Built new grow box today

[NoVa Hothead]

Here's a post from my blog yesterday, explaining what we're doing:

I'm going to be using a steel commercial shelving unit for a grow box, it has a shelf size of 48" x 24", so I'll be able to get up to four standard nursery flats in it with room to spare. The unit I picked up is 72" tall, and can be broken down into two 36" tall units, which is what I'm going to do. My brother in law and I are doing this together, so one grow unit will be at his house, and one at mine, which will help split the workload, the cost, and ensure a backup supply of plants in case of some catastrophe.

For each shelf, we'll be adding casters to the bottom to make them mobile, and using cardboard covered with mylar on the sides. I bought some 120MM electronics fans with AC cords on them for air circulation, and we'll be putting two in each grow box, one on each end at about one third up and the other at two thirds up.

For lights, I picked up four 48" double T12 workshop fluorescents and 6500K bulbs, two for each grow box. I spent a lot of time debating using T5HOs, but in the end, the cost per unit of the T12 won out. In order to get four 4' bulbs in each grow box, we would have been spending upwards of $150 per grow box for the fixtures. I got the T12 units for $9.74 apiece at Lowe's, plus $20 for ten bulbs. So, we're spending just $60 to get the lights into the boxes instead of $300 or more. In the end, we're only using the grow boxes to start the plants, and they'll be going outdoors, so I think that getting the T5HO wasn't really necessary.

Here's a photo I just took with the first view of one of the new boxes:

 

[jjs7741]

Looks good. I am using a similar set up in my garage, except I have all the shelves stacked up and am using 2 of the 5 shelves for plants and the others are for storage. That gives me room for 144 plants total. May have to open another shelf for more plants though. I am also using 3 4' lights per shelf. I already have the lights up, but I still have to box it in. Already got the seeds planted so I need to get to that soon. Maybe tomorrow.

jacob

 

[rshortt]

Great, guys!

I picked up a small heater / fan combo for mine on the weekend, the only problem is there isn't much room for it with 2 shop lights since my shelf is 19" deep. I was going to use is in my seed starting level since my basement is cold.

 

[Skydiver]

I'm debating whether or not to post pics of the abomination I just built.
It's probably going to be functional, which is all that counts, but wow is it ever ugly.
Used a 40 year old diner table, 1 48" two bulb fluorescent light, and these sheets of stryrofoam insulation panels to make it a box of sorts.
Placed it in the "re-doing my basement but ran out of energy so it's a half torn apart mess" room in my basement.
It's not pretty lol.

I'll see about getting pics in a few days after I try to pretty it up some.

 

[jjs7741]

As long as it works that is all that really matters. Last year my set up was worse than an abomination. Trust me. It was thrown together at the last minute due to moving. This year is better, but still needs more work.

jacob

 

[NoVa Hothead]

Jacob - Your shelving unit is the same model we used to make ours. We chose to make two units out of it, with an inside height of about 35". I figure that some of our plants might make it into 1 gallong pots before we put them outdoors, so we made ours taller to accomodate that potential.

Skydiver - In the end, a grow box is what you want it to be. We probably overengineered ours a bit, but that's okay. Both my brother in law and I have kids in the house, and I have two cats, so we wanted ours to be something that would be more difficult to damage/destroy and could protect seedlings with those kinds of potential impacts around. So long as it works, don't worry about what it looks like!

rshortt - Have you though about putting it outside the box and ducting the output into your grow box? I wasn't sure if I was going to have to do something similar, as my garage is too cold for good growth, and the fluoros aren't going to produce enough heat to warm the box up. However, my wife just agreed that I can put it in the rec room of the basement!

 

[rshortt]

Duct work... there's an idea. I'll have to give that some thought. Mine's in a finished area of the basement so the temps aren't too too cold. I have the thermostat set to 19 celcius but that could get costly over the winter.

 

[jjs7741]

I'm hoping to keep mine in the 3.5" pots. That's one reason for the extra light per shelf: to keep them from getting too leggy. The chinense will be about 12 weeks from sowing at my plant out date, so I should be ok. I wish my wife would let me use a room in the house. Right now my grow area is in the garage where the temps will get down to the mid 40's.

jacob

 

[Skydiver]

Behold, Frankengrow.

At least it's on a chain so I can raise and lower it.
It's ugly as hell, but if it works, then I can live with it until I finally finish refurbishing that basement room and pretty-fying things up.