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Lab/Grow Room Design
    #25928458 -

I'm thinking about starting a mushroom farm, and so far the plan is to buy a 40ft insulated container, as the dimensions fit my needs and i think it would be pretty easy to keep sterile/control the climate.

I'm worried that there is a problem with my design as i plan to have my lab inside the same container as the grow room/fruiting chamber. The reason i suspect this might be a problem is that i plan to have clean air sucked into the fruiting chamber from outside and keeping positive pressure in the fruiting chamber which will cause spores from the fruiting chamber to enter my lab every time i open the door to my fruiting chamber, is that going to be a problem?
The air is run through a HEPA filter before entering the fruiting chamber, so no contaminants from outside, I'm just worried about spores from the fruiting chamber contaminating my lab, should i be?

Another option i am considering is going with 2 20ft containers instead, one for the lab and one for grow room, it's a bit more expensive/hassle, but maybe necessary?

I would appreciate it if anyone could share some expertise on this.

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Re: Lab/Grow Room Design [Re: RobinHood3]
    #25928499 -

I am confused as to why you would want positive pressure in your fruiting chamber. You want negative pressure. You need an exhaust fan, not an intake fan. You want to suck air and spores out of the fruiting chamber and have a flapper like the link I will put below to suck air into the room when the fan turns on. The flaper will close when the fan shuts off. This is called a passive system and is much better in my opinion. Your fruiting chamber will stay cleaner. You will only need the exhaust fan and not an intake fan. There is no need for the hepa filter for the air entering the fruiting chamber. Use the hepa in your lab so you can have heat or air conditioning with no worries.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00009W3HB/ref=oh_aui_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

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Re: Lab/Grow Room Design [Re: SHROOMSISAY01]
    #25928536 -

You actually need something like this for the lab to bring in cool or heated air...

Clean Air Filter Unit

They are also known as an air scrubber.The price will drop a lot on that unit b4 it sells.

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Re: Lab/Grow Room Design [Re: SHROOMSISAY01]
    #25928617 -

Thanks for the reply!

Okay, that makes a lot sense.

So i should have clean air pumped into the lab/container, and then in a closed off fruiting chamber i will have a fan to suck air from the fruiting chamber to the outside. And then a flapper like you linked to that lets air in from the lab when the pressure drops.
Would that be good?

Also should i have some sort security from contamination from when i enter or exit the container from the outside, or will it be enough if i just keep positive pressure in the container as a whole?

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Re: Lab/Grow Room Design [Re: RobinHood3]
    #25928679 -

You don't need air coming from the lab. Just negative pressure in the fruiting chamber. I run my exhaust fan all the time but I have a high-pressure misting system that I built from a pressure washer. So I can keep the humidity where I need it to be without a problem. You may have to cycle your fan on and off to keep your humidity where you want it. I don't know your situation.




The hepa on the lab is just if you want to have heat or air conditioning. So the air going into the lab that is heated or airconditioned is clean.

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Re: Lab/Grow Room Design [Re: SHROOMSISAY01]
    #25928689 -

I have no problem with contamination. I enter and exit many times a day and I have no security from contamination. Once your blocks are fully colonized they will not contaminate easily. If your lab procedures are bad this is where you will get your contamination. So be clean in the lab and you will be fine. If you harvest late and you have a heavy spore load in the fruiting chamber. I would wear a hepa mask to be safe.

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Re: Lab/Grow Room Design [Re: SHROOMSISAY01]
    #25928767 -

Thanks again, very helpful.

I'm not sure what I'm gonna do for humidity yet, I'm thinking about placing a water reservoir with a fogger hooked up to a humidistat somewhere near the air intake flapper. That seems like it could work?

Another concern i have is running a barrel steamer in the same shipping container as the lab and grow room. Would that create too much steam, heat?
Maybe i should have the steamer running outside and then bring it inside the lab to cool and open?

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Re: Lab/Grow Room Design [Re: RobinHood3]
    #25928907 -

RobinHood3 said:
Thanks again, very helpful.

I'm not sure what I'm gonna do for humidity yet, I'm thinking about placing a water reservoir with a fogger hooked up to a humidistat somewhere near the air intake flapper. That seems like it could work?

Another concern i have is running a barrel steamer in the same shipping container as the lab and grow room. Would that create too much steam, heat?
Maybe i should have the steamer running outside and then bring it inside the lab to cool and open?


I would use an exhaust fan and put the steamer in my lab or right next to the lab. Your best bet is to draw out where you want to put everything. You want your supply area first then you want your bag prep area then you want your steamer if it is not in your lab then you want your lab, incubation chamber and then your fruiting area. In other words, you don't want to have to take your bags from your incubation area and walk past your lab and into your fruiting area. You want it to flow as easy as possible. A little thought now will save you a ton of time in the future.

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Re: Lab/Grow Room Design [Re: SHROOMSISAY01]
    #25928949 -

Check out these settups...

https://vimeo.com/myersmushrooms

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYKZ6tv8d2rkGCMU_ja-b1Q

You will have to look through there videos to find what you are looking for.

As for humidity, I started out with the pond foggers you are talking about but they kept going bad. So after I wasted $500. I built a high-pressure system from a pressure washer. I get better fruiting because the mushrooms love it. My ceiling is only 7 feet high so don't let anyone tell you, you cant use high pressure with low ceilings. You just have to have the right misters. Here is something else you might think about for humidity...



I just had a bad experience with the pond foggers so I would not go that route.

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Re: Lab/Grow Room Design [Re: SHROOMSISAY01]
    #25929016 -

Great, thanks!

I think i have a good idea about how i want the layout to be. I'm working on making a sketch now.

I was just wondering about the incubation chamber, instead of making separate chamber, i am considering building shelving on a whole wall at one end of my lab and putting my bags there for incubation. Then cover it with something black so they don't get any light. That way the temperature will be the same as my lab which should be good, and they won't get any light + I have easy access to them for shaking(I grow Lions mane). And then moving then into the fruiting chamber when they are ready.

Do you think that would work well? Do they much ventilation at this stage?

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Re: Lab/Grow Room Design [Re: RobinHood3]
    #25929204 -

I'd like to see the sketch when you get it done. Mushrooms incubate best if you keep them at a steady 72F. so as long as you plan on keeping the lab at that temp I don't see a problem with it. If you keep the incubation at a steady temp and measure your spawn the same. You will have a good idea when they will finish incubating. That way you can get a schedule and be consistent with your growes. I use this to spawn and know each bag gets the same amount...

https://www.ebay.com/itm/8-ounce-Spoodle-Portion-Control-Spoon-Ladle-Server-Blue-Handle-Choose-Style/192862731071?hash=item2ce783bb3f:m:mdJipIoDuxe0V_wdCw4l2jA

Just put it in a sub bag and steam it with the sub. It makes things easier.

This is something that will make your life easier and save you a lot of time it will also make your moister content of the bags right on...

https://www.ebay.com/itm/1-2-Water-Flow-Control-LCD-Meter-With-Flow-Sensor-and-Solenoid-val/293020165617?hash=item44395ce5f1:g:1~wAAOSw57Zcl3AJ

I used to mix in buckets now I just dry fill the bags and use the flow meter to put the water in the bags. It takes me half the time as it did mixing in buckets. when I mix the spawn the sub gets mixed.

Anyway good luck.

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Re: Lab/Grow Room Design [Re: SHROOMSISAY01]
    #25932104 -

So this is my layout so far:



I am not exactly expert at SketchUp, but i hope you get the idea.

In the back is the bag preparation area. I plan to have an exhaust from here to the outside, so possible contamination will flow outside and not into the lab.

In the middle is the lab. The exact placement of the things in the lab still need some consideration, but the idea is to have clean filtered air pumped into the lab, creating positive pressure, so contamination from the other areas go the other way. Also i will have an exhaust somewhere near the pressure cooker/steamer to let out heat and moisture. The wooden thing in the lab is the flow hood which will further clean the air when running.

The dark enclosure in the lab is the incubation chamber and i plan to have air pumped in at the bottom and holes at the top to let out Co2 and provide fresh air.

And then the fruiting chamber, where i will have a pump vent air from the fruiting chamber to the outside to create sufficient FAE.
But i am unsure if the air intake flapper should be from the lab or from the outside to the fruiting chamber?

I am planning to have the fan in the fruiting chamber to be Co2 controlled, and then some sort of humidity system which will be humidity controlled automatically.

If at some point i need to be able to grow more, i will convert this whole container to a fruiting chamber and use another container for lab/prep.

I still need to work out the specifics of my bag prep system, ventilation and humidity control, but I'm hoping this layout will work effectively.

What are your thoughts on this? I would love your input

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Re: Lab/Grow Room Design [Re: RobinHood3]
    #25932179 -

You might want to watch all of the Mossy Creek Mushroom farm videos on Youtube. He and his wife explains a lot very clearly. Also like Shroomsisay01 suggested with MyersMushrooms to watch his videos of his setup and trials. Both of those chanels are great.. imho the best 2 for info for setting up for production level growing.


--------------------
Plan to win or you are planning for failure. Don't let anyone tell you you can't do it. Just figure out the solution. Even if that means banging your head on a wall until the solution oozes out of you.

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Re: Lab/Grow Room Design [Re: RobinHood3]
    #25932311 -

That's awesome. I like that you took the time to make the drawing look right. That says a lot about your character.

Because your lab will be next to the fruiting chamber make sure you have positive pressure in the lab and negative pressure in the fruiting chamber.

Your next step is to decide what you will be growing. I do oyster. I spawn once a week and do 100 bags. So I need to be able to fit at least 200 bags in my incubation chamber. because it takes 2 weeks on average to colonize. That way on the third week 100 bags are going into fruiting and the ones moved from incubation to fruiting are replaced with new spawn bags to incubate. In other words, do the math so you have enough incubation space for what you will be fruiting and the amount you want to fruit. The incubation chamber should be kept at a constant 72F. If you have fluctuations you will not have consistent incubation which will throw everything off.

I hope this makes sense!! If you don't have a flow hood. A lot of people are using ceiling hepa modules. This one gives good pics but you can find them cheaper...

https://www.ebay.com/itm/ENVIRCO-MAC-10-XL-2X4-CEILING-GRID-FAN-FILTER-UNIT-NEW-11111-001B-115V-HEPA/113705851606?hash=item1a79659ad6:g:zUIAAOSwA05co4zD

They are self-contained and plug and play. No building necessary.

I got two brand new in the box for $70 from HGR.com  each but I didn't have to pay for shipping (I live in the location). Just type in hepa on their site. They come in quite often.

Good luck my friend!! If you need anything else let me know I am glad to help.

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Re: Lab/Grow Room Design [Re: SHROOMSISAY01]
    #25938152 -

SHROOMSISAY01 said:
I am confused as to why you would want positive pressure in your fruiting chamber. You want negative pressure. You need an exhaust fan, not an intake fan. You want to suck air and spores out of the fruiting chamber and have a flapper like the link I will put below to suck air into the room when the fan turns on. The flaper will close when the fan shuts off. This is called a passive system and is much better in my opinion. Your fruiting chamber will stay cleaner. You will only need the exhaust fan and not an intake fan. There is no need for the hepa filter for the air entering the fruiting chamber. Use the hepa in your lab so you can have heat or air conditioning with no worries.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00009W3HB/ref=oh_aui_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1


You guys have already discussed a shit ton so not going to read everything
But as to grow room
Rule is if your lab is close negative pressure is the way to go
If your lab is not close you want positive pressure
Positive pressure can give you a shit ton of advantages with big grows
(Basically small growing they average out but the bigger you go the more you should look into positive pressure)

Next lab:
Labs should always have positive pressure(to protect the inside)
(Unless your doing hobby growing of course)


--------------------


Nothing breads nothing

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Re: Lab/Grow Room Design [Re: Geinstein]
    #25938554 -

Just curious, do you have any idea on a budget for your set up Robin?

Shroomsisay101, just curious, if you feel like sharing, approximately what is your profit percentage? Not including original set up costs.

Do you sell all fresh or do you end up drying what isn’t sold?


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Re: Lab/Grow Room Design [Re: SHROOMSISAY01]
    #25939267 -

SHROOMSISAY01 said:
Your next step is to decide what you will be growing. I do oyster. I spawn once a week and do 100 bags. So I need to be able to fit at least 200 bags in my incubation chamber. because it takes 2 weeks on average to colonize. That way on the third week 100 bags are going into fruiting and the ones moved from incubation to fruiting are replaced with new spawn bags to incubate. In other words, do the math so you have enough incubation space for what you will be fruiting and the amount you want to fruit.



I will be growing Lions Mane, I'm planning to grow 50 bags every week, so with an avg of 2 weeks to colonize i need to fit 100 bags in my incubation chamber, and then at least 200 bags in my fruiting chamber. I done some calculation of the size of the bags, so they should be able to fit in my design.

SHROOMSISAY01 said:
I hope this makes sense!! If you don't have a flow hood. A lot of people are using ceiling hepa modules. This one gives good pics but you can find them cheaper...

https://www.ebay.com/itm/ENVIRCO-MAC-10-XL-2X4-CEILING-GRID-FAN-FILTER-UNIT-NEW-11111-001B-115V-HEPA/113705851606?hash=item1a79659ad6:g:zUIAAOSwA05co4zD

They are self-contained and plug and play. No building necessary.

I got two brand new in the box for $70 from HGR.com  each but I didn't have to pay for shipping (I live in the location). Just type in hepa on their site. They come in quite often.

Good luck my friend!! If you need anything else let me know I am glad to help.


Thanks a lot for all the advice. These ceiling hepa fans looks nice, i like that i would be able to save a lot of space for a flow hood with these, but they wont create a laminar flow would they? Can these completely replace the need for a laminar flow hood?


SunnyDayze  said:
Just curious, do you have any idea on a budget for your set up Robin?

Shroomsisay101, just curious, if you feel like sharing, approximately what is your profit percentage? Not including original set up costs.

Do you sell all fresh or do you end up drying what isn’t sold?



Yeah, including the shipping container and all the setup plus starting materials I'm looking at a startup cost of a little less than 10.000$, but lets just say 10k$ as there probably will be something I've forgotten.

The profit percentage will be about 75-80% and i hope to produce and sell 200kg a month. I'm planning to sell for about 17-20$ per kg. Probably 15$ wholesale and 30$ at farmers market. There's no one selling these in my area and as far as i can tell not even in my country, there's a market for gourmet mushrooms, but as far as i can tell, no one is making or selling Lions Mane, so I'm hoping they will be well received.

I'm planning to dry everything i don't sell and drying them and selling them either whole or as a powder, maybe even pills as a supplement.

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Re: Lab/Grow Room Design [Re: RobinHood3]
    #25939515 -

Thanks a lot for all the advice. These ceiling hepa fans looks nice, i like that i would be able to save a lot of space for a flow hood with these, but they wont create a laminar flow would they? Can these completely replace the need for a laminar flow hood?


I had the same question. I still have not picked up mine from my brother. He picked them up for me to save on shipping.

I had him test them and he sent me a video. The ones I got do produce Laminar flow. A high-quality filter will produce laminar flow and if you look at the price of a new unit ($1200) they are high quality. Once you find one that you are thinking of buying find out who makes it and give them a call and ask them if the filter produces laminar flow. When I bought the ones I got I didn't care. For $70 I would have found a place to use them.

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Re: Lab/Grow Room Design [Re: SHROOMSISAY01]
    #25939525 -

This shows that the ceiling modules have laminar flow...


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Re: Lab/Grow Room Design [Re: SHROOMSISAY01]
    #25939553 -

I looked around online and didn’t find any those good deals or that’s the route I would have went..  I’m in Canada but go to the USA often enough I could pick one up there.  I’m not in the market right now, built a different one, but still looking incase I do find a deal.


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Re: Lab/Grow Room Design [Re: SunnyDayze]
    #25939606 -

SunnyDayze said:
I looked around online and didn’t find any those good deals or that’s the route I would have went..  I’m in Canada but go to the USA often enough I could pick one up there.  I’m not in the market right now, built a different one, but still looking incase I do find a deal.


I don't know where you go in the USA but HGR is located about 1/2 hour from  Cleveland Ohio if you go near there that is where I would look. If you don't have to ship you won't find cheaper. Like I said I got new ones in the box for $70 each and they had like 20 of them. I would have bought all of them if I had the money. Every once in a while they have real commercial flow hoods for pennies on the dollar.

Half the time they don't know what they have so they list it as a fume hood. Sometimes it actually says laminar flow on it and is still listed as a fume hood. So just do investigation on it. This may actually be a flow hood for example...

https://hgrinc.com/productDetail/Air-Handling/Used-Bio-Bubble-Fume-Hood/02110818645/

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Re: Lab/Grow Room Design [Re: SHROOMSISAY01]
    #25939644 -

SHROOMSISAY01 said:
This shows that the ceiling modules have laminar flow...




My labs getting the same set up still waiting on they guys to tell me what I need


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Nothing breads nothing

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Re: Lab/Grow Room Design [Re: Geinstein]
    #25939658 -

I mostly stick to the Midwest, Chicago is the farthest east, but not too far a drive from there.  Definitely do-able :smile:


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Mushrooms, Mycology and Psychedelics > Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms
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