DIY Grow Tent - PVC & B/W Poly

[stratagem]

I recently put together a structure for my grow tent using 1" PVC (I think I could have gotten away with 3/4", oh well). But before I finished it up by wrapping the Panda/Poly around it, I wanted to get some input.

1. I'm a bit concerned now that I'm reading that heat + PVC can be toxic to the plants. I had planned on using 168 watts of CFL in vegging section and 270 watts of HPS in the flowering section. Should I have an cause for concern? Should I start over with a new material getting rid of either the Panda or PVC or both?

2. My structure is just over 5 feet high, 3 feet wide and 2 feet deep. The width has been split into 2 feet, and 1 foot sections. The 2x2x5 side will be for flowering, and the 1x2x5 side will be for vegging. I had originally wanted each section of the tent to be equal in size but do to space limitations I had to rethink things a bit. I figured a larger flowering room would be OK and a vegging room half the size should be sufficient for a mother or two and some clones. Maybe I can stack them within the 5 feet of height. Am I off to a good start here for a perpetual harvest?

3. I'm undecided on a means to seal the Panda/Poly film while having easy access to the lower and upper areas of the tent. I originally had planned to create a roll-up flap with velcro running down both sides and at the bottom. But now I'm thinking these adhesive zippers might be a better option. What would you recommend?

 

[Mountain_Monkey]

I just bought a tent with almost exactly the same dimensions (.90X.50X1.6M) and I'm currently trying to decide whether to run 1 or 2 130W flouros along with 2 LED panels as the 130's can produce some heat and I'm only going to use a small 220V fan as an exhaust. In your case, since you have more flexibility as to where your exhaust fan goes, I'd place it dead center at the top of the flowering area. From what I can see you could add another cross bar at the top and move the current one so that they would be right in the middle of the flower area. That should be strong enough to support a fan as well as a small carbon scrubber. If you can't move the one currently there then place perhaps add a cross bar at the top left corner and place the fan btween the 2. I'm thinking that if you have the fan placed on top then it should be very efficient in cooling things down which in turn would mean you won't have to replace the PVC. A seperate, smaller fan could be used for the vegging area I guess as 168W of flouro wont be all that hot. I have a friend who bought a PVC tent and he's had no problems in the 9 or so months he's had it which is probably due to the fact he runs a very efficient cooling system. As far as perpetual harvest goes I guess 2 mothers sitting on the bottom and clones on thin platforms on one side (think blinds... little platforms suspended from the top using wire to hold the structure together) would work fine I guess. Light positioning is all that would have to be sorted and that should be easy once you have plant numbers figured. As far as the covering and your need to access the inside is concerned I'm not quite sure what I would do. I think that cross bars on all four corners would make it easier to attach your outer cover and they would also add strength to the structure. Covering of the back, top, bottom and sides with something more rigid than what your planning on using would could allow you to construct a one piece front that could be permanently attached to the bar seperating veg and flower. I don't know... all out of ideas now. Hope it works out well however you go about it. Best of luck and good on ya for the DIY effort...

 

[FLA.GOON]

WELL PUT TOGETHER

 

[stratagem]

I decided to stick with my original dimensions. As I continue to build I'll be able to determine what kind of support braces are needed if any. Here's hoping I won't have any serious heat issues. If I cut the right exhaust and intake holes and use good flange along with some zip-ties I should be able to hang a carbon scrubber pretty nicely. I had planned on cutting the exhaust hole in the top left corner to allow room for a carbon scrubber to stretch across to the other side. I may consider mounting the scrubber on the outside of the tent somehow so I don't lose space at the top inside where the lighting fixture will hanging later into the grow.

Now I have to decide how powerful of fans I'll need for each section of the tent. For the flowering space, it's approximately 26.5 Cubic Feet. I've ready on several other forums and I believe in a few posts here that it's recommended to exchange air 2-3 times per minute. But according to the ventilation stickies it seems that once per minute is perfect and any more can cause stress to the plant. So which is it for a small tent? If I can get away with a 40-50 CFM fan with a DIY carbon filter attached to it, that would be great. Also I've seen several posts indicate that intake should be twice the size of exhaust but according to the sticky an intake about 10-20% larger is just fine. Would this apply to my tent?


Here are some new photos. I've taped all the outside edges with black duct tape. I plan to seal all the inside edges with foil tape. I'm still undecided on a method for door flaps. Perhaps a strip of velcro at the top and bottom, and a adhesive zipper down the middle of each section?

 

[VAtransplant]

the way i just did one (pics in vert thread by me, one of top few threads since that forum is slow moving).. was a flap thats taped really well on say the left side of the box. it stretches across the front face of the box and secures on the other side (with plenty of overlap to ensure no light leak) and velcro'd with 3 1" pieces. Really basic and easy, used it on a few panda wrapped contraptions. Not too fancy obviously, and that wouldn't allow you to check the veg independent of flower unless you gave it some thinkin

 

[Carl Carlson]

I'm going to do something similar but haven't come up or found an idea for supporting the exhaust fan yet.

what did you do?

 

[SanDiegrow]

where do u get the stuff to put on the outside? (panda/poly)