shelf where the plant will be.

I have some RV sewage hose, unused, that I thought I could run to one of my exhaust fans for my house and use it to pull some fresh air into the box via the intake fan. I can attach it as needed or detach it to make the fridge look less growboxy and more fridgelike. I don't know what else I need to do for this budget grow box to make it suitable to grow.

My upstairs room goes anywhere from 80 to 90 degrees in the summer but with my AC circulating upstairs it usually settles around 80 degrees and I have a drier built into the AC so I can reduce the house's humidity as necessary. What would you guys recommend I do before I bring her into her new home?

I love seeing these grow boxes made of whatever is laying around, awesome. There are a few fridge grows on this forum so check those out. If you're growing a photo you'll have to do something about the light leaks around the fan, my box I made dead spaces opposite the fan with ducting to minimize light leaks. Wish you luck on the grow box, keep posting pics when you start running something!

UPDATE: Just added the hose to the intake so now I can shroud the light from the upper door. I can hook the hose up to my roof vent after I finish making a coupler to my roof vent. How do I know if I'm pulling too much air through? Is it better to have too little or too much? My power supply can hook up to 3.3v, 5v, or 12v rails to alter the airflow.

Unless you're intentionally trying to heat up your box ( E.G. in a cold climate) then you really can't have too much air flow...unless you're plants are being ripped from the grow box and shredded by the immense wind speed. Granted you may have 'wasted' air flow at a certain point, but I digress. You will rarely have 'too much' air flow.

What you would want to add is a carbon filter, there are several DIY solutions floating around. What you might want to add is a second light baffle for the bottom fan. You might want to add more light, more light is usually good, you want to aim for something like 5-7000 lumens per square foot. You also might want to add real fans. Also, why is your intake up top? Heat rises.

Heat rises and cold air brought in from the top cools it. The hose can be brought down to the lower levels of the house for some dense air or hooked up to the fresh air vent in my roof for outside air. Do I not want the heat in my box?

A carbon filter is on my list of add ons. Idc too much about smell right now cuz I live alone in BF Egypt.

My next mod is for find a thermostat or something to maintain the temperature without spending money.

More light coming as the plants grow!

Update: playing around with location in the house to try to stabilize internal temp. I'm getting pretty wild swings from about 71 to 95 degress, yesterday internal temp was 108 when it maxed out, so I moved it next to the AC and started adjusting the thermostat on the AC to help stabilize. 24 degrees variance is way better than a 37 deg variance, but I want it to be about 80 day, 70 night. Looks like temp has a tendency to be too high rather than too low, so I think I'll set the intake hose next to the cold air outlet and see if that helps.
Man winter will be an absolute b!tch to handle temp swings.

Your temps are likely bad because you're using pc fans to push through a duct. Pc fans can barely push air with no resistance at all, with any kind of resistance you pretty much cripple their rated cfm. Think about it, people use 4+ fans just to cool a tiny pc case, you're using 2-3(more like 2) with a less than ideal ventilation structure. (ducting and all that metal/plastic in the fridge inhibiting clean air flow.)

TL: DR- Get a real fan.

Also, lower your expectations. If your ambient temps are 80F then there is virtually 0% chance you can get your grow room at run at 80F unless you run some kind of cool tube with a stupid amount of air flow.

You mean like this? Temps steady at 86 degrees, and I'd rather not get a centrifugal blower if I can avoid it. Also I flipped my fans to make the bottom the intake per suggestion.

Update: The box has been run lights on with no plants for 6 hours since my last adjustment, and it sits at 84 degrees +/- 5 degrees. Keeping heat down seems to be managed with this arrangement. Tonight I'm going to find the best configuration to maintain a 10 degree nighttime drop. I usually sleep in a colder room so sitting it at 75 +/- 3 degrees should work fine, right? Humidity management is going to be next. I suspect using the AC will lower my humidity a little so I'm thinking of using humidor water jelly to maintain a higher humidity.

TheDrewdogg said:

Update: The box has been run lights on with no plants for 6 hours since my last adjustment, and it sits at 84 degrees +/- 5 degrees. Keeping heat down seems to be managed with this arrangement. Tonight I'm going to find the best configuration to maintain a 10 degree nighttime drop. I usually sleep in a colder room so sitting it at 75 +/- 3 degrees should work fine, right? Humidity management is going to be next. I suspect using the AC will lower my humidity a little so I'm thinking of using humidor water jelly to maintain a higher humidity.

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your doing good, keep it up

Another three hours, watching humidity levels, they sit around 30% +/- 5% so I think I'll be fine as it is. Keeping a log of values over the next week while waiting for seeds. :3

ya my grow cab is running right at 44 percent humidity today here in oregon, we are in a mini heat wave its about 82 degrees here right now, and my cree cob lights are only raising the temp 3 degrees over outside, so its 85 in the box, thats with my exhaust fan running at 45 percent, your humidity is in good shape, where you getting seeds from, my last order was from ilovegrowingmarjuana they were good, funny stealth packaging too, the put the seeds in with craft beads, went right thru customs

I bought mine from ILGM too! ^.^

AK 47 feminized. I'm wondering if I can fit two plants in there.

Box update: temperature fluctuations are more infrequent but I just saw a spike at 87 degrees. Turned up the AC thermostat. Looks like it's stable mostly. I think this box is holding up properly. Not bad for a first build.

Seems like temperature swings are surpringly more drastic at night. I'll be dropping fan voltage towards the actual evening hours (not light cycle "nighttime") to compensate for the increase in efficiency my AC picks up as night comes. I might drop the thermostat at night too but I'd prefer to automate it if I could, or find a one size fits all solution.

TheDrewdogg said:

Seems like temperature swings are surpringly more drastic at night. I'll be dropping fan voltage towards the actual evening hours (not light cycle "nighttime") to compensate for the increase in efficiency my AC picks up as night comes. I might drop the thermostat at night too but I'd prefer to automate it if I could, or find a one size fits all solution.

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Sounds good. Are you planning on running lights and night? Because that will help your temps if your "day" cycle is on at night and "night" cycle is during the day. So as long as you can keep your temps below 80 you're golden.

I have it set to 18/6 and lights on during the day to keep my electric bill unsuspicious. Adding 100, maybe 200 watts to my daily lights won't draw any attention from the landlord, who monitors my electrical usage and lets me know when I'm having a power issue (like when I was running 3 heaters) cuz my electricity is included with rent. I found that dropping fan voltage raises the temperature so I might do that at night. Today my ranges are 79 +/- 4 degrees, but it sits more happily at around 80ish.

some advice I was given by some long time growers is 68-85 degrees is fine, my current box is seeing temps in the afternoon of 82 and the buds are rocking along just fine, drys the soil out faster, 90 plus is bad indoors, i guess thats why they recomended 85 and under,, lol, I know some guys have put their air conditioners on a thermonstate placed inside the grow box, and the ac comes on when the box gets to hot, but a dedicated ac is pretty high tech, i love how your making it work with that you got, be all the more fun to smoke it later on

Ahh I see, that sucks the landlord monitors your electricity usage. I suppose it would be suspicious if he saw you were leaving lights on at night. I agree with Tim Fox, it's cool seeing you makes things work with what you got. I'm sure you'll get things dialed in and plants will do well.

Amazing ingenuity dude, keep it up.
I just subbed!

UPDATE: Just picked up some AK47 seeds and I have them sitting in some paper towels germinating. One broke open after just one day so I planted it.

Here we go!

New mods since last post: closed up the airspace around the air conditioned inlet, tonight I'll see if I can run the temperature sensor to inside the box. I kinda don't wanna f*** with it anymore, but I have trouble managing heat with more lights. I picked up 4 more 6500k cfls at 23w but my temps shoot wayyy up when I add even 2 more bulbs. Seems steady with about 100w of cfl, 4 inches from soil, is that enough for a baby?