First Cheap Grow Set Up

[Helldozer]

Thanks again for the suggestions. Per the comments and suggestions here and throughout the forum I've put together a little grow area, for a fairly inexpensive price. Below are a few quick pics.

The sad part is that a day before I did this, I lost one of my Trinidad Scorpion seedlings. It had a couple of rust spots on it, and yesterday the two seedling leaves just fell off.

 

[sicman]

looks nice good luck with the grow

 

[DonLava]

looks good.

 

[Maxsack331]

looks good, looks just like mine lol, except I have a different type of shelving from walmart (I think yours is from walmart too) and I have CFL lights instead of the tubes.. which when you get more plants or when these seedlings get bigger could add with a workshop light fixture if you like (the ones with the reflector domes on them and clamps, but I just use the socket part and hang them from the top)

also if you have that near a window (doesn't look like it, but would add a good amount of light to it) you can use a clear plastic sheet, I found a bag that I had from something that I got in the mail I think, but I cut it and hung it from the top to keep the heat/moisture in and still let light in, could also use that painters plastic. and then I put an emergency blanket from walmart folded in half since it was really big and made it less transparent (it is really thin) and put that over the plastic so when I didn't have it open facing the window I could reflect more light back in, but I could also pull it up and out of the way whenever I needed to get at the plants, I just tape it to the shelves when I'm not using it to keep it from blowing around, and keep the warmth in like I said before

here is a pic of my setup that i took really quick (don't have anything up top anymore, just some stragling seedlings in the bottom, but will start another 20 seedlings by the end of the week) and there it is kind of patched together because origionally it was just the top shelf, then I needed more room so added the bottom shelf and the reflective insulation and all that around it but, good luck with the grow!

 

[AlphaHydroponics]

Rick,

Nice set up on the cheap. Looks nice and clean. Looking forward to more pics of your grow as it moves along.
Sorry bout your T. Scorp. I always plant in (minimum of) threes, so i dont feel bad if i lose one or have to yank it.

 

[Helldozer]

Rick,

Nice set up on the cheap. Looks nice and clean. Looking forward to more pics of your grow as it moves along.
Sorry bout your T. Scorp. I always plant in (minimum of) threes, so i dont feel bad if i lose one or have to yank it.

Thanks Max, Alpha, everyone. Appreciate it. It's tough to plant more than I need. I'm stingy with my seeds and I don't like killing them off if they are growing. Fortunately, this was one I planted two of. So, let's hope the other holds up.

@Maxsack - I don't have a cover on the front, and the backside is against the window. I believe it's a west facing window, so not much sun there at all. I'm tracking the temp and the range for the top seedlings are 68F at night (6 hours) to 81F during the day (16 Hours). I don't think it actually is 68F for the entire 6 hours. It probably tapers off overnight.

In other news: My Red Manzano is sprouting in the middle shelf (plastic cup).

 

[Maxsack331]

@Maxsack - I don't have a cover on the front, and the backside is against the window. I believe it's a west facing window, so not much sun there at all. I'm tracking the temp and the range for the top seedlings are 68F at night (6 hours) to 81F during the day (16 Hours). I don't think it actually is 68F for the entire 6 hours. It probably tapers off overnight.

yea, it was just a suggestion that might help out, if some of them don't germinate very fast, or you just feel like it one day, the cover/emergency blankets at least are $3 from walmart, I had to order mine online, but the shipping was free to store.. and just picked them up when I got the email. Helps reflect a lot of light back which is nice when they get bigger

 

[Siliman]

Man, this setup would be a big improvement over what I've got! I like the use of the foil bubble wrap, that is really going to make it efficient holding light and heat. My only suggestion for down the road is to consider putting two light fixtures per shelf. This will give great lighting for 2 full trays. The 'footprint' of the flouros is pretty much the size of the fixture, so if the plant isn't directly under, it will tilt sideways toward the light.

Now, you just need to rig a fan somewhere. I mentioned in your other thread I use an 8-inch oscillating fan with a clamp. At 10-watts its a little underpowered, but it serves one shelf area okay. Hopefully others can give you more ideas about fans.

...also if you have that near a window (doesn't look like it, but would add a good amount of light to it) you can use a clear plastic sheet...

Excellent idea, Max. My goal is to also "shelf up" like you guys in about a month, and I do have a south window in mind...

 

[Maxsack331]

^^ that is actually almost exactly what I did, I got the $20 shelf from walmart which I like because it has solid shelves and it seems flimsy, but once you put it all together and put some plants in there, it is as solid as you need it to be.. and as long as you don't go running into it, your fine lol.

that picture was after I moved most of my plants downstairs, so I moved my little 6" oscillating fan down there too (I want to get a 12-14" oscillating fan eventually for downstairs since my grow tent is 6x6', but I'm broke and don't really need it now) and i just set the fan to go on for 15-30min a few times a day.. with one of those manual timers I get with the HID light kits, I can set it for 15min every hour, but when I had them in the shelves, I only had a power strip with 7 settings, so I would set it for 30min 7 times a day when the lights were on.

and I personally like the use of the CFL lights like I had just because you get more light per space, on my, first, top shelf I had 3 CFL lights and a little strip light on the back wall area, which wasn't very useful, but the CFL lights are great, and if you center them it works perfectly..

I will post a few pics of my setup I had, I think I had more pics in Matt's thread when he was setting things up still.. and it shows my progression for the shelf from when I first started out and my final product.. but I will post some pics of what I had in the end, I think I have them around.. it gives more than enough light.. and with the plastic cover in the front, it holds in heat very well, and when it is sunny out, I had about 30-50,000 lumens (which is wayy way more than any of the seedlings will need but it was nice.. free light hah ), and with the plastic cover and the emergency blanket covered up the light reading was around 15-25,000 lumens, depending on where the plant was in the area..

the difference is that my top shelf had 3 CFL lights, but 2 were 3 ways which were 150w equilivant (had to buy a 3 way switch to make them put out their full power) and the bottom shelf I have 4 100w equivalent CFL lights with more seedlings... I should move them slightly more center, but they are fine, I will do it before starting them next year, since most of my seedlings are done and down in the grow tent.. and all the CFL lights are 6,500k

Bottom shelf with seedlings

Top shelf with the 15 plants I had started early

here are all the timers and stuff I had there lol.. you can't really see the fan there, and this is before I got the emergency blanket, I just had white plastic garbage bags over the clear plastic covering

here you can see the fan, tried to keep as much air in there.. it circulated plenty, there was enough room on the top of the shelf to let air flow out, and some areas in the bottom and the sides where air could flow in.. mostly a procuct from just having the top set up at first, then later settings the bottom shelf and insulation up.

and here is a pic from the other side when it was in the other room before I moved it out in front of the 3 south facing windows, to give you a better idea of the whole setup

 

[Helldozer]

Nice setup Max! Wow, nice cheap shelf. I just paid $79 for mine.

Question about lighting. I will be upgrading the lower shelf with a 4 light fixture. It will be a T5 setup.

1. My question is why are T5's better than T8's besides efficiency?
2. Also, is 6500k better than 5000k?
3. What range would help the plant flower and produce?

Thanks all for your input and suggestions.

 

[Siliman]

@ Max, I think we've got the same fan. The cage is 8" but fan blades are 6"-diameter. I clamp onto a nearby shelf, but I can see you used part of the shelf to go vertical. Later, I'll expand to 3 T8 fixtures side by side. I can fit up to 5 trays in there since the desk is 20-inch wide.

It was $15 on sale at Shopko. Here's a closer view showing name, wattage, the clamp and adjustable arm:

@ Helldozer, the 6500K range better for vegetative, the 2700K range better for blooming and pods, so I've learned here. Never tried to grow to pods indoors, so I stay 6500 + one older 5000K T12 fixture.

The T5 fixture has a higher initial cost than T8, but the bulbs puts out more lumens per Kilowatt. I've eyeballed them hard. A lot of discussion about those two. Alphahydroponics has a great web site that describes various fixtures as he sells them--maybe he will "enlighten" us if he sees this post. Check out his website Alphahydroponics.com, its a good read comparing stuff.

 

[Helldozer]

Siliman,

If you mix a 6500k and 2700k in the same fixture, I wonder if that would enable the plant to bloom and produce pods. I'm getting a T5 (4 bulb) fixture free, along with some bulbs. I was told I could potentially put 40,000 lumens out, 10 per bulb. Are morel lumens better, or can it be overkill? I'll probably mount it on the bottom shelf and use it for the plants when they are larger.

Ok, just found out the T5's will be 6500k and 5,000 lumens each. I'm guessing that might be good for growing.

 

[Maxsack331]

Siliman, that is the same one, I just grabbed it from the basement, since it was lying around.. my brother had used it one summer at lacrosse camp, and I thought it was the perfect size for my plants haha

I had originally gotten the 2 bulb 4' fixture, but then when I got the shelf, I was thinking.."where the heck am I going to put this thing" and since my house is around 60-65 degrees a lot of the time, I wanted the peppers to be at 80-85, I just switched to the CFLs, which for my cost (since I moved them all down to the bigger grow room with an HID and 130w LED if I need it,) I wanted to stay as cheap as possible on the initial setup.. although the CFL bulbs and the lamp fixtures and stuff were about $100 or so.. they each put out about 4000 lumens for the 150w equivalent and about 2,400w for the 100w equivalent for 6,500k light.

and yes, Helldozer, more light is better, I had my 130w LED light in there in the begining, and had it really really close (like 2") and I was planning on moving the shelf down anyways, but
didn't get to it in time, and all the seedlings turned purple and had 1 or 2 die I think, but almost all of them survived when I fixed it.. but that is with a TON more light that you could ever get with normal flouros.. I measured how much it was with a little light meter I got later and it maxed it out, but it can still read over the 100,000 lumen mark, and it read about 136,000 lumens.. and for a seedling... that was just stupid amounts of light haha.. so that is why I switched to the CFL in the middle.. less cost and plenty of light.. so if your seedling's leaves turn purple, turn one of the bulbs off.. I would actually just suggest starting out with 2 bulbs in the beginning and then once your seedlings have their first set of true leaves, hit them with all 4.. I just have been noticing lately that with all of my bulbs on the seedlings when they first pop up take a little while to start growing well... and the ones that are closer have purpleish leaves.. even when I move the light further away, and it can save you some energy to start off with.

and as far as light, I have read the same thing on here as Silimen has, which is 2,700k is good for flowering and 6,500k is good for veg. but really I have seen that it is more imporant when growing pot and stuff lol, and for peppers, you are better off with the 6,500k lights, and they will grow really well and produce a lot of close nodes and leaves, and still produce pods.. you COULD throw in 1 2,700k light.. but I just think of it as a waste of possible "blue" light, and mainly because I really just want the plants to be big come summer, I stick with the 6,500k lights.. and if they produce pods, then cool... which most of the 14 plants I started out early with that are now in 1 gallon pots are producing flowers now.. I pinched them off at first on my Bulgarian Carrot because someone told me that with C annuum, having pods slows their growth down a good amount.. but there are so many flowers popping up now on all of them, that I just am going to let them go, too many to get at... once a few peppers pop up I will try to control them a little more, but oh well.

point being that yes you can get pods from the "blue" light end.. I had the first few buds when I was in my shelves which I picked off, and now down in the tent my HID light is 400w 4,200k color and they are all producing buds.. although I would really really like to get a DigiLux light which is in 6,500k color and it produces an extra 15,000 lumens for the same wattage which is awesome, but they are about $70 for the 400w ones and I plan on getting a 600w HID kit for the tent once the plants get bigger so I think I will wait until then and get a 600w DigiLux bulb.. and once of course I have some money again.. because now I am broke! hah

always longer than I planned, but I like to be through lol, more info can usually help

 

[Helldozer]

Wow, hehe. Thanks for the information, I appreciate it. I will be getting some T5's that will be in the 30-ish watt range, 5,000 lumens and 6500k. But, as you suggested, I will keep those for the larger plants and put the seedlings under my existing ones...which just have two bulbs.

I posted some photos of my seedlings in this post http://www.thehotpepper.com/topic/27580-2nd-year-growerbut-really-my-first/ . Do you think they are looking purple? BTW, #7 is a Goat's Weed. So, I think that may be its natural color coming through. I never grown one. Should those lights be closer?

Thanks Max for typing all that up!

 

[Maxsack331]

Wow, hehe. Thanks for the information, I appreciate it. I will be getting some T5's that will be in the 30-ish watt range, 5,000 lumens and 6500k. But, as you suggested, I will keep those for the larger plants and put the seedlings under my existing ones...which just have two bulbs.

I posted some photos of my seedlings in this post http://www.thehotpep...eally-my-first/ . Do you think they are looking purple? BTW, #7 is a Goat's Weed. So, I think that may be its natural color coming through. I never grown one. Should those lights be closer?

Thanks Max for typing all that up!

no problem lol, that typing class in high school has paid off more than I would have ever realized! I only wish I could write papers that easily.. although I have yet to really write a paper that I was intersted in, usually just papers that I really don't want to do, but have to

as far as the color of peppers, they don't look purple at all, one of my chocolate bhut jolokias I just transplanted to the grow tent was slightly purple from being right under the light.. and the Tepins were usually the ones to turn slightly purple so I just keep them further in the corners, but you will know when it turns purple.. and as long as the tips and stuff don't start to turn brown or really dark purple/green, almost a blackish color then your fine for the most part, just means that you don't need as much light.

your plants look good so far, to get them to be a little more compact (and it is hard to tell how leggy they actually are in the pic) but like my yellow TS and chocolate bhuts that just popped up, and like I said just moved downstairs into party cups were only about 1-2cm tall before they started their first true leaves(edit, just saw that your have their true leaves just coming out, but when you transplant them into bigger containers, I would personally burry their stems up till the dirt is close to the first set of leaves.. which will help create a strong root system and stem/plant in general). so taller is fine, but when I was growing my mom's tomato plants I used flouro tubes and kept them about 1/2-1" above the plants the whole time.. it will dry the soil out more so just keep an eye on that, but keep them really close.. and with those sticks, you could cut them in half to get the lights closer if you can.. or something like that, as long as the lights don't burn the plants, which if they are not touching the plant, you should see them turn slightly purple before they actually burn..

here is a pic of what mine first looked like when they first turned purple.. I've had "purpler" ones but these were the first when I had them under the LED (which is why it is kind of a pink background.. and hard to actually see the purple in the leaves, but the areas on the leaves that you can see that are obviously not green.. are purple, and when I started freaking out because I wasn't sure if they were going to die or not haha (and actually in person they usually look a little more purple than in the picture, but you get the idea, and you can see that the first leaf on the bottom is just starting to die,)

 

[Helldozer]

Thanks, that's great information. That answered my questions, thanks, appreciate it! I'll move the light closer and see what happens. I'm always jealous of everyone else's plants that look so compact and bushy.

It is hard to tell, but yours does look purple.

Two seperate questions. First of all, how are the Chocolate Bhuts? I just planted a red one, #6 (cap stuck on). It took forever to germinate. Second, how long did it take for your tepins to germinate? I haven't had any luck yet. On top of losing three Red Manzano's. All sprouted, then suddenly died. Sensitive suckers.

Thanks again.

 

[Maxsack331]

lol it's funny because i was looking at everyone's plants on here when I first joined and was thinking.. "how the hell do they get them like that!?" it makes the plants I buy at the nursery look like crap.. but it's really just having enough light and I personally think a lot of it is because of the color of light..(6,500k, or 5000k if you can't get any 6,500k but blue range..)

as far as chocolate bhuts.. I have no clue, this is the first year I have started so early, and I usually just got my seeds from the local store.. which around here was cherry peppers, some type of thai pepper, and some orange habs.. my first year I did get Bulgarian carrots, and I have them again this year because they are so good, and they grow crazy fast.. there nuts.. all of the seeds i planted for them popped up fast. and took off like crazy.

but my chocolate bhuts did take a really long time to come up too, I JUST had 3 pop up last week and I planted them all... probably 3 weeks ago I think, I had 1 come up within 2 weeks think, same with the trinidad scorps I planted, only 2 came up, which is why I am going to do another round of pepper seeds, and watch them more carefully and keep them nice and wet, since the seeds that were left over after most of mine popped I just kind of checked on here and there, but didn't really care, and most of the Jiffy pellets were really dry.

and as far as tepins they came up semi quick, not as fast as the bulgarian carrots or the cherry peppers, but.. I don't know, maybeee.. 1 little over a week? from 1 to 2 weeks.. I found that if I keep the temp around 83-85 degrees and pretty wet, and as long as you don't get mold it should be good..

my Brown Habs are struggling too, I had 3-4 pop up and I think 1 is doing ok now. but that is just because I didn't have great soil in there I think, they were over watered when they had first popped up, so they were not as resilient as my other plants. so those will be some of the seeds I plant again

just for kicks, I took some pics of the grow tent tonight, those first 15 plants I have are in the middle.. can't wait for all those buds to flower and hopefully get some pods.. although I have been reading that I should spray Epson salts, highly diluted on them, (can't remember why) but anyways, I don't think I am going to do that lol, even just 5 of the salt grains in a spray bottle made some of my Caribbean reds top leaves shrivel up a little and form little salt crystals on them.. but luckily they get better pretty quick

(hard to get a good pic and color with the HID light on, but oh well lol, I love seeing these plants grow so well, just really can't wait till they are all big and start producing pods (especially the superhots)

 

[stc3248]

Hell,
Your setup looks great! Low budget is the way to go...you don't need all that expensive equipment to make the plants happy...the two lessons I have learned are you can be thrifty on a lot of stuff, but you have to spend a few $$$ from time to time. I tried several very cheap potting mixes...and got what I paid for on most. The best of the low budget stuff I found was from Kellogg (not the cereal). It is just under $5 per bag and all organic if you're into that. The difference in growth/health of the seedlings in the different mixes was CRAZY! I've since repotted all the other experiments into the Kellogg soil and they are recovering...but they looked almost like they were being raised in nuclear waste compared to the ones in the better soil. Also, it looks like you are using real pots for your starts which is good. I started off with all of my seedlings in party cups like a see a bunch of folks on here doing...but they are top heavy to start with and add a little growth to the equation and it just gets worse. Even trying to be careful with my trays I tipped a few while moving them around, and although I didn't kill any doing it, it was aggravating. I bought a bunch of small square pots that have great drainage, and they were only like 15 cents each, plus they're rock solid on the trays and so worth it in my book.

Good luck with your grow!
Shane