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Just a bit of an upgrade ;)

mikefallen13

Mr. veitchii
So after filling the growtent in under a year, here's the new setup...

20180105_163737 by Mike Fallen, on Flickr

It's nice to actually be able to see the plants without crawling inside an overgrown tent and having a 14" x 20" place to stand/crouch to work on plants. My goal is to contain my collection in this space going forward, as its as big as I can realistically go without a greenhouse and a greenhouse just isn't do-able for me.

20180110_150604 by Mike Fallen, on Flickr

I'm sure it'll be completely filled in short order, seeing as I'm a full blown plant addict who can't stop buying plants and, like the veitchii (k) above, everything is growing like crazy!
 
Nice, everything there is looking very neat and clean. It's a wonderful setup that you've built. The best part is that you have a lot of extra room for the future in there.
 
Looks so good! Does that fan put out much air being that close to the wall?
 
Nice, is it constructed with wood with sliding glass doors? What did you paint the inside with (to deal with moisture)? I've tried elastomeric paint (those used for roof painting), but now I'm trying Drylok.
 
Thanks guys!

The inside is coated in a few layers of Flex Seal, seems like it'll do a good job protecting the wood. I was originally considering roll-on pond sealer, but with shipping it would have cost about twice as much as the flex seal and it seemed to be a very similar product. All the seams were then caulked with silicone just to make sure water wasn't going to get down in the cracks and cause problems.

The fan is about 2" away from the wall and pushes plenty of air! That one is just for a little extra circulation, I also have an 8" inline duct fan that runs all the time too.
 
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I would have thought that fan might be too strong. Those Tillandsia on the back wall?
 
Thanks guys!

The inside is coated in a few layers of Flex Seal, seems like it'll do a good job protecting the wood. I was originally considering roll-on pond sealer, but with shipping it would have cost about twice as much as the flex seal and it seemed to be a very similar product. All the seams were then caulked with silicone just to make sure water wasn't going to get down in the cracks and cause problems.

The fan is about 2" away from the wall and pushes plenty of air! That one is just for a little extra circulation, I also have an 8" inline duct fan that runs all the time too.

Yes, epoxy type sealant is much more expensive, so I was also trying cheaper elastomeric (looks like FlexSeal is elastomeric paint, but I used a different one). I've seen people used it for plywood aquariums. I made water catch trays and shelves in grow tents and painted them with elastomeric. Elastomeric paints lasted for 2-3 years (I applied 3 layers). The paint exposed to water constantly (e.g. inside of the trays and the bottom of the shleves) became soft and started to peel off. The tray didn't leak, but this time I recoated with Drylok about a year ago. It is supposed to be for masonry etc, and wood wasn't mentioned for their recommendation. But it seems to adhere well to plywood. I'll see how long this will last.
 
I guess I'll try and keep the bottom as dry as possible, luckily I did install a drain that doesn't allow more than 1/4" of water to collect, so hopefully it'll hold up! I did look at Dryloc as well, but as you mentioned, I was a bit concerned that it didn't list wood as a recommended surface. Let me know how it holds up, it's always nice to know which options work and which don't.

Worst case scenario is I'll have to fork up the cash and use actual pond liner if/when I notice the FlexSeal starting to fail.
 
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Cool, I didn't know flex seal was available in white.

I think on FB you had said this beauty was 8 ft x 4 ft x 3 ft for each level?

How much Flex Seal did you use to coat the two levels? A single 1 gallon can or more?
 
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I ended up using about 1.5 gallons to coat everything. I think you could get away with just a gallon if you're planning to apply reflective material over it, I just added a few extra coats to make sure there was no wood grain visible at all. Since I designed this to truly be a display, I figured a white background would be a bit nicer to look at than highly reflective foil lol

The shelves are indeed both 8' x 4' but the top shelf has more vertical room than the bottom shelf. I figured it would be good to have a little extra height up top so stuff could vine.
 
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I really like this setup. It's very organized and clean. It'll be cool to see the same picture taken in 6/12 months.
 
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Thanks Mike, yeah I like the white too, very clean and white is actually said to better at reflecting than silver. I did my enclosure with the silver coated construction foam since it's at least more reflective than the pink foam. But your new setup is giving me ideas for the next builds!
 
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