seeds My little LED seedling grow box :)

[Matty_89]

Hello there!

So, I quickly got this all together the other day while I finally had some free time.
I've used an old wooden reptile vivarium commandeered from a friend, a couple of reptile heat mats with thermostats and 2 RGB LED light panels which are designed to be used when lighting on-stage performers. . . I simply used these because I have access to a fair number of them at no cost to myself .

I've been lazy and set the the lights to 50/50 mixture of red and blue, I understand that this probably isn't the ideal ratio of red:blue but it is one of the presets on the light and it eliminates the need for a external controller...which; again, I do have access to if needs be.
Like I said, I'm lazy and short on time at the moment

Here are a couple of pictures:

 
 
 

 
 

 
 
 


Here are a few cheap tomato plants that I bought just to test the lights out while I germinate all of my pepper seeds. The 2 on the left have been under the lights for a couple of days, whereas the 2 on the right have been sat on a southfacing windowsill...The picture says it all really. The left hand 2 are looking much better:

 
 
 
 
Now, I've just ordered 4 PC fans and a 4 way speed controller to keep the air circulating and to bring the temperature down a bit, even though the heat mats are thermostat controlled, the lights are not...however they only get warm to the touch but not hot in anyway.

I also hope that the fans will strengthen up the plants by providing a little simulated wind
 
 

Please feel free to chime in with any reasonable comments or suggestions

 

[juanitos]

looks good to me, you could just get a cheap 8" oscilating clip on fan like so

 

[Matty_89]

Hey juanitos and thanks for the reply.

I did think about using a small fan similar to that, but I decided that I quite liked the idea of having in-take and exhaust fans bringing fresh air into the box!

I'm not sure how well they will work...or indeed if they will work too well, but I shall give the PC fans a go. 4 of them plus a cheap controller cost me less than £20 so it's no big deal if it isn't the best solution.

 

Oh, and I do realise that the box has sliding glass doors which I could leave open to reduce the temperature however we have a cat who would very much like to climb into the nice warm box and go to sleep...which he has already tried to so several times I don't fancy my little plants getting crushed by this swine:

 
 
 
And I'm pretty sure that this little guy would have a good go at eating them if he got himself into the box:

 

[SL3]

looks good to me, you could just get a cheap 8" oscilating clip on fan like so

Thanks for the Amazon link. One of mine just burnt out and no one carries them until summer time. Score!