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 BigPharma
Myco-Rising
Registered: 07/22/11
Posts: 167
Last seen: 1 day, 17 minutes
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 Basement Greenhouse Grow 
#15086154 - 09/16/11 09:03 AM (1 year, 7 months ago) |
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Hi All,
I'm currently starting a smallish basement greenhouse growing operation. My goal is to sell the mushrooms at the local farmer's market, to restaurants, and the Co-Op. I chose to start out with Oysters (Golden and Pearl), Shiitakes, Lion's Manes, and Reishis. I'm focusing primarily on the Oysters and Shiitakes at the moment as (1) they're more market-friendly, but also (2) because those are the best performing spawn I have going so far. I've grown mushrooms at home before in the past, but not on this scale and just for hobby. But I developed a knack for it and found it really rewarding, so I thought it might be a perfect niche to try and start a home business from. I'm currently employed in grad-school, so this is something I can do on the side and grow while I'm working on my degree.
For my setup I ordered a Shelter Logic 6 x 8 x 6.5 ft. greenhouse and set it up in my basement after a thorough cleaning (mopping, HEPA vacuuming, vinegar sprays, anion generators installed). Once the area was cleansed, I put up a plastic buffer-zone around the greenhouse for extra concealment.
To get fresh air into the tent, I built a filter-box and used four filtrete filters of increasing efficiency to approximate HEPA filtration. The air duct then runs along the peak of the greenhouse with holes poked on both sides of the duct running the length of the growspace. Before the air is pumped out of the holes, the duct runs into a 5 gallon bucket with a pond-fogger inside, letting humidified air flow through the out-take of the bucket and into the grow-space. For additional humidification there is an ultrasonic humidifier, and two more 5 gallon buckets with fish-tank heaters and air-stones for evaporative humidification.
I made two racks out of PVC pipe that run the length of the grow space on the left and right side. Each one has space to hold 8 hanging grow bags. This is where I plan on growing my Oysters and Lion's Manes. There's also a shelving unit in the back of the tent where blocks of reishi and shiitakes will be fruited.
The FAE-system is set up with Utilitech light timers modified to run on a 30 minute cycle instead of 24 hours. This lets me set the fan to run for 5 minutes four times an hour. The ultrasonic bucket humidifier is also plugged into the same timer. But the ultrasonic humidifier inside the tent is on a separate timer synched with fan-timer so that it switches on at the same time, but runs for one minute longer. It also switches on for about two minutes half-way through the fan's off-cycle. This keeps the humidity in the tent at >85%. I don't know the exact measurement because my hygrometer shorted out at 85%.
Currently, I'm building up my spawn culture so I can spawn several grow-tubes soon. For the grow-tubes, I ordered a roll of 16" poly-tubing from Uline.
My goal for this is to be successful, so I welcome any criticisms or recommendations anyone might have. Videos of the grow setup are included below.
Thanks for reading!
Starting the Mushroom Farm, pt. 1
Starting the Mushroom Farm, pt. 2
Starting the Mushroom Farm, pt. 3
Starting the Mushroom Farm, pt. 4
Shredding Straw for Substrate
DIY Ultrasonic Inline Duct Humidifier
Mixing Spawn Bags
Modifying a Utilitech Light Timer
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"There are no differences, but differences of degree between different degrees of difference and no difference."
-William James on NO2 in 1882
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 EvilMushroom666
Heretic
Registered: 11/18/09
Posts: 10,094
Loc: Canada 
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Re: Basement Greenhouse Grow [Re: BigPharma]
#15086329 - 09/16/11 10:24 AM (1 year, 7 months ago) |
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Looks like you are well on your way, great job, good luck and please do
keep us updated with pictures of your progress brother!
I myself am running a small scale shiitake operation and your videos have
given me some ideas and thoughts for when I go to the next level and increase
my fruiting area from 2 smaller 6 foot green houses to a larger area. I
also like the video you did for modifying 24 hours timers. I am going to
have to see if I cannot do something similar.
 and 
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john-hai
oyster lover
Registered: 05/11/11
Posts: 225
Loc: san jose ca
Last seen: 18 hours, 35 minutes
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thank you for taking the time to post your work. the videos was great. i am too new to be advising you but i will be listening to all comment. i mainly grow oyster and recently bought some shiitake and also got a trade from Evil so i will be starting shiitake soon. please post your grow i am all ear.
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3 rules i use to grow mushroom
#1 local material
#2 recycle when possible
#3 make it simple
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GroboClone
Anthropomorphic Elephant
Registered: 01/07/11
Posts: 345
Loc: Canada
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Re: Basement Greenhouse Grow [Re: john-hai]
#15089248 - 09/16/11 10:21 PM (1 year, 7 months ago) |
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I've been growing in a room just a little bit bigger than yours for
around a year now. Mines 6'x9' with a 6' ceiling. I'm currently selling
to restaurants and groceries.
The biggest challenge I had was getting enough fresh air, or more
precisely, a low enough CO2 concentration for the Oysters to develop
properly. Along with that comes the problem of supplying enough water
to keep the RH in the proper range with the added airflow. That's the
easy part, just add more ultrasonic misters, but now you have to deal
with the 5 gallons+ of water that is dumped into the air every day.
I didn't see an exhaust system in the videos, I would highly recommend
exhausting all the air from the greenhouse outside. You don't want the
humidity, mushroom spores, mold spores, mixing with your household air.
Welcome and Happy Growing
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Javadog
Continuing along
Registered: 05/03/10
Posts: 7,273
Loc: USA 
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Re: Basement Greenhouse Grow [Re: GroboClone]
#15090051 - 09/17/11 01:42 AM (1 year, 7 months ago) |
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An excellent write-up. Thank you for taking the time.
I will have to ponder your many schedules. You clearly put a lot of
thought into it.
Good luck!
JD
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Boyd Rice told my brother that life is a corny pack of freesakes
Myco-tek.org
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BigPharma
Myco-Rising
Registered: 07/22/11
Posts: 167
Last seen: 1 day, 17 minutes
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Re: Basement Greenhouse Grow [Re: GroboClone]
#15090957 - 09/17/11 10:21 AM (1 year, 7 months ago) |
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Quote:
GroboClone said:
I didn't see an exhaust system in the videos, I would highly recommend
exhausting all the air from the greenhouse outside. You don't want the
humidity, mushroom spores, mold spores, mixing with your household air.
I had wondered about that. How would you recommend designing one? Just a simple out-take with a second blower fan that switches on at the same time as the in-take?
And thanks for the comments, it was fun to put together. :-)
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"There are no differences, but differences of degree between different degrees of difference and no difference."
-William James on NO2 in 1882
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GroboClone
Anthropomorphic Elephant
Registered: 01/07/11
Posts: 345
Loc: Canada
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Re: Basement Greenhouse Grow [Re: BigPharma]
#15091750 - 09/17/11 02:51 PM (1 year, 7 months ago) |
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That's how I ran my first setup, except my fans were on speed controllers not timers.
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BigPharma
Myco-Rising
Registered: 07/22/11
Posts: 167
Last seen: 1 day, 17 minutes
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Re: Basement Greenhouse Grow [Re: BigPharma]
#15261718 - 10/22/11 03:03 PM (1 year, 6 months ago) |
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Okay, had a few minor setbacks, but now I'm back on track.
I had to re-create my pasteurizing tank after a fatal flaw was discovered, but the one I have now is faaaar better than my previous one. I have a video of its creation that I'll be uploading later today.
But I also finally have actual fungus in my grow-room!
Just yesterday I put two cold-shocked shiitake blocks in there along with about an 8 lb bag of (yellow?) oyster mushrooms. The oyster mushroom bag was a bit of a fluke. Originally it was about a 15lb bag that didn't colonize. So I cut open the bag, re-used some of the substrate, and the let the rest of the bag sit. Around 2-3 weeks later I realized the bag had fully colonized, and when I went to put it in the grow-room about 2 weeks after that I realized there were TONS of pins covering the surface! I was amazed at the aggressive colonization in a very poor environment.
So those are fruiting right now; when I looked today, the oysters were notably larger. I'll put pics up in short order. But this afternoon I mixed up several more culture bags.
I ended up with (2) 15 lb pearl oyster bags, (1) 15 lb golden oyster bag, and (5) 7 lb Lion's Mane bags.
For the Oysters, I used a mix of straw, cottonseed hulls, and small amount of horse-poo compost; and for the LM's I used hardwood mulch that was pasteurized in the same water (at the same time) as the oyster mushroom substrate.
I guess one question I have is, how influential is light-exposure during the colonization for oyster mushrooms? I ask because the wonder-bag I mentioned earlier was sitting about 7 ft. away from a 400 W metal halide lamp the whole time, and didn't seem to affect colonization. And if I don't have to worry about light during colonization of the bags, then that'll help out quite a bit.
Below is a short video of my grow-room as of last night. I'll post some more pics of the growing oysters and my culture bags later today or tomorrow.
[url]
/url]
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"There are no differences, but differences of degree between different degrees of difference and no difference."
-William James on NO2 in 1882
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woodland_jewel
In den Gärten Pharaos
Registered: 09/07/11
Posts: 275
Loc: Pennsylvania
Last seen: 4 days, 18 hours
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Re: Basement Greenhouse Grow [Re: BigPharma]
#15267536 - 10/23/11 07:02 PM (1 year, 6 months ago) |
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As far as I understand, light has little to no effect during colonization. However, it will affect cap pigmentation during fruiting.
My logs are kept mostly in the dark while colonizing. The only time they get light is when I walk through the incubation room to get to the grow room.
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Woodland Jewel Mushrooms
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BigPharma
Myco-Rising
Registered: 07/22/11
Posts: 167
Last seen: 1 day, 17 minutes
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Oyster Mushrooms Growing! [Re: BigPharma]
#15270395 - 10/24/11 12:23 PM (1 year, 6 months ago) |
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These suckers grow fast! Only Fruiting Day 3 and they're already over 2 inches tall.
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"There are no differences, but differences of degree between different degrees of difference and no difference."
-William James on NO2 in 1882
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flameclown
totality is amust
Registered: 04/04/04
Posts: 920
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Re: Oyster Mushrooms Growing! [Re: BigPharma]
#15271293 - 10/24/11 03:52 PM (1 year, 6 months ago) |
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sweet!!!!! 
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BigPharma
Myco-Rising
Registered: 07/22/11
Posts: 167
Last seen: 1 day, 17 minutes
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55 Gallon Pasteurizing Tank [Re: flameclown]
#15271551 - 10/24/11 04:50 PM (1 year, 6 months ago) |
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Thanks. 
I've got a video up now of my pasteurizing tank. Its made from a 55 gallon food-grade HDPE drum I obtained from a bottling company and equipped with a 1440W hot water heater element. Then I have a second 35 gal garbage can I drilled holes in to make into a strainer that I fill up with the substrate. When the substrate's done pasteurizing, I hand-fill my culture tubes straight out of it then mix the spawn in a separate plastic tub before re-filling the culture tubes with the inoculated substrate.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBuR2fyEKTQ]
Seems to be working well so far, I just need to rig up a better draining method. All I have in it right now is a bung-stopper. But I didn't figure it would drain faster than my sump-pump can handle, so I ended up keeping about 20 gallons of hot-water at bay with a floor-squeegie for about 6 minutes while the sump-pump caught up. 
Right now I'm rigging up a water-filtration system to use for filling my humidifiers so I can stop putting nasty tap-water into my ultrasonics (only been doing that for about 2 days). Video to come shortly.
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"There are no differences, but differences of degree between different degrees of difference and no difference."
-William James on NO2 in 1882
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ife
Stranger Danger
Registered: 04/10/11
Posts: 116
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Re: 55 Gallon Pasteurizing Tank [Re: BigPharma]
#15273728 - 10/24/11 11:28 PM (1 year, 6 months ago) |
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Hey pretty cool pasteurizer thingy. Watching the video now.. slow connection so only halfway thru. If you ever have to remake it you don't need to go thru all the extra steps you did with the scoring and whatnot, unless you want to cause it is a good idea n all that. The failure you had with the trash barrel was because the plastic wasn't rigid enough. And you might have needed to get the silicone better in between everything such as the threads n stuff. I've done a few just like it with the hard plastic food grade barrels. I had to replace the heating element and was very happy I was able to "easily" pry/chip away the silicone. Although it was water tight and I have used the thing for a year or so with no water leaks. Well my first attempt at the seal which was a trial run that did a side barrel setup leaked but I learned from that what I needed to do for the seal and haven't had a problem in one I built since.
Also your power wire looks a little small and most likely gets very hot. And I believe you risk fire. I forget the wire grade number but its basically the big thick flat stuff they put in the walls that can handle large amounts of amperage and wattage. I forget what it is. Someone posted it on one of my threads talking about this exact thing. I did try an extension cord of that size you have hooked up to the thick flat "wall" cable I am referring to and the heat difference was very very noticeable. I would hate to see you accidentally get hurt.. but I obviously don't know what wire you got.. just a guess of a observation. And after seeing you super easily flicked the ground wire I am almost certain your wire is not thick enough. I would double check on that. The wire I am talking about you would basically need pliers to bend it with in the distance you flicked yours.
Also you thermostat should be attached to your barrel right above the heating element. It won't do anything where you have it in the video. I have the same thermostat. And almost the exact same setup except I got a barrel that had a removable top with a metal ring for sealing it and I screwed my element into the hole I drilled. And the differences I mentioned you might want to look into for your safety. But I am no electrician, just passing along the same caution I received. I could be wrong on all of this.
But hey yea wicked cool setup.
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BigPharma
Myco-Rising
Registered: 07/22/11
Posts: 167
Last seen: 1 day, 17 minutes
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Re: 55 Gallon Pasteurizing Tank [Re: ife]
#15274378 - 10/25/11 02:31 AM (1 year, 6 months ago) |
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Thanks for the tip on the wire, Ife; I'm pretty sure its a heavy enough gauge to handle the wattage. Its only pulling 1500 W. I have some extension cables that are listed to 1500W and are notably thinner than this one, its pretty beefy. But definitely worth double-checking.
So the thermostat actually takes temp readings? I assumed it operated on a regostat-type principal where the element has a determined max heating capability for a given amount of wattage, which would be regulated by the thermostat.
And yes, the 55 gal. drum is far more rigid than that crappy garbage-can.
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"There are no differences, but differences of degree between different degrees of difference and no difference."
-William James on NO2 in 1882
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ife
Stranger Danger
Registered: 04/10/11
Posts: 116
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Re: 55 Gallon Pasteurizing Tank [Re: BigPharma]
#15275028 - 10/25/11 09:29 AM (1 year, 6 months ago) |
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BigPharma - np. just passing along the same type of warnings I got. Here is the link to the thread where we all were talking about it with pics of my equipment I bought. 10 guage is what they recommended and what I went with. And like I said I noticed a huge heat difference. You might want to feel the wire. Maybe even put it in a small loop, which would attenuate the situation to see clearer. I have my 10 guage in a few loops to keep it out of the way but have no heat whatsoever.
http://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/14300604/page/1
The thermostat. I forget if it was the instruction sheet or talking in the text chat but yea they say to put it above the element. Its also where it gets placed on a water heater. You don't want to over heat your straw.
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BigPharma
Myco-Rising
Registered: 07/22/11
Posts: 167
Last seen: 1 day, 17 minutes
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Re: 55 Gallon Pasteurizing Tank [Re: ife]
#15278237 - 10/25/11 10:06 PM (1 year, 6 months ago) |
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I checked the cable earlier, and its a 14 AWG. It's plugged into a 15A, 110V breaker and pulls ~1440W. Does someone who knows more about electricity than I do know if that is sufficient? It will be at least several days before I'll be firing it up again, so I won't be able to feel the wire and see if its getting warm, plus it would be nice to know if the wire itself is a hazard.
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"There are no differences, but differences of degree between different degrees of difference and no difference."
-William James on NO2 in 1882
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ife
Stranger Danger
Registered: 04/10/11
Posts: 116
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Re: 55 Gallon Pasteurizing Tank [Re: BigPharma]
#15280079 - 10/26/11 09:53 AM (1 year, 6 months ago) |
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Here is thread from the guy I copied my first pasteurizer from, which discusses the wiring a little more. Although I went single element and 120V and didn't need the top thermostat. Hope this helps you some more. Stay safe.
http://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/13768133
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BigPharma
Myco-Rising
Registered: 07/22/11
Posts: 167
Last seen: 1 day, 17 minutes
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Re: 55 Gallon Pasteurizing Tank [Re: ife]
#15282076 - 10/26/11 07:18 PM (1 year, 6 months ago) |
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Just harvested my first Pearl Oysters tonight! They're looking pretty good, and weighed out to just under a pound after I trimmed off the stem-bottoms. Not many large ones, but I thought this bag was a goner anyway.
At the bottom is a picture of some Pearl and Golden Oyster that are currently about 4 days into colonizing.
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"There are no differences, but differences of degree between different degrees of difference and no difference."
-William James on NO2 in 1882
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Not Quite Social
Registered: 07/16/10
Posts: 1,336
Loc: Midwest
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Re: 55 Gallon Pasteurizing Tank [Re: BigPharma]
#15282392 - 10/26/11 08:25 PM (1 year, 6 months ago) |
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Nice grow, BigPharma! Pretty fruit ... 
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The People's History
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BigPharma
Myco-Rising
Registered: 07/22/11
Posts: 167
Last seen: 1 day, 17 minutes
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Thank You. 
Here's a couple short videos. One of the mushrooms being harvested, the next is a pseudo time-lapse of them growing.
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"There are no differences, but differences of degree between different degrees of difference and no difference."
-William James on NO2 in 1882
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