How to Build Your Own Hydroponics Grow Room
Hydroponic gardening is a means of producing plants without soil. It makes plants grow larger and faster, and makes more efficient use of gardening space. Hydroponic gardening can be done inside, freeing you from concern about the season or the weather outside. You can convert a room of your house to become a hydroponic grow room with minimal effort and few special parts. Does this Spark an idea?
Things You'll Need
- Sheets of poster board
- Duct tape
- Fan
- 4 feet of flexible ducting, as wide as the face of the larger fan
- Glue gun
- Tacks
- Screwdriver
- Thick blanket
- Staple gun
Instructions
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1
Pull up all the carpet in the room, if any. Carpets trap moisture and hydroponic systems generates a lot of moisture. Moist carpets become breeding grounds for diseases and bugs.
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2
Cut the poster board into sheets slightly larger than the windows in your grow room. Tape them over all the windows but one. Plants need light on a regular schedule. Electricity rates are often lower at night than during the day. It is therefore usually better to run the lights at night and keep the grow room dark during the day.
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3
Open the one window that has not been blocked off. Put the fan in the window. Cut a notch out of the remaining sheet of poster board so that when you put it over the window, the fan is unobstructed. Tape the poster board into this position.
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4
Place one end of the flexible ducting over the face of the fan in the window. Glue it to the case of the fan with the glue gun. Run the ducting up the side of the window so that the other end is near the ceiling. Pin the ducting to the wall with the tacks. This will cause the fan to draw the hottest air, from the top of the room, and expel it outside.
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5
Remove the door from the doorjamb by unscrewing the screws holding the hinges to it. Staple the blanket to the top corners of the empty doorjamb. Staple across the top of the blanket. The blanket will keep the room protected from light during the day (and protect your house from the grow room's lights at night) while allowing a large volume of cooler air to be sucked into the room to replace the hotter air the exhaust fan is expelling.
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6
Install one 600 watt sodium grow light every 5 feet in the ceiling, according to the manufacturer's instructions. Set up your hydroponic systems under the grow lights.
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7
Set the thermostat in the room to 75 degrees Fahrenheit during the day for warm season crops. Set it to 60 F at night. Set it to 60 F during the day and 50 F at night for cool season crops.
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Tips & Warnings
The fan must be able to move 200 cubic meters of air per hour, plus an additional 150 for every 600 watt light you have in the room beyond the first.
Turn the lights on eight to 10 hours per day for most plants.
