Condo Growspace

[thefish1337]

I moved into this condo 4 years ago- I tried using just the windows for natural lighting and quickly realized that the southern exposures I was so excited about were pretty much only good for growing Phals/Oncidium and only right up against the windows. I have about 4 weeks total each year where the sun is at an angle where it is not blocked by buildings and trees that provides sufficient lighting for high light orchids. Since I grow mostly Cattleya, after suffering no blooms and weak growth that first year I began supplementing with LEDs. Eventually I had a mess of plants and lights hanging around as I really started dialing in my grow space environmental controls and developing my knowledge base on LEDs.

Here is the synthesis of my trials and tribulations and leanings the past 3 years growing indoors.

I built this shelf in an afternoon with some minor modifications:
Build Plans

Here it is mounted to my windowsill the day of with temporary lighting:


Here is the top shelf with my lights finally installed:


Lights:
Topshelf (2x) HLG Saber 100w

Bottom shelf
65 watt panel
Dimmer

Ventilation Fans:
AC Infinity MULTIFAN S7-P

I will be placing shielding (furniture grade plywood) around the shelves to block the lights from burning my eyeballs. I will also be staining, and sealing the shelf once we start our next project: painting and installing new floors in the condo.

Yes I know I could have done this cheaper with Chinese lights from amazon but HLGs products are manufactured in the USA or by Samsung and they have good customer service and warranty. A lot of the chinese lights are built with "authentic" components that don't meet spec so yes they might be samsung diodes but they're the rejects from the assembly line. I also considered the orchid hobbyist lights but I prefer to run stronger lights at a higher distance than right up close to the plants to get the intensities I wanna grow at to increase lighting diffusion and also ease of access to plants. I might try them on the lower shelf since the HLG 65 only covers half the 2'x4' space.

[DirtyCoconuts]

Nice setup.

[Diane56Victor]

Great shelving! Only thing wrong is you haven't started another set of shelves yet.....you know you will need them🤣

[thefish1337]

Yes I have allocated another space for another (smaller) shelf

I gave away/sold 75% percent of my original 7-ish year old collection over the past 3 months. I've been purchasing quality divisions, seedlings and younger plants to grow out.

[Leafmite]

That is very nice.

I have a bunch of young plants, too. Finally went back to growing mostly Cattleyas.

[Steve83]

Great choice on the lights.