I just posted this in my thread, but thought this would be a good place to plop this little nugget…
I’m pretty tight on space but wanted to add a tent so I can experiment more with clones and mothers. The max footprint I had available was 2’ x 3’ with only 6’ max height. I thought I’d share this fairly cheap way to build a 2-story grow tent.
I started with this 2-in-1 grow tent for $100 (36”x24”x53").
And with a little re-arranging you can make it split in half horizontally. Surprisingly it all came together without much fuss. The only customization I needed to do was join two open-ended female pieces of tubing. I happened to have a curtain rod that fit the inner diameter perfectly. I cut two 3-inch pieces from the curtain rod and it worked great to join the tent poles at those points.
The horizontal split is not evenly spaced, so plan on having a larger and smaller half. You can flip the frame to your desired setup before you add the tent fabric on. I chose to keep the larger half on the bottom for heavier potted mothers, while the smaller upper half is for new clones and such.
Now I’ve got 12sq ft available to play with! I have 110w LEDs hanging in each level with the top light dimmed pretty low. I can’t believe how lucky I was that everything fit together as planned and was so much cheaper than I thought.
I bought a vivo sun like that,well actually 2, mine are 4 x 5 though, i use the 4x4 part for veg on one and the 1x4 part as my seed/clone spot, I really would not recommend the vivsun,but it came with the metal shelf
That’s pretty damn spiffy! I wanted one of those tents as they’re intended, but I need stealthier options for now. Definitely thinking outside the box with that one!
This VIPARSPECTRA brand is actually pretty good quality. Using it as intended you get 8 sq ft and the ability to grow a larger plant in the 2x2. I’m not so sure the velcro devider would be good enough to block out light from different schedules. If you keep things short the extra 4 sq ft is clutch.
Note, the metal shelf is heavy but the tent frame seems very capable of holding it. With the lights hanging from below and the plants on top, that’s a lot of weight on the welded angle joints and some on the cross poles. I think it will last a long time though.
I hear ya! Once I really got into cloning and moms then I had to find a way without making it too obvious. Just ask @Seamonkey84, he lives in a grow tent so that the plants can have the rest of the house.
I had on like it up till a few months back. Don’t remember if mine was made by vivosun but it had the split sides. The velcro divider that came with mine didn’t cover light leaks between the 2 sides but i used the whole open space inside anyway. Wish I had thought to try something like this.
the vivosun same way about the velcro divider its not to bad but i sealed it with duct tape, but yes i keep the same light schedules. When I put up scrog i have light leaks from it where the hooks have to go thru
I’ve been trying to get a little better light coverage on the smaller top portion of this double tent. The LED I was using (standard quantum board size) was mounted as high as I could but still wasn’t getting the sides or corners that well. All the plants were leaning to the center.
Then I found these 3 foot long LED tube lights, 27W/each using SMD2835 5000K chips. A 4 pack for only $40! That’s 108W total, or 18W/sqft. I’ve had them for a while now and the plants seem to be growing very happy under them. They give me an extra couple inches of height AND completely illuminate the whole footprint evenly. Double win. They almost don’t fit inside, but they just make it.
.