advice needed on building grow-light shelves

[farmerlor]

Cool, Ticks, did you make that? Yes, it is what I meant, only bigger, as my light is bigger and has chains.

But not as big as farmerlor's!!!! A whole ROOM!!! Hmmmm..... HMMMMM..... Guess what is gonna happen to my upstairs bathroom... Except the hose

Do you ever need to put the lights up all the way to the top? And how wide are the shelves, meaning, how wide an area can the lights cover?

By the way, farmerlor, I have some more pork on the stove right now with your cream of mushroom soup simmering. DH and I are both drooling in anticipation!

Yeah, I've got 500 plants down in my grow room right now! It's the coolest thing ever. We almost always get some kind of stupid weather that delays my hardening so my plants end up staying in the grow room until they're about 15-18 inches tall. The shelves are about 2 feet deep and the lights do a good job of lighting everything and I try to move them all around so they aren't leaning one way or another.
You could get one of those hoses and put it on the bathtub faucet ....it's got a handy little stick with a shower head thing on the end and a handle to turn it on or off.
Glad you're enjoying the soup, I had some plain cream of mushroom soup with some rice and cheddar cheese tonight. It was excellent.

 

[kaycei]

Here's the set up I have. My limiting factor has been temperature, since the set up is in our unheated basement, hanging out around 50 degrees.

I have 2 4' long fluorescent bulbs in each light, adjustable chains. They hang a couple inches from the top of the plants. Everything is staying a live; the salad greens and peas are doing well.

If you want to do a shelf set up, I'd recommend calculating the highest growth you expect from the plants, and then adding 6 inches onto that for the light fixture. Use that number to decided how far apart the shelves should be.

With florescent lights, they are going to need to be close to the plants.

 

[freemotion]

Wow, that helps, thanks farmerlor and kaycei!! I planted all my 26 filled six-packs (I was impressed with myself yesterday, now I feel like I have some catching up to do! ) and I will make my shelves a bit wider than I originally planned, which will accomodate more seedlings.

I have a sneaky little feeling that I will find myself a bit unprepared for the growth, and might find myself hurrying to set up more lights in mid-May, because the seeds and pots seem so tiny today! And I've always worked with the great outdoors and garage and porch before.

This will be fun. I live within shouting distance of a major greenhouse that sells garden plants for about three months then closes for the year, so I have back-up!

 

[Beekissed]

Free, I haven't got a photo yet, but will try to do so this week. My lights are suspended about a foot above the trays. The whole unit is about 5'10'' tall, 3 shelves of 1.5 ft. (allowed 6 in. for the lights) which makes my lights about a 10-12 in. above the trays. My shelves are about 1 ft. and 5 ft. long.

I can fit five trays sideways on each shelf, with some 6 in. leeway on the ends. My trays overhang the shelves by about 3 in. on either side. I have a large reflector panel made of cardboard and tinfoil hanging on the outside edge and a light-colored wall on the other side. I built it right next to my chimney where it will get a warm, radiant heat if its cold weather and just be about 70 any other time.

I was being very frugal with materials, so my shelves don't have bottoms, the whole things is just framework and I put stiff cardboard under the trays to keep the moisture from dripping down onto the lights suspended below each shelf except the bottom one.

It will be more clear when I get a pic. I expect the light clearance will allow my taller plants to reach 10-12 in. before having to be removed. Since this is about the right height for hardening up, I think this will work out fine. If I had had more money, I would have built the shelve a little wider, as the narrow construction caused me to anchor it to the wall for stability.

 

[freemotion]

That helps! Every opinion is giving me another valuable snippet of information.

I am building mine from a scrap pile, so I can build it as wide, long, high.....well, not high, maybe, these are scraps, after all!

My design suddenly got wider. Reflectors? Great idea. That is probably why you can have the lights higher than the others?

My house is kept pretty cold, so I think the upstairs bathroom with a little heater with a thermostat will be perfect. The heat will barely have to come on, as the lights should create a small amount of heat.

I can hardly wait!

eta: Just read breconbcs journal, and there is a great picture of a grow light shelf, so here it is, on post # 11, for all the lurkers and members who are following this thread to build one, too: http://www.sufficientself.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=47812#p47812 Thanks, breconbcs!

 

[patandchickens]

Anyone want to suggest a width, how wide an area the light can handle?

You can't really put the seedlings much beyond the edge of the shoplight, IME. If you are really desperate you can put them a *little* beyond, like a row of cellpaks whose one edge is right under the edge of the shoplight fixture and the other is thus maybe 4" beyond it... but even if you put a reflector out there (I use old ugly white lace curtains ) those plants will still get somewhat stretchy and unhappy. Really, the effective area of a shoplight is not much more than its own footprint, you know?

As for catproofing, if you have to start seeds upstairs, your best friend is a reliably closed door Seriously. I have tried many other schemes myself, and have given up and use the basement now because the cats are just too determined. Possibly you have a better grade of cat LOL but, good luck

Have fun,

Pat

 

[freemotion]

Thanks for your experience, Pat, my shelves just got narrower again!

No such thing as a reliably closed door in my house, where even big signs at eye level go unnoticed....