Indoor cacti grow shelf

Do-it-yourself projects such as greenhouse or shadehouse builds and related topics.
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The Pixelacrobat
Posts: 17
Joined: Wed Dec 16, 2009 11:25 am

Indoor cacti grow shelf

Post by The Pixelacrobat »

Hello everyone :)
I'd like to present my indoor grow shelf which I built because I was starting to get low on space on where to put my cacti during these harsh winter months we get here in Sweden.

It has three levels, the top one is mostly used for my Pereskiopsis grow, the 2nd level is not populated with anything at the moment due to the lack of proper lights.
At level one is where I keep the rest of the cacti (more pictures will follow regarding this).

Dimensions:
78x35x147 cm
(31x14x58 inches)

After putting the shelfs together I started adding the lights.
I'm using a LED+CFL combination.

Lights:

Level 3:
1x Blue LED panel with 225 LED's running at 13.8 watts combined with two 16 watt CFL's (6500 K, 900Lm)

Level 1:
Blue/Red LED panel with 60 blue LEDs and 165 red ones combined with two 16 watt CFL's (6500 K, 900Lm)

Image

Since these lights are quite bright I decided to put plastic around the whole shelf so that it won't light up my whole kitchen. I'm using Velcro to attach the plastic to the shelf, which makes it possible for me to remove all plastic within a minute or so.
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I hope this gets you inspired if you need a indoor grow :)
Any suggestions on improvements?
iann
Posts: 17184
Joined: Mon Jul 24, 2006 11:10 pm
Location: England

Post by iann »

The most critical improvement is always going to to make it bigger. You can never have enough space for cacti :)

Then more lights. I think you just about have enough for overwintering, but its always nice to have a few more. See how it goes, and you can very easily put in higher wattage bulbs. With the blue LEDs, you probably don't need to worry about using 6500K bulbs, and can just use the regular 2700K ones. Not sure about that with the panel that already has a lot of red LEDs, but you can always try it some times when you have the bulbs.

Are the lights on a timer? Its nice to not have to worry about switching the lights on and off every day at the same time.
--ian
The Pixelacrobat
Posts: 17
Joined: Wed Dec 16, 2009 11:25 am

Post by The Pixelacrobat »

Good suggestions :)
I had these lights laying around at home, that's why I used them, but they are only meant for overwintering.
Whenever it gets warmer (hopefully soon) they will be moved out on a south-facing balcony in a PVC coated greenhouse.
All lights are running on a timer ofcourse :)
daiv
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Joined: Mon Aug 16, 2004 10:15 pm
Location: Long Prairie, MN
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Post by daiv »

Very nice construction! I always like seeing projects like this. It is a good way to get ideas! :idea1:
All Cacti are succulents, but not all succulents are Cacti
iann
Posts: 17184
Joined: Mon Jul 24, 2006 11:10 pm
Location: England

Post by iann »

One caution with the CFL bulbs: they lose a lot of brightness. After a couple of thousand hours they may have lost 20% or more of their light output. I just swapped out a bulb in my seed box that's maybe 4,000 hours old and the light level in the box increased by nearly 20%. Given that was only one of two bulbs, that means its output was down nearly 40%. I don't have the equipment to accurately measure the total light output of a bulb, but I replaced it with the same shape and the same power so my spot brightness readings should be reliable. Also, the difference was easily visible by eye which implies a considerable percentage since the eye perceives brightness geometrically (ie. 40% isn't much and 90% is perceived more like "half").

CFLs lose output quite quickly in the first few thousand hours and then stabilise until they finally stop working. LEDs lose output in a slightly different way, more or less constantly until they are too dim to be usable. Total life can be very long, 50,000 hours or more, but they might have lost half their output by 50,000 hours. There is huge variation and its hard to find the data for most LEDs, so measure the brightness and then check it every few thousand hours to see that its still doing its job.
--ian
NealMartin
Posts: 1
Joined: Thu Aug 22, 2013 10:33 am

Re: Indoor cacti grow shelf

Post by NealMartin »

The Pixelacrobat wrote:Hello everyone :)
I'd like to present my indoor grow shelf which I built because I was starting to get low on space on where to put my cacti during these harsh winter months we get here in Sweden.

It has three levels, the top one is mostly used for my Pereskiopsis grow, the 2nd level is not populated with anything at the moment due to the lack of proper led light.
At level one is where I keep the rest of the cacti (more pictures will follow regarding this).

Dimensions:
78x35x147 cm
(31x14x58 inches)

After putting the shelfs together I started adding the lights.
I'm using a LED+CFL combination.

Lights:

Level 3:
1x Blue LED panel with 225 LED's running at 13.8 watts combined with two 16 watt CFL's (6500 K, 900Lm)

Level 1:
Blue/Red LED panel with 60 blue LEDs and 165 red ones combined with two 16 watt CFL's (6500 K, 900Lm)

Image

Since these lights are quite bright I decided to put plastic around the whole shelf so that it won't light up my whole kitchen. I'm using Velcro to attach the plastic to the shelf, which makes it possible for me to remove all plastic within a minute or so.
Image
Image
Image
Image
Image
Image
Image

I hope this gets you inspired if you need a indoor grow :)
Any suggestions on improvements?
Very exciting thread.. I will try to do similar setup and hope it works well for me..
fanaticactus
Posts: 3194
Joined: Sun Oct 25, 2009 7:44 pm
Location: Grand Isle Co., Vermont

Re: Indoor cacti grow shelf

Post by fanaticactus »

That's a very well planned, compact but highly useful space. May it bring you many happy cactus moments! :D
Catch a falling star--but don't try it with a cactus!
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