I'd also thought about a skirt idea like you mentioned. Haven't figured out a good way to attach it to the lid yet though. My best idea on that so far was gorilla tape and a thick plastic garbage bag...heh. Something like a silicone caulk was next on the list. I would prefer to not have to employ such methods and simply get a container that was more leak resistant itself though. Time is quickly running out though. I'm not sure what happened, but I think a few of my plants hit a "growth spurt" last night. When I went to check on the system earlier today several of my plants looked to have grown tremendously overnight some how. Their leaves had expanded and were covering parts of their neighboring plants, which they had not done the previous day. Wow!
So it would seem I need to accelerate my plans to build additional systems. I would indeed be very interested in hearing your plans for a chiller.
I also need to make a decision on the lighting. That's the one area I'm still a bit dodgey with at the moment. I'm a data kind of guy and, though I appreciate any and all advice I can get, I also like to know the "whys" behind the advice. And I'm still not comfortable with the "whys" on the lighting. A full spectrum, high quality
hps bulb seems to be the most recommended option, but I'm not sure what my final configuration for my setup will look like plus some other factors I still need to research. Guess a quick question on this though. I hear alot that HPS
bulbs have deeper "penetration"...why exactly is that? Is it simply because they are HID bulbs and the light eminating from the bulb istelf is sooooo much brighter than the light that would eminate from a flourscent? Is it the color range since HPS bulbs seem to favor the red end of the spectrum? A combination? From a shere "intensity" perspective, is a 400W HPS hanging a few feet above the plant area really better than say an 8x54w T5 fixture that can hang only a few inches above the plant area? Still a pretty confusing area for me but one I need to figure out rather quickly it would seem....my peppers have decided to start moving at a pace I wasn't quite ready for....heh.