Lighting questions/Growhouse ideas

[JohnAndSancho]

I kinda hate the fact that I seem to be the most active person with a significant indoor setup here, because who am I supposed to ask when I have questions? Technically this is pot related but like 3 people read that forum.

Anyway - light theory. I've come to the realization that for the most part, tubes are superior to traditional bulbs. But I've got a few bulbs. Would running a diffuser panel similar to what's used for flourescent lights be beneficial to dispersing light? Would there be a significant loss of UV or color? 

As far as expansion in my grow room goes (See YouTube.com/dbljzzl or the Mississippi Squad thread) I've decided that in the interest of space it'd make a lot more sense to have shelves underneath the tables with (more... Ugh) heat mats for seed baggies rather than wasting valuable lit tabletop space, especially on the eternally long germinators. So I can literally hack up this chip board I've got and get some cheapie L brackets and use the rest of the under table space for storing soil and soil components. 

The last batch of grow bulbs I bought weren't cheap (6 pack of Barrina T8 4ft LED) but their light pattern is so narrowly focused (used Photone app) that even my cheap $16.88 shop lights, although they have a lower ppfd, killed them in usefulness. If I was growing in a 6 inch narrow tube these Barrinas are great, so I'm like hey, there's all these old bookshelves and I can just line them with seedlings and sprouts in fast food and solo cups and they'll be perfect for THAT, but unless I double and triple them they're useless for benches and tables. Surprisingly, the best lights I've got per testing with the Photone app are Boost/Dymond LED and their output is not only the same or better than Barrina but it's not as focused so once the refunds hit I'll get more of those.. and they're cheap! 

 

As eBay funds (and hopefully one day the SSDI funds kick in) I plan to add more plywood tables to this back room, this time I think I'm just going to get some L brackets to attach one side to the walls to save some trees, and add some wire racks to the middle for more seedlings and expand into more philodendrons, succulents, and things like that. I've proven that I can keep it warm enough over winter and during freezes (we hit a 22° low this morning and it was 77° indoors with 55% humidity per my $6 eBay monitor whose instructions were all in Chinese so you know it's quality), and use plastic storage bins for holding pots for over watering spills - I've also thought about getting some kind of tubing (aquarium tubing? cheap hose?) for drainage and have that drain back into buckets to either reuse or use to keep humidity up. 

For a ghetto watering setup, I could even get some more 5 gallon buckets and mount them above everything with hose from the bottom and T fittings and a ball valve to make watering easier on me before funds allow for timers and actual drip irrigation, and fill the plastic storage bins with pea gravel so it's all pebble trays. Another idea (paging our irrigation expert @happypalms here) is to fill the trays with perlite due to its lighter weight on my tables and it's ability to hold more moisture. The drain holes would be covered with scrap pieces of window screen to prevent the gravel/perlite from clogging the drain lines. And the plastic bins keep my table tops from rotting, and on the wire racks it'd keep water runoff from getting near my lights and/or heat mats. 

Long term I can paint the walls, tables, and ceiling in Kilz primer and seal the tables to prevent mildew and mold and I'd def need to add more fans for sure, hang them in the corners from the ceiling easy peasy. I have no idea what summer temperatures would get to in here, it's brick walls outside with bare wood paneling and the ceiling is uninsulated bare plywood with a metal roof angled above it. I guess if needed I could always add some board insulation to the ceiling if temps get too high, I'm sure that'd help in winter too. 

 

Anyway, thoughts? I guess I've come a long way from growing with lightbulbs in an apartment and begging for seedlings. 

[JohnAndSancho]

Ok full send. I'm doing this. I'll report back with YouTube and pics but my priority is building this last table.