36 replies to this topic

[Jrotten]

I’m curious who has set up purpose built grow spaces for their hobby. Something like dedicated rooms with air filtration individual separate temperature and ventilation control etc? If so do you separate grow spaces from work spaces? Agar from spawn etc etc. when I get the last phase of home remodel done I’m seriously considering using the space I have now that needs at a minimum walls torn out into an insulated space where I can do something like recirculated hepa filtration with a fresh air intake, simple temperature control and possibly filtered positive pressure as well, then house storage for colonization and a greenhouse. It all sounds more complicated than what I have in mind and I have the tools, most of the skills and access to the specialty materials necessary to do it all.

It just seems so much easier to repurpose surplus material and have a functioning clean space than constantly be dicking with what I have to work with now and the space, basically a large outdoor “closet” needs the drywall replaced already. Insulation and air handling in such a small space seems trivial and hackable at that point.

Am I just being stupid?

Edited by Jrotten, 05 January 2021 - 12:16 AM.

[groo]

I have a 36x72 laminar flow hood and like 4 others, learned AC duct diy bending am planning on building an anti chamber, see trough window, waterproof scratchproof laminate or cleanroom epoxy special filtaction and like 4 prefilters on the filter and that one also provide positive pressure. I have 3 cleanroom suits which i suggest everyone get one. They are about $20 and are washable permanently.. Washable and they are fabulous.  I mostly wanted a bad ass lab and kept calling this space my clean room it will be more of a clean room soon. I also wanted to develop cultures and sell things on the www. So from the 2nd beginning I planned to have a space that could easily produce producables.

 

As for fruiting mushrooms, my growroom is the great outdoors. Mostly I grow Gano L Combs T. Shitake, Golden oysters all might take a lc squit in a 5 lb bag and let to colonize then used as inserted plug spawn  covered with wax

[TVCasualty]

I’m curious who has set up purpose built grow spaces for their hobby. Something like dedicated rooms with air filtration individual separate temperature and ventilation control etc? If so do you separate grow spaces from work spaces? Agar from spawn etc etc. when I get the last phase of home remodel done I’m seriously considering using the space I have now that needs at a minimum walls torn out into an insulated space where I can do something like recirculated hepa filtration with a fresh air intake, simple temperature control and possibly filtered positive pressure as well, then house storage for colonization and a greenhouse. It all sounds more complicated than what I have in mind and I have the tools, most of the skills and access to the specialty materials necessary to do it all.

It just seems so much easier to repurpose surplus material and have a functioning clean space than constantly be dicking with what I have to work with now and the space, basically a large outdoor “closet” needs the drywall replaced already. Insulation and air handling in such a small space seems trivial and hackable at that point.

 

 

Ideally yes, you would separate work space from clean-room space. And clean room space from fruiting space. Commercial spawn producers and growers are generally completely separate operations (and companies). Mostly we can't do that kind of thing at the "hobby" level because we lack the room or budget to build an addition on to our house.

 

What kind of growing system will be used in the room? Fruiting in trays/bins or using the whole room as one big fruiting humidified chamber? Drywall would not be ideal for the latter, among other considerations. You can also do things to treat the studs, etc. before enclosing them that will help prevent mold problems. I use this stuff wherever I can: https://mycotopia.ne...evention-spray/

 

In most climates cooling the space will be much more challenging than heating it, mainly because air conditioners are also inevitable mold factories (even mini-splits, though they are far less problematic than typical central HVAC systems, and window units are the worst of all). I can envision a way to cleanly cool a grow space in a subtropical climate (if it works in that climate it'll work anywhere) but it would take a lot of work and be fairly expensive to build and operate.

 

I found it easier to just shut down all indoor projects through the Summer where I live (or whenever I'd need to start cooling the space). The last thing I try to do before shutting down is make a bunch of spawn for outdoor beds and then focus on those until Fall. I would design it so that the only air handling equipment involved is the flow hood and a positive-pressure HEPA filter for the room. It might be easier to clean and maintain if the walls were FRP rather than drywall, but that gets expensive fast (though like other prohibitively-expensive stuff that makes life easier it's REALLY nice to have). The best floor IMO is concrete sealed with epoxy paint (the 2-part stuff sold for garages works great). A linear floor drain would be pure decadence; imagine being able to quickly hose down or pressure-wash your grow room (use a small electric pressure washer for that!) vs. mopping...

 

For heat I use an oil-filled radiant heater plugged in to a much more precise temperature controlled relay (the thermostats on the heaters are worthless). This controller has never let me down, and I can keep a fairly well-insulated room to within ~5 degrees of my set temp (I wired two of them into heavy duty extension cords so that they're portable, and I added a GFI to one that I use outside with my steam pasteurizer [photo])

 

Purpose-built space is an awesome luxury to have, so long as you define it's purpose very specifically so it's built for the actual purpose (how you grow) it will be put to.

 

To design such a space I map out every single step of how I grow from spore to harvest, and see if the space allows me to design an efficient workflow that saves time and effort. I go through the motions in my mind and see if there are any ways to make things easier (and to ensure I'm not designing myself into any corners).

 

Something else to keep in mind is that it's worth doing whatever it takes to avoid the presence of any stairs in your process (even just one). I dealt with that for years, and even though it only involved two steps between where I set up my PCs and the hallway to my clean room, it was a huge PITA every time since I use the big AA941's which are about ~80lbs when full and I had to carry two of them (one at a time, lol) up those stairs while they were still hot and under some pressure, which was probably a pretty dumb thing to do considering what could've happened if I'd dropped one. It's really nice and exponentially safer to use a cart to move large scalding-hot pressure cookers around. Or even small ones, frankly.

 

 

This all might be crazy overkill but it wasn't apparent what scale you intend to grow at, and this reply was largely focused on medium to large grows ("large" being relative to a residential setting, so for example more than 4-5 bins but fewer than 40 or however many is too many to keep up with by yourself; growing more than that is better accomplished with a full-scale commercial-style climate-controlled grow room).

[Jrotten]

I have no intention at this point of growing at any sort of commercial scale. What I do enjoy is experimenting with multiple species. It would be nice to be able to do everything in close proximity if not the same actual space. Fruiting in a Martha and tubs in a temperature controlled space would be a luxury at this point.

I have a rough idea, but I am curious what everyone else is doing. I have a bathroom and bedroom to fit and rebuild before that even becomes a possibility

[TVCasualty]

I have no intention at this point of growing at any sort of commercial scale.

 

That's what most of us said when we started...

 

It's nice to build with an eye towards future expansion, and building it during other renovations can be an opportunity to wire or plumb what you might need or might prove very convenient to have for your grow room. Branching off of water, drain, or electric lines while the walls are off anyway is a rare luxury.

 

Tapping into the fart fan duct in the bathroom for the outflow of your positive-pressure system might help with stealth as well as convenience (that air has to go SOMEwhere; in mine I let it vent through the gap at the bottom of the door which always had a slight, gnat-repelling and easily-noticed breeze coming out of it). Don't forget to add a one-way check valve in the right spot so it doesn't vent into the bathroom. Now's the time to figure that stuff out.

 

Without more specifics about scale and budget my mind tends to wander off into fantasies of ideal grow rooms that go big, and budget be damned.

 

Good luck!

[Jrotten]

Yeah trying to stay out of daydreams... i can dream BIG!

[SMOKIEDABEAR]

I just started with mid west og grow kit then after 135 days fruiting off those brf cakes. I got a indoor green house from Amazon $45 black out cover$25 humidifier that has humidistat$12.50 @Goodwill 40+uncle bens ready rice type uncle ben's tec spores from ur preferred vendor and a Bluetooth thermometer and humidistat $10 "best purchase" logs every ten min for over3 years. not big but big for me,O_o

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Edited by SMOKIEDABEAR, 12 January 2021 - 07:17 PM.

[Jrotten]

Nice. I really like those meal prep containers. I’ve been using them for pans and will probably switch everything over to them. I’d like 8 cup versions if I could find them.

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[rockyfungus]

My wife just allowed me to use some of our old meal prep containers, luckily a few Chinese places around here use them for takeout too.

[jrh]

Did some searching

 

These are $0.80 / container

https://www.mrtakeou...PQaAiPcEALw_wcB

 

Other vendors

https://www.shopatde...iant=3597802113

https://www.walmart....dSellerId=15238

 

Different shape... more like a square bowl, lids sold separately

https://www.webstaur...k/999B64SB.html

 

These look nice, but not as stackable

https://www.foodserv...e-23021075.html

Edited by jrh, 13 January 2021 - 06:26 AM.

[Jrotten]

NICE!

[smellitstinknot]

No reason you cannot do all operations in the same room. I have a small 12x12 room for all my work and fruiting experiments. One thing I will say is make sure to keep your humidity localized to your FC. I strive for a low humidity environment for sterile work since I don't want mold growing on everything. Still the fruiting chamber must maintain a high humidity and FAE in the same space. Not so much an issue when growing cubes since they need next to no FAE but for oysters you may need to consider the scale of the operation

Edited by smellitstinknot, 14 January 2021 - 01:40 AM.

[jrh]

NICE!

 

Assuming you don't need 100 - 200 of these, depending upon how much of a pita it is for you, there's always the option of getting yourself a case and offloading the rest to interested parties here for the cost of shipping and your time.

[SMOKIEDABEAR]

Here are my first buddies from my first all self-sourced grow attempt the only thing I purchased pre-packaged was spores thanks for all your support wish me luck

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[SMOKIEDABEAR]

All right here's day 2.5 can anybody tell me why I have side pins and primordia growing from the bottom of my cakes I thought black like trash bag lined or painted at the bottom of the containers made it so the shit did not side pin and I have quite a few coming out on the sides and what looks like the bottom I might have to take them out of there trays but I'm not sure yet

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Edited by SMOKIEDABEAR, 15 January 2021 - 11:35 AM.

[Jrotten]

Light is a directional trigger and has nothing to do with pinning. You have side and bottom pins because that is where conditions are ideal for pinning. Using a liner in the tray, even clear, that sticks to the sub as it shrinks from tray will prevent that. Basically you have better conditions on the sides and bottoms than the top.

[TVCasualty]

IME light does have something to do with pinning. It's been the only difference I've noted between trays that fruited on the bottom vs. trays that didn't.

 

Clear plastic acts like a fiber optic cable, so blacking it out has to be total for it to prevent side/bottom pins (not just one side of the plastic). And preventing side pins is almost impossible even in totally black trays since substrates shrink and pull away from the sides, creating ideal fruiting conditions.

 

The good news is that side/bottom pins and fruits aren't really that big a deal to worry about, just try not to destroy your sub when harvesting them if you're trying for more flushes.

[DarkNchildlike]

Hey jrot- hey tvcausality- ive only read the first few posts here so far. Very interesting I always learn new things reading either of you cats threads. I been gone a year am back and I too am trying to figure some space issues out. I'm doing a dumb thing and planning to do a Martha / jartha set up with a hepa filter installed in the top of the unit with a bathroom vent fan blowing out the bottom so as to keep any competitor molds out if I can.

Problem is, hence the stpuidity, is that a room or two down in the same domicile another cat is veg'ing out some pot plants and will be turning his space into a two chamber veg / flower area, and so,. There will be alot of contaminants coming from down the hall,.


We were thinking about maybe we can put either my jartha inside a very much larger tent space with some sort of filters on those and I would do some totes / work area in there with some sort of awesome filters on the big grow tent we have thats meant for bud or conversely we will put all of his projects in tents with filters pointed out,.

I dont know if this new habitation will be conducive to anything long-term at all but I just want to do it until I can move everything elsewhere.

What is your all advice? I know this really isnt a good idea but its what ive got to work with atm,. Oh and by the way. I usually use the martha/ jartha for pans but will probably just do tall mycobags squeezed togetger in there of cubes because they would br least susceptible / more hardy in said environment I believe?

[Jrotten]

I use a vacuum hepa filter to pump all the air into my FC which is just in the garage. I got the idea from Jake who had a picture of it in his positive pressure space. I also add a little pool shock to the reservoir every other, every couple refills. I got the idea from a research paper on bacterial blight treatment in commercial cultivation. I have also become a believer in pickling lime added straight to a casing 1tsp/cup of peat. My FC thread goes back years, TVCasualty has forgotten more than I‘ll ever know so if he contradicts me and I don’t argue I’d listen to him, and finally check out Jake’s JOC and lab threads for the filter I’m using. It’s a Honeywell cardboard job from Home Depot about $20. It has to be used upstream of any humidity sources because it’s just paper.

I’m either guessing or copying somebody in everything I do. Don’t confuse my success with knowledge! Lol

https://mycotopia.ne...ete-pix-inside/
https://mycotopia.ne...58-joc-pan-tek/
https://mycotopia.ne...t-laboratories/

[DarkNchildlike]

Hahaha this. Yes lol same here. When I switched to pans I seen what jake was doing just did what an man done do lol so lucky that there are ppl willing to put in hard work, ayyyeeee.. ;) but all kidding aside thats good advise I got alot of catching up to do on the copes reading mainly but in general ofcourse.

The positive pressure thing is the opposite of the old idea of the joc chamber than? I have the bare hepa filter ductaped in the top, humidity hosed in on the actual ceiling of chamber and fan pulling / pushing air out of the bottom.. Its kinda the same idea using the filter but its not because this isnt actually positive pressure right? How does your system fair compared to before? Are you experiencing better rates of contamination doing thus?