New member, Great cheap chamber plans.

[shocktherapy]

Hello all, i am new to this forum so i would like to first introduce myself. I am a 3rd generation mycologist, my grandfather my grandfathers father and so on have all owned commercial mushroom farms specializing in the cultivation of oystere, shiitake, and chantarelle mushrooms, as a young aspiring mycologist my grandfather taught me a great deal about the cultivation of all of these species, he also taught me quite a bit about the theoratical cultivation of the morel. As an adult i have retained and expanded upon his knowledge and theories through independent study and expierimentation. All this being said i'm 18yrs old and i can grow just about any kind of fungal species.

This post is intended to be a guide to new mushrooms cultivators on how to construct a very efficient and very cheap greenhouse type mushroom fruiting chamber using:

1. a 3 tier plastic shelf ($9.99 at wal mart)
2. a roll of clear tarp (any kind will work, $2.50 for a large roll at wal mart)
3. a small cabinet type flourescent light fixture $6.99 at wal mart)
4. a hot glue gun and high temp hot glue (glue gun like $5.00, glue sticks like $3.00 for 100)
5. and some velcro (2, 6ft strips with adhesive backing for the opening part of the chamber, attached to the shelf and the outer edges of a pre cut piece of tarp)


The construction process is as follows:

step

1. measure the diameter of the entire outer edges of the plastic container and cut the tarp to the size determined both vertically and horizontally.

2. find a start point for the tarp to be glued onto the plastic shelf, any of the shelf edges (where the shelves attach to the plastic tubes) will work. Bead the hot glue from the top shelf to the middle shelf and stick the tarp (as close to a 90 degree angle as possible) to the shelf corner, wait for the glue to dry, then pull the remaining portion of the tarp vertically to the bottom of the bottom shelf. Bead the hot glue from the stop point of the last glue bead to the bottom of the last shelf and press the tarp onto the glue bead as strait as possible (even if you do get wrinkles the hot glue will seal the gap)

3. Now the hardest part is done. Next you will apply another bead of hot glue to the center of the top shelf pressing the tarp along the bead as it is applied, it is important to keep the top edge of the tarp as flush as possible with the top edge of the shelf. continue this process until you reach the next corner of the shelf. Now stretch the tarp vertically to the bottom of the bottom shelf, apply another hot glue bead to the center of the bottom shelf the same way you did on the top shelf, MAKE SURE you keep the center portion of the stretched tarp as tight as possible this will reduce wrinkling and will produce a better air tight seal with your end product.

4. By this point you will have one side of the 4 sided shelf sealed. step 3 is to be repeated until you get the tarp sealed all the way around 3 sides of the shelf, you DO NOT want to stretch the tarp all the way around all 4 sides to your original start point as you will have no way of getting things in and out of your chamber. That said you will want one side of your shelf left open and the other 3 sides sealed. The tighter and more wrinkle free the stretched tarp is the better. When you reach the 3rd corner going around your shelf you ar going to want to stretch the tarp as tightly as possible before you lay your final vertical hot glue bead, make sure you stretch the tarp as you are pressing it onto the hot glue bead both vertically and horizontally.

Now comes the aplication of the velcro

5. measure the height and width of the last shelf side and cut the velcro so that it will extend all the way vertically from the top to the bottom of the left and right corners of the top to the bottom shelf, the velcro should be applied to the edge of the previously glued tarp all the way down it's horizontal length. Remove the adhesive backing from the velcro strips and place them as straightly as possible down the tarp edges. Now take the pre-cut horizontally measured strips of velcro, remove the adhesive backing and apply them from the left corner of the top shelf all the way to the right corner, the left and right end corners of the horizontal velcro should extend to the inner edges of the previously applied vertical velcro strips. Repeat the same process for the bottom horizontal velcro strips as you did for the top, if you applied the velcro strips correctly you will be left with a rectangular shaped velcro box around the outer edges of the only un tarped part of your chamber.

6. This is the last step for the construction of the chamber itself.
Now measure from the outer edges of the velcro horizontally and vertically and cut a rectangular piece of tarp to those EXACT measurements, once the tarp is cut lay it against the previously placed velcro to make sure that it is the correct size, the edges of the rectangular cut tarp should be flush with the outer edges of the velcro.. if your measurements were correct and your cutting of the tarp strait then this will be the case, if not re-measure the outer velcro edges and re-cut another piece of tarp to fit. It is ABSOLUTELY crutial for the tarp to be flush with the outer edges of the velcro. When you have the tarp piece cut to the proper size, lay it onto the floor, make sure that it is completely stretched out from end to end, corner to corner, and that it is laying flat. Now cut the opposite velcro strips (the ones that stick to the velcro that has already been applied to the chamber) to the exact size as the strips that have already been placed. Now take the horizontally cut "mate" strips and place them onto the edges of the tarp, remember to keep the outer edges of the velcro flush with the outer edges of the tarp.

The end product

now you have a removable door for your chamber so you can place and remove your casings cakes, and grow bags, if you made sure your measurements were correct then the tarp "door" will be exactly the right size to be velcro'd onto the chamber. The horizontal length of the "door" should be about an inch to an inch and a half wider than the ends of the left and right corners, and the velcro should be placed uniformly as such. The reason for this is to maintain an airtight seal inside the grow space, the tarp stretched horizontally from velcro end to end will press against the plastic edges of the top and bottom shelf and will also stretch around the edge of the left and right vertical shelf tubes, this will provide an airtight seal when the tarp "door" is stretched across the length and width of the doorway. If the doorway of your finshed product has gaps between the tarp and the shelf and shelf tube edges, my suggestion would be to either cut a horizontally wider piece of tarp and apply new velcro pieces to the edges of that tarp, or buy some silicone calk and apply it in a thick bead to the inner edges of the vecro strips, make sure you allow the calk to dry before you place the tarp door back on or else it'll stick to the calk and make a mess. The calk will protrude out farther that the velcro strip and will effectively seal the tarp door.


Humidification and air exchange for the finished chamber.

There are multiple ways to humidify your finished chamber, the easiest of which would be perlite.

just take as many shallow tupperware containers as you have shelves, fill em with perlite, and add water, then place the perlite containers, one on each shelf into the chamber. The perlite will keep the humidity in the sealed chamber at 90-100% constantly, as long as the chamber is sealed. For checking humidity i would suggest using a digital hygrometer, you can get really acurate humidity readings by buying a cigar hygrometer off e-bay for 20 bucks give or take, if money isn't an object go to your local guitar center and buy an acoustic guitar hygrometer. Both hygrometers are very acurate and read relative humidity levels up to 99%. Remember that these are electronically reliant devices and high humidity will damage there internal circutry, so it's best to leave the hygrometer in your chamber for 12-24 hours keeping tabs on the reading constantly and modifying your setup to maintain the desired humidity. After you make the proper adjustments to your setup, and you determine how to maintain the desired humidity and air exchange you can remove the hygrometer and be confident that your chamber will stay there as long as you keep your humidification technique and your air exchange the same. For air exchange i would strongly suggest buying a 12volt computer fan and a 12volt DC power supply for the fan, CO2 is the enemy in mushroom cultivation, so that is what we are trying to eliminate with the fan, we have a natural ally in the battle against CO2, that ally is gravity, CO2 is a heavier than air gas so as it is produced it will fall to the bottom of your chamber, so this being said you want to "pump" the CO2 out of the bottom of you chamber as it acumulates, the most effective way of doing this is by drilling holes into the center of your middle shelves but not through the bottom shelf so that all the CO2 will be able to fall to your bottom shelf. With that done you now need a way to introduce fresh air into your chamber whilst at the same time removing the CO2, my suggestion for acomplishing this is to:

[shocktherapy]

-continued-

1. buy some tvek HEPA filter disks, if you can't afford the disks then just use 3-4 overlapping coffee filters, cut the centers out of them, you'll need 4 sets of the overlapping coffee filters or 4 filter disks if your using them. Take the disks or the filters and place them about one inch inward from the corners of the top of your chamber (not the top inner shelf but the acutal top of your chamber) mark they're diameter with a marker and use either a hot soldering iron to melt/cut the plastic top or use a hubby knife or an apropriately sized drill bit. Your going to want to make the diameter of the cuts about 1/2inch smaller than the outer diameter of your filter disks or coffee filters, after you cut holes for all 4 disks/filters bead some hot glue all the way around the outer edge of the hole and apply the edges of the disks/filters to the glue bead, the end product will be 4 air permiable filters that will intruduce fresh air to your chamber whenever a vacuum (the computer fan) is introduced while at the same time trapping the humidity inside your sealed chamber *NOTE: coffee filters suck at holding in humidity and aren't very good at preventing contams, use as many layers of coffee filters as you need to attain air exchange and seal integrity.

now to complete the system.

lay your chamber on it's side (always make sure there is nothing sharp around your chamber that might pierce it) now take your computer fan, a piece of paper and a marker and mark the circle in the center of the fan that the fan blades revolve around with the marker onto the paper, cut the circle that you marked out and place it on the bottom in the center of your chamber, now trace that circle onto your chamber bottom*

*NOTE: the shelving unit i use does not have a flat bottom, alot of them don't, if this is the case then trace the circle onto the bottom of the inside of your chamber and cut through the top of the bottom shelf. Whenever you have the circle cut out, and have also removed whatever material may have been used as a bottom for your shelf (usually thin pieces of plastic protruding from the flat part of the bottom shelf to the ground) place your fan to where the blades are inside of the cut circle, mark the screw mounting holes with a marker, find an apropriately sized drill bit and drill holes in the bottom of the chamber as they are marked by the 4 marks for the corners of your fan..

you don't have to go through the trouble of drilling and screwing the fan into place if you don't want to, you can just hot glue the edges of the computer fan onto the bottom of the chamber but before you mount or glue ANYTHING make sure that the air flow of the fan (usually marked with an arrow as to the direction it blows, if there is no arrow connect the fan to the DC power supply and determine the direction of air flow prior to your mouting) you want to mount the fan so that it sucks air out of the chamber and blows it out the bottom, once you have suceeded in mounting the fan correctly i would suggest plugging it into a timer and setting it for 3-6 operations per day, each operation will be a complete air exchange so just use the growing parameters of your mushroom species as a guide. When the fan turns on it will create a vacuum through the filters in the top of your chamber thus providing fresh air and removing the CO2 that has acumulated in the bottom of the chamber.

The proper construction of your chamber as a sealed vessel is extremely important or else the only thing your fan will do is suck out the humidity in your chamber through the leaks you have in the tarp.


If you happen to have a humidifier...

then you will want to run your fan for about 1/10th the duration that your humidifyer runs, thus introducing new humidity and fresh air as your chamber purges it's excess CO2.

ultrasonic and cool mist humidifier teks:

for an ultrasonic (which is what i use) your going to want to run a hose off of your humid output to a piece of 1/4 to 1/2in PVC pipe that is as long as your chamber is tall, you will want to drill small holes into the pipe prior to capping and placing it. The holes should all be facing in the same general direction so that when the humidity is pumped through the pipe you get it streaming onto your cakes/casings. For this tek you will need to drill a hole into the top of you chamber near one of the shelve tubes the same sized hole will need to be drilled in the same general area for all the shelves ending at your bottom shelf (do not drill a hole in your bottom shelf, when the PVC pipe reaches the bottom shelf cap it and hot glue it to the face of the bottom shelf) the PVC pipe will be ran through the holes in each of your shelves, the pipe will stay strait vertically and be capped ounce it has been threaded through the drilled holes. Hook the hose from your humidifier to the pipe, after that it's all a matter of expierimentation, finding how long and how often you need to run your humidifier is to be determined by your hygrometer readings in relation to your desired humidity.

Cool mist humidification uses the same process as ultrasonic.


if your using a cool mist humidifier then you will be able to easily tell where you have lost seal integrity, just flip it on, plug up the fan hole and run your hand along the tarp to shelf joints, if you feel air escaping then seal it with either calk or hot glue, the tarp on your chamber should "puff" out when air os introduced into it and should "suck in" when the exaust fan is operating...if it doesn't then you probably have a leak somewhere.

Testing for the ultrasonic is even easier, just turn your ultrasonic on full blast and fog up the entire inside of the chamber, if you see fog excaping from the chamber anywhere then thats where you got a leak, seal it apropriately.



I hope this tek is helpful to someone somewhere, any suggestions or questions are welcome as is criticism.

[destroy_erase_improve]

welcome to topia, hell of a writeup! if you have any pics laying around feel free to post them to help your thread.

[shocktherapy]

-continued-

For lighting:

A $6.99 18" flousescent "lights of america" cabinet style light fixture is required, this should be glued/mounted horizonatally with the light facing downward onto the edge of the top shelf, as long as when you test the lights abilities in a dark room that the light permiates all the shelves then your cool, if not you might want to buy a fixture for each shelf and mount it vertically with the light facing towards the inside of the chamber, one for each shelf...practically speaking for photosensive species you need two or more fixtures, i have one on my chamber, and the pinning for the shelves below the top shelf is poor to moderate..so yeah, i'm going to buy another one to light the bottom shelves.

if you don't want a ridiculous electric bill then buy a timer and hook it's output to a 2 hole outlet adapter so that both lights will use the same timer, lighting time is species dependent, just use the guidlines given to you by paul staments or another reputable mycologist...for cubes 3-9hrs a day is good...once you've initiated pinning use the photosensitive response to your advantage, or not, make em grow towards the light, or initiate pins and keep the lighting ambient.

[shocktherapy]

-destroy erase improve-

hey thanks man, i'm not a veteran or anything but i still have a few tricks up my sleeve.

and i'll be taking some pics tonight of just the greenhouse/chamber i have my ultrasonic hooked to a smaller setup and i've removed the velcro door, i think i'm gonna go with buttons as opposed to the velcro, easier to stretch and they don't unhook.

i just made a really crappy BMP document that kinda half ass explains the setup, i'll be posting that within the next minute or two.
if one person uses my chamber design the write up will be worth it, i offer you my knowledge as you have offered me yours.

[Hippie3]

thx for sharing
looking forward to the pix

[shocktherapy]

the attached image is the BMP i drew for visualization purposes

[shedthemonkey]

Welcome! What a way to say hello!

[bipolar]

Yes welcome! I wish I'da had this plan earlier!!

[shocktherapy]

i'll post actual pictures of my setup sometime tommarow, the cool thing about my design is the cheap materials and the fact that as a humidity containing environment my setup works better than most of the mini greenhouses that you can buy for like 50+ dollars. And once you get one of those mini greenhouses you still have to modify the damn thing to have a bottom to it or else it's pointless.

i literally just built my greenhouse, like 2 days ago i haven't been able to get to the hardware store to get some of the essentials yet (the pvc pipe) damn work, so the pictures i post will be of the frame only, i also have just decided to modify the doorway assembly from velcro to buttons, velcro works but not as well as i'd hoped, i was also thinking of using a zipper type doorway but i have no idea how to attach the zipper to the chamber or the tarp doorway and i think that the zipper would probably leak humidity like hell.

the point to this entire thread is that you CAN build a relatively large greenhouse type humidity chamber for about the same amount of money that you would spend making a much smaller enclosure out of a rubbermaid (or similar) storage container.

note building materials

roll of tarp, plastic shelf, hot glue.

i'm gonna post some pics of my old growing chamber in a minute or so, the damn thing took countless hours of labor and planning to construct, and required a hell of alot of silicone and use of a soldering iron to literally melt pieces of the chamber apart.

[shocktherapy]

a two tier rubermaid container, i cut the lip of one container off with a soldering iron, for humidification i used an ultrasonic connected to a timer 30min on every 2-4 hours kept humidity at 90-100% constantly, the tubs cost 6 bucks apiece and the amount of silicone i ended up using ended up costing me about 20 bucks...yeah pointless...i built the chamber during the winter months and i maintained a 75 degree temp using an aquarium heater immersed in a plastic water filled container, the thing filled up with water constantly and had to be dumped and cleaned regularly.

[suckerfree]

On that BMP you posted, it shows the humidifier up on the top, and the PVC pipe running down....

if you had the humidifier on bottom (to the side of the GH, with pvc running UP), when water collects inside the PVC pipe, it will run back down into the water resovoir.

just a thought...

[destroy_erase_improve]

lol that is one wild set of pics there
where do the handcuffs go on that rig?! hhhahaa jk
thx for the pics man, its an UGLY looking SOB, but i bet it treats you realllll nice.

[insight]

Good info.
Welcome to Topia!

[anticheffy]

I like that pic on the left

nothing says love like handcuffs and a hot glue gun

[shocktherapy]

*BUMP*

pics coming in a few hours, gotta borrow a digi cam from a friend...

[shocktherapy]

*BUMP*

Just took pictures of the chamber with completed lighting assembly. i'm in the process of mounting another (smaller) computer fan for which the assembly i will place sometime later on in the day. The pictures i am about to upload are of the greenhouse "shell" and it's with light attached...i think you'll have a much better idea of how to build this thing once i post the pics...


give it an 30min and you shall see!

[shocktherapy]

-for all that replyd-

i just typed a very long message to each of you, and then my computer froze, so as to prevent my anger from being unleased i am going to step away for a bit, collect myself, and re-post what i just tried to post...

grr...

[shocktherapy]

OK, fan is hooked up, i still don't have the PVC pipe running through the shelves so the only part of the chamber thats recieving humididity (until i get the pipe) is the top shelf, at 100% the ultrasonic hunidifier completely filled it in about 1min, i turned the humidity off and it's been about 10min with little or no humidity loss (it's just disipating a bit) when i run the fan it sucks all the tarp inwards suggesting to me that i have a pretty damn good seal for as small of a fan as i used, PLUS the fact that the doorway enclosure i'm using is just a piece of tarp TAPED on.

pics soon to come.

[shocktherapy]

these are the pics of the completed chamber minus the velcro door.

[shocktherapy]

please take note that the cabinet used as the base unit for that design has another shelf and is taller and has more room as a result.

also, the two shelves have a shitload of vertical space that they don't neceserily need, by cutting the shelf poles in half and adding aditional shelves you can effectively add up to 3 -5 more shelve spaces which amounts to about 9 more casings.

give me some feedback!

[perrch01]

you might want to edit out the a. material, i think it throws off hip when he is putting stuff there

You should still be able to edit your first post, edit it and put the picture in

[perrch01]

well maybe not, I thought today was the 24th, oops

[shocktherapy]

i can edit only my post replys not my original post...

why is that?

[perrch01]

there is a time limit on how long you have to edit a post, it used to be 420 minutes, I think, I'm not sure what it is now

[shocktherapy]

well damn...what if i just re-posted the info + the pics?...

i'm not trying to copy/paste that much info on the same site without permission, so i'll wait for hip to give me the go-ahead.

[shocktherapy]

by the way, what do you think of the design perrch?

[perrch01]

Sorry i thought I had posted, that is one hell of a design! My only fear for me is that I have more animals than i can shake a stick at and i worry that one of them would chew/scratch/wrestle/gnaw/poke/shit through it. But then I realized that I know have a huge closet (bigger than my childhood bedroom) and I can put something like that in there. I have to print this out and see how it will work for me. Thanks

[shocktherapy]

i hear you on the animal concerns (i have 4 cats and a dog) one claw into the clear tarp and you lose your seal and have to do the whole thing over again...which isn't a HUGE deal it's just a pain in the ass, but consider the alternative, and take note at the commercial greenhouse, and glovebox designs...most are just an aluminum or PVC pipe frame with clear tarp attached. Our options are limited to plastic containers, greenhouses, and terrariums (for most of us anyway) the biggest challenge of this entire hobby is finding the materials that you need at a respectable price, you can go to the hardware store, buy pipes and tarp and etc and assemble a PVC frame for a greenhouse type enclosure but that takes time, and by the time you've bought all the materials you've spent more than if you would have bought a pre-assembled shelf unit from wal-mart like i did, plus each shelf if sealed properly can be calibrated to different specifications, so in effect you can grow multiple species or strains to different parameters within the same grow space.

that i think is the biggest advantage of this tek. If you have multiple strains that require varying conditions you can make acomidations for those seperate specs quite easily by simply adding another fan, another timer, and another humidifier to your setup, or by just adding a perlite tub, another fan, and modifying your timing settings to acomadate your desired specs.

i have no idea why i'm trying to sell this, i guess i'm just pruod of myself and i don't want to see others make the same mistakes i've made in the past.

-shock

oh and perrch if you happen to use the base design for my setup with modifications or different equipment let me know, i'm wanting to expand on my design abit but i don't have the means to do so at this time, thanks for the interest.

[shocktherapy]

Ultrasonic runs 30 minutes every 2 hours and keeps the humidity at 95-100% constantly, Circulation fan runs 10 minutes every 2 hours. The fan is timed so that it begins running at the 10th minute of the ultrasonics on time, and turns off at the 20th minute allowing the ultrasonic to make up for the humidity sucked out by the fan in it's last 10 minutes of run time.

[shocktherapy]

first off, hip if you read this can you delete my "new member, great cheap grow chamber plans" thread? As i am going to compile all the construction info to this thread, i'd just really hate to see this tek lost as i think it could benifit alot of the growers out there that can't afford the greenhouses, and don't want to use the rubbermaids.

here we go -

This post is intended to be a guide to new mushrooms cultivators on how to construct a very efficient and very cheap greenhouse type mushroom fruiting chamber using:

1. a 3 tier plastic shelf ($9.99 at wal mart)
2. a roll of clear tarp (any kind will work, $2.50 for a large roll at wal mart)
3. a small cabinet type flourescent light fixture $6.99 at wal mart)
4. a hot glue gun and high temp hot glue (glue gun like $5.00, glue sticks like $3.00 for 100)
5. and some velcro (2, 6ft strips with adhesive backing for the opening part of the chamber, attached to the shelf and the outer edges of a pre cut piece of tarp)


The construction process is as follows:

step

1. measure the diameter of the entire outer edges of the plastic container and cut the tarp to the size determined both vertically and horizontally.

2. find a start point for the tarp to be glued onto the plastic shelf, any of the shelf edges (where the shelves attach to the plastic tubes) will work. Bead the hot glue from the top shelf to the middle shelf and stick the tarp (as close to a 90 degree angle as possible) to the shelf corner, wait for the glue to dry, then pull the remaining portion of the tarp vertically to the bottom of the bottom shelf. Bead the hot glue from the stop point of the last glue bead to the bottom of the last shelf and press the tarp onto the glue bead as strait as possible (even if you do get wrinkles the hot glue will seal the gap)

3. Now the hardest part is done. Next you will apply another bead of hot glue to the center of the top shelf pressing the tarp along the bead as it is applied, it is important to keep the top edge of the tarp as flush as possible with the top edge of the shelf. continue this process until you reach the next corner of the shelf. Now stretch the tarp vertically to the bottom of the bottom shelf, apply another hot glue bead to the center of the bottom shelf the same way you did on the top shelf, MAKE SURE you keep the center portion of the stretched tarp as tight as possible this will reduce wrinkling and will produce a better air tight seal with your end product.

4. By this point you will have one side of the 4 sided shelf sealed. step 3 is to be repeated until you get the tarp sealed all the way around 3 sides of the shelf, you DO NOT want to stretch the tarp all the way around all 4 sides to your original start point as you will have no way of getting things in and out of your chamber. That said you will want one side of your shelf left open and the other 3 sides sealed. The tighter and more wrinkle free the stretched tarp is the better. When you reach the 3rd corner going around your shelf you ar going to want to stretch the tarp as tightly as possible before you lay your final vertical hot glue bead, make sure you stretch the tarp as you are pressing it onto the hot glue bead both vertically and horizontally.

Now comes the aplication of the velcro

5. measure the height and width of the last shelf side and cut the velcro so that it will extend all the way vertically from the top to the bottom of the left and right corners of the top to the bottom shelf, the velcro should be applied to the edge of the previously glued tarp all the way down it's horizontal length. Remove the adhesive backing from the velcro strips and place them as straightly as possible down the tarp edges. Now take the pre-cut horizontally measured strips of velcro, remove the adhesive backing and apply them from the left corner of the top shelf all the way to the right corner, the left and right end corners of the horizontal velcro should extend to the inner edges of the previously applied vertical velcro strips. Repeat the same process for the bottom horizontal velcro strips as you did for the top, if you applied the velcro strips correctly you will be left with a rectangular shaped velcro box around the outer edges of the only un tarped part of your chamber.

6. This is the last step for the construction of the chamber itself.
Now measure from the outer edges of the velcro horizontally and vertically and cut a rectangular piece of tarp to those EXACT measurements, once the tarp is cut lay it against the previously placed velcro to make sure that it is the correct size, the edges of the rectangular cut tarp should be flush with the outer edges of the velcro.. if your measurements were correct and your cutting of the tarp strait then this will be the case, if not re-measure the outer velcro edges and re-cut another piece of tarp to fit. It is ABSOLUTELY crutial for the tarp to be flush with the outer edges of the velcro. When you have the tarp piece cut to the proper size, lay it onto the floor, make sure that it is completely stretched out from end to end, corner to corner, and that it is laying flat. Now cut the opposite velcro strips (the ones that stick to the velcro that has already been applied to the chamber) to the exact size as the strips that have already been placed. Now take the horizontally cut "mate" strips and place them onto the edges of the tarp, remember to keep the outer edges of the velcro flush with the outer edges of the tarp.

[shocktherapy]

-continued

The end product

now you have a removable door for your chamber so you can place and remove your casings cakes, and grow bags, if you made sure your measurements were correct then the tarp "door" will be exactly the right size to be velcro'd onto the chamber. The horizontal length of the "door" should be about an inch to an inch and a half wider than the ends of the left and right corners, and the velcro should be placed uniformly as such. The reason for this is to maintain an airtight seal inside the grow space, the tarp stretched horizontally from velcro end to end will press against the plastic edges of the top and bottom shelf and will also stretch around the edge of the left and right vertical shelf tubes, this will provide an airtight seal when the tarp "door" is stretched across the length and width of the doorway. If the doorway of your finshed product has gaps between the tarp and the shelf and shelf tube edges, my suggestion would be to either cut a horizontally wider piece of tarp and apply new velcro pieces to the edges of that tarp, or buy some silicone calk and apply it in a thick bead to the inner edges of the vecro strips, make sure you allow the calk to dry before you place the tarp door back on or else it'll stick to the calk and make a mess. The calk will protrude out farther that the velcro strip and will effectively seal the tarp door.


Humidification and air exchange for the finished chamber.

There are multiple ways to humidify your finished chamber, the easiest of which would be perlite.

just take as many shallow tupperware containers as you have shelves, fill em with perlite, and add water, then place the perlite containers, one on each shelf into the chamber. The perlite will keep the humidity in the sealed chamber at 90-100% constantly, as long as the chamber is sealed. For checking humidity i would suggest using a digital hygrometer, you can get really acurate humidity readings by buying a cigar hygrometer off e-bay for 20 bucks give or take, if money isn't an object go to your local guitar center and buy an acoustic guitar hygrometer. Both hygrometers are very acurate and read relative humidity levels up to 99%. Remember that these are electronically reliant devices and high humidity will damage there internal circutry, so it's best to leave the hygrometer in your chamber for 12-24 hours keeping tabs on the reading constantly and modifying your setup to maintain the desired humidity. After you make the proper adjustments to your setup, and you determine how to maintain the desired humidity and air exchange you can remove the hygrometer and be confident that your chamber will stay there as long as you keep your humidification technique and your air exchange the same. For air exchange i would strongly suggest buying a 12volt computer fan and a 12volt DC power supply for the fan, CO2 is the enemy in mushroom cultivation, so that is what we are trying to eliminate with the fan, we have a natural ally in the battle against CO2, that ally is gravity, CO2 is a heavier than air gas so as it is produced it will fall to the bottom of your chamber, so this being said you want to "pump" the CO2 out of the bottom of you chamber as it acumulates, the most effective way of doing this is by drilling holes into the center of your middle shelves but not through the bottom shelf so that all the CO2 will be able to fall to your bottom shelf. With that done you now need a way to introduce fresh air into your chamber whilst at the same time removing the CO2, my suggestion for acomplishing this is to:

1. buy some tvek HEPA filter disks, if you can't afford the disks then just use 3-4 overlapping coffee filters, cut the centers out of them, you'll need 4 sets of the overlapping coffee filters or 4 filter disks if your using them. Take the disks or the filters and place them about one inch inward from the corners of the top of your chamber (not the top inner shelf but the acutal top of your chamber) mark they're diameter with a marker and use either a hot soldering iron to melt/cut the plastic top or use a hubby knife or an apropriately sized drill bit. Your going to want to make the diameter of the cuts about 1/2inch smaller than the outer diameter of your filter disks or coffee filters, after you cut holes for all 4 disks/filters bead some hot glue all the way around the outer edge of the hole and apply the edges of the disks/filters to the glue bead, the end product will be 4 air permiable filters that will intruduce fresh air to your chamber whenever a vacuum (the computer fan) is introduced while at the same time trapping the humidity inside your sealed chamber *NOTE: coffee filters suck at holding in humidity and aren't very good at preventing contams, use as many layers of coffee filters as you need to attain air exchange and seal integrity.

now to complete the system.

lay your chamber on it's side (always make sure there is nothing sharp around your chamber that might pierce it) now take your computer fan, a piece of paper and a marker and mark the circle in the center of the fan that the fan blades revolve around with the marker onto the paper, cut the circle that you marked out and place it on the bottom in the center of your chamber, now trace that circle onto your chamber bottom*

*NOTE: the shelving unit i use does not have a flat bottom, alot of them don't, if this is the case then trace the circle onto the bottom of the inside of your chamber and cut through the top of the bottom shelf. Whenever you have the circle cut out, and have also removed whatever material may have been used as a bottom for your shelf (usually thin pieces of plastic protruding from the flat part of the bottom shelf to the ground) place your fan to where the blades are inside of the cut circle, mark the screw mounting holes with a marker, find an apropriately sized drill bit and drill holes in the bottom of the chamber as they are marked by the 4 marks for the corners of your fan..

you don't have to go through the trouble of drilling and screwing the fan into place if you don't want to, you can just hot glue the edges of the computer fan onto the bottom of the chamber but before you mount or glue ANYTHING make sure that the air flow of the fan (usually marked with an arrow as to the direction it blows, if there is no arrow connect the fan to the DC power supply and determine the direction of air flow prior to your mouting) you want to mount the fan so that it sucks air out of the chamber and blows it out the bottom, once you have suceeded in mounting the fan correctly i would suggest plugging it into a timer and setting it for 3-6 operations per day, each operation will be a complete air exchange so just use the growing parameters of your mushroom species as a guide. When the fan turns on it will create a vacuum through the filters in the top of your chamber thus providing fresh air and removing the CO2 that has acumulated in the bottom of the chamber.

The proper construction of your chamber as a sealed vessel is extremely important or else the only thing your fan will do is suck out the humidity in your chamber through the leaks you have in the tarp.

[shocktherapy]

-continued-

If you happen to have a humidifier...

then you will want to run your fan for about 1/10th the duration that your humidifyer runs, thus introducing new humidity and fresh air as your chamber purges it's excess CO2.

ultrasonic and cool mist humidifier teks:

for an ultrasonic (which is what i use) your going to want to run a hose off of your humid output to a piece of 1/4 to 1/2in PVC pipe that is as long as your chamber is tall, you will want to drill small holes into the pipe prior to capping and placing it. The holes should all be facing in the same general direction so that when the humidity is pumped through the pipe you get it streaming onto your cakes/casings. For this tek you will need to drill a hole into the top of you chamber near one of the shelve tubes the same sized hole will need to be drilled in the same general area for all the shelves ending at your bottom shelf (do not drill a hole in your bottom shelf, when the PVC pipe reaches the bottom shelf cap it and hot glue it to the face of the bottom shelf) the PVC pipe will be ran through the holes in each of your shelves, the pipe will stay strait vertically and be capped ounce it has been threaded through the drilled holes. Hook the hose from your humidifier to the pipe, after that it's all a matter of expierimentation, finding how long and how often you need to run your humidifier is to be determined by your hygrometer readings in relation to your desired humidity.

Cool mist humidification uses the same process as ultrasonic.


if your using a cool mist humidifier then you will be able to easily tell where you have lost seal integrity, just flip it on, plug up the fan hole and run your hand along the tarp to shelf joints, if you feel air escaping then seal it with either calk or hot glue, the tarp on your chamber should "puff" out when air os introduced into it and should "suck in" when the exaust fan is operating...if it doesn't then you probably have a leak somewhere.

Testing for the ultrasonic is even easier, just turn your ultrasonic on full blast and fog up the entire inside of the chamber, if you see fog excaping from the chamber anywhere then thats where you got a leak, seal it apropriately.



I hope this tek is helpful to someone somewhere, any suggestions or questions are welcome as is criticism.

[shocktherapy]

-continued-

For lighting:

A $6.99 18" flousescent "lights of america" cabinet style light fixture is required, this should be glued/mounted horizonatally with the light facing downward onto the edge of the top shelf, as long as when you test the lights abilities in a dark room that the light permiates all the shelves then your cool, if not you might want to buy a fixture for each shelf and mount it vertically with the light facing towards the inside of the chamber, one for each shelf...practically speaking for photosensive species you need two or more fixtures, i have one on my chamber, and the pinning for the shelves below the top shelf is poor to moderate..so yeah, i'm going to buy another one to light the bottom shelves.

if you don't want a ridiculous electric bill then buy a timer and hook it's output to a 2 hole outlet adapter so that both lights will use the same timer, lighting time is species dependent, just use the guidlines given to you by paul staments or another reputable mycologist...for cubes 3-9hrs a day is good...once you've initiated pinning use the photosensitive response to your advantage, or not, make em grow towards the light, or initiate pins and keep the lighting ambient.