I'm starting to have a serious problem with the smell of my plants. Let me tell you a little about my setup. I have a 3.5'x3.5'x6.5' Homebox tent in the corner of a bedroom. Inside the tent I have a 400w HPS cooltube and a 4" 170 cfm exhaust fan. I didn't have the carbon scrubber hooked up until just a week ago. I started smelling the plants when I walked into the room so I hooked it up. The air from inside the tent gets pulled through the carbon scrubber, then through the cooltube, then through the exhaust fan and out into the bedroom. When I first started smelling the plants from just entering the bedroom I hooked up the scrubber and the smell went away, until a couple days ago. It's not too bad at the moment but the smell fills the room and smacks you in the face as soon as you open the bedroom door. I have the exhaust running 24/7 and I'm not sure what to do. Here's the kicker, I'm still in veg!!!! I've got about a week before I start flowering so I need to take care of this problem asap. Any suggestions? p.s. here's my gear: Filter + Fan
sounds like the carbon scrubber just isn't getting rid of the smell, try putting a mixture of a gallon of water and 1 oz. of this. put it on the top of a 5 gallon bucket and installed a PC fan powered by a battery on the top blowing out and up.
What is your humidity? One possible problem is that carbon filters are less affective at humidities above 70%. Are you able to maintain negative pressure in your tent? In other words are the sides sucking in?
With - pressure and low RH with the right sized CS will scrub the air to 99%,sounds like either the CS is too small,(air needs to be in contact with the carbon for a specific amt. of time to work to 99%)OR the carbon is depleated or old.ATM i cannot open your link to see the CS but that sized box and fan should work very well if the carbon scrubber is big enough and the carbon is fresh.Moist air can lower its abillity to scrub air too.
RH at 45-50%, temps 80 degrees, filter is 1 month old but used less then 15 days. I changed the setup so that the filter is outside the tent and is the last stage in the exhaust. So the air gets pulled out of the tent and then pushed through the filter into the bedroom. Seems to worked and even lowered my temps by a few degrees.
Thats suprising because most fans work better when they PULL rather than push air(at least can fans do)and the limiting factor is the filter slowing the CFM from the fans rated #s,sounds like you had some leaks in your light,fittings or somewhere if its now working better but hey,it works right.Working right you should not smell anything after the fan scrubbs the air up,99%.If you do,you should find a solution now because in just a few short weeks that smell will surley get extreem.
I feel you. I was thinking about buying a bigger 6" carbon filter. You think this would help my cause or just be an avoidable expense? Here's a picture of the current setup. There's nothing attached to the other side of the cooltube. And my baby, sorry couldn't resist snapping one of the plant too. I think I fixed the smell problem but I'd rather not have it come back 10x as strong during flowering. Any suggestions? P.S. Filter is brand new.
Looking at your pictures I noticed something that might help a little. All of those funky tight twists and bends in your ducting make a huge negative impact in the airflow. If you could mount the fan in line with the light tube and straighten the filter out so its not an angle, my guess is you'd drop your temps a bit and make the filter more affective.
I would if I could. The light needs to be able to move down at least 3' from where it is now. When the light is that low there's no funky bend like your seeing in the picture above.
If you had the fan mounted directly under the filter you could remove at least a couple of bends.... better yet mount the filter directly to the light tube and have the fan be outside the tent. Externally mounting the fan will probably save you a degree or two.
i think u can get a bigger filter and leave the fan that might raise temps a bit but the air will pass through carbon slower and get cleaned better
Filter looks like 7x12" but its hard to tell w/o any ref.,if its that small than yes get a bigger one.Whats that filters scrubbing CFM rating?A fan with 180 cfm with several feet of duct,turns and CS will draw less than 100cfm,and the rule of thumb is for your room to exchange the air once each 5 min. but i have found much more is needed in some situations.