Your help is appreciated, thank you! Here are the questions; the details of the entire setup are below. 1.\tHow can the temperatures be lowered slightly? During the winter months everything runs nicely (75 to 82) but in the dry, hot, desert summer the temperatures get up to 88, which is to warm. Should a 4†inline duct fan (only 80 CFM) be added to push cool air into the bottom of each of the vegging / flowering chambers? 2.\tThe humidity is too low, staying at about 35%. How can the humidity be raised? Buckets of water do not work, it has been tried. Would a small water cooler (A/C type unit) do the trick for both raising the humidity and bringing down the temperatures? 3.\tIs there anything that could be changed to reduce the amount of time between harvests? There is only enough space for one more of the small (DP90) grow tents. HOW THE SETUP WORKS The mother plant is kept for taking cuttings (clones). The clones reside with the mother plant for about the first 10-14 days and are placed under a 35w CFL bulb, one bulb per plant. Then, the rooted clones are moved to one of the other tents and placed under the LED light. The other tents are used for the rest of the entire cycle. Once the plant has reached about 12†in height, the lights are switched from 18/6 to 12/12. Once the flowering phase is completed, the plant is left in the dark for about 2-4 days to ripen. Once ripe, the plant is cut and hung to dry in the same tent. The drying part takes about 10 to 14 days. Once dried, the plants are cut up and placed into jars for about 20 to 30 more days before being consumed. This setup allows one to keep a mother plant, even 2 of them if you would like AND provide a fresh harvest about every 6 weeks. GROW SPACE / GROW TENTS The grow space is a walk-in closet that is 10' L x 5' W x 8' H. There are 3 grow tents total. 2 tents are Secrete Jardin DR60 (discontinued), not the DR60 II you find in stores and online now. This is notable because the DR60 is a little bit shorter than the newer DR60 II. The shorter tents were needed so that enough room was available on top for the third tent. The third tent is a Secrete Jardin Dark Propagator DP90. DR60 Dimensions – 2' L x 2' W x 4.6 H'. DP90 Dimensions – 2' L x 3' W x 2' H. NOTE: The DP90 is actually turned on the side. In this orientation, the dimensions are 3' L x 2' W x 3' H. When done this way, there is enough vertical space (3 ft) for the mother plant. DR60 product page: DARK ROOM I DP90 product page: DARK Propagator VENTILATION / CARBON FILTERS The extraction fan for the 2 grow/flower tents is a CanFan 4†(RS4 – 123 CFM). The fan is extracting air from both of the DR60 grow tents. In-between the two tents, there is a “T†splitter. Each end is connected to a tent and the third end to the CanFan. The exhaust end of the CanFan is attached to ducting which runs to the closet door. This way, the heat is taken as far away as possible from the grow tents. The CanFan is also wired to a speed controller. The speed controller is used because if this fan were to be run on full blast, it would actually be to powerful for the small filters and grow tents. Turning the fan down to about half speed seems to keep the temperatures just right. If the fan is ran at full power, the temperature does not change much but the closet begins to smell slightly. There are cloths in the closet, so clearly having any smell is not an option. CanFan product page: CF Group :: Canfan, Canfilter Fan speed controller - Speedster Fan Controls | Environmental Control Products, Environmental Technology Control, Environmental Control System The extraction fan for the mother/clone tent is a 6†inline duct fan (240 CFM). Note that this is a duct fan and does not pull anywhere near 240 CFM when connected to ducting and the DIY carbon filter. 6†inline duct fan product link: Shop Inductor 6" In-Line Duct Fan at Lowes.com The carbon filters are from a DYI post that can be found on this forum. They are made of a large pencil cup that is filled with carbon. Then, a smaller cup is placed inside and is left empty. Next, wrap some pantyhose around it and you've got a filter. The view the post, follow this link: http://forum.grasscity.com/do-yourself/569506-diy-carbon-filter-compendium.html GROW LIGHTS LED lights were chosen for this setup. Sure, some people say LED is the way to go, some think they are worthless. For the purposes of this setup, the LEDs are showing good results while using about half the power and only a portion of the heat. (2) 63w Penetrator PRO by Hydrogrowled.com. These lights are the equivalent to about a 175w HID light and are rated for a 12†x 18†area at 6†above the canopy. The manufacture stopped producing them this year so there is no product page to direct you to. If you search for Hydro Grow LED on EBAY, you can still find one up for auction every now and again. (2) 65w 6500K (daylight) CFL bulbs are used to keep the mother plants happy. (2) 35w 6500K (daylight) CFL bulbs are used for the clones for the first 2 weeks. 65w CFL product page: [ame=http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0058KJN7S/ref=oh_o03_s00_i00_details]Amazon.com: LimoStudio 65 Watt 6500K Fluorescent Full Spectrum Pure White Daylight Balanced Studio Light Bulb, AGG118: Camera & Photo[/ame] 35w CFL product page: [ame=http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0058KJO72/ref=oh_o03_s00_i01_details]Amazon.com: LimoStudio Full Spectrum Light Bulb 4 35W Photography Photo CFL, daylight balanced pure white light, AGG122: Camera & Photo[/ame] Thank you so much if you made it this far into the post!
You didn't say where your fresh air is coming from right now. If you don't have an intake bringing fresh air in and you are just exhausting, that's your problem. Well, that and exhausting two tents with one little 4" fan.
I was planning to have the vents in the bottom of the tents opened up. I have also changed the DYI filters to a Can Fan 9600 carbon filter and it only ventilates the flowering area now.
A 4" fan split 2 ways is not going to pull in enough fresh air or exhaust properly, and you are not going to get enough fresh air by opening a flap in the tent to get some stale hot closet air. Unless you have good air exchange with nice fresh air coming in and the stale air being removed fully and quickly, you will have heat issues, disease issues, and your plants will be scrawny. Where are you exhausting to?Good luck with LEDs. If they produced any kind of good results, we'd all be using them to avoid having to deal with heat and electricity cost issues.
OK, So i'll change so that the 4" fan is only on the flowering chamber. I have also picked up a Can Filter 9600. Now, I have the fan and filter only on the flowering tent. So about lights, I am in the process of researching what I should be looking at for HID lighting setups. So far, I am thinking that given the small space I am using that a 250W HID light setup should work well. I've also read than anything less than a 400W HID is kind of useless. So if I ran 2 250W HID setups in the 2x4 tent, could I use a 6" duct fan (240 CFM) to exhaust the heat from the lights themselves and then use the 4" Can Fan and Can Filter to ventilate the tent itself? I am thinking of using two seperate lights because my goal is to harvest every month. Using two lights, I can adjust the height of each light independently which allows me to actually have two different cycles at once in the same tent, since the lights are on for the same time and at the same time, always. If I did one 400W HID, I would have to convert both 2x4 tents to flowering and then purchase another tent for vegging and keeping the moms. What would that do for the humidity issue? I do live in a dry, hot climate and the outside humidity is always very low. So far, I have been unable to get the humidity above 35% or so. Could I be exhausting to much air causing the low humidity? Thanks for all of your input!
Here's what I'd do with that space. I'd dump the tents. I'd use the closet as the veg/flowering room, and clone elsewhere. 10x5x8 is a nice space. Two 600's or maybe even 1000's, real good ventilation in and out. Let clones root somewhere else under some fluorescents, and then bring them into that space to veg for 3-4 weeks and then flower. It's like you are taking a great space and turning it into something unmanageable in terms of heat and ventilation with all those tents.
I can certainly understand where you are coming from but the closet is used for storage and clothes as well. I suppose I should reconsider that and converting the space to just the garden. There is another problem though, I am renting the condo...I am not sure I can just start cutting holes for ventilation. Maybe I could by a cheap door and cut holes in that to ventilate...that way I'm not cutting holes in the ceiling or walls. Would that work?
Not really because you need to bring fresh air in and exhaust the hot air. You'd have to have a duct and a fan pulling air from outside like through a window, and then exhausting to somewhere. You probably have to buy an armoire for your clothes if you are serious about doing this.
Well, there are no windows in the closet. In fact, my condo only has two windows which both face public (common) areas so I'd be reluctant to use them for ventilation. My utilities are included with my rent...each building shares a meter so I have no concern about using a significant amount of power, within reason of coarse. What about this...I could empty out the closet and put two 400W HPS lamps in cool tubes. Then I could duct 6" venting with a 6" duct fan on the end so that the heat from those lamps would be expelled directly out of the room so that it won't heat up the closet. The 400W lights, if I understand correctly, should cover about a 3x3 area which should 2-3 plants pretty good. So if I had 4 of them, I'd be able to support about 6 plants max. In regards to the HPS lights...I've read that they need to stay about 12" above the plants. So, if you consider the height of the bucket (pot) the plant is in (about 12") and then add another 12" for the height of the light above the plant, you've already accounted for about 2" of your vertical space. So in the tents, I wouldnt even be able to run the HPS because the tents are only barely over 5 ft tall, leaving only about 3ft for growth. In the closet, having an 8 ft ceiling, I should be able to grow 4-5 footers without a problem....right? Back to the closet...So I know how to exhaust the heat from the lights, I think. Now, extraction from the rest of the them. The Can Fan RS4 (inline fan) I have is rated at 142 CFM. The Can Filter 9600 is only rated at 134 CFM, so I have a fan speed controller to slow it down just a tad. If my math is correct, I would need around 80 CFM for 5 air exchanges per minuet or 130 CFM for 3 air exchanges per minuet. (not accounting for the efficiency reduction due to the carbon filter and the 2 400W HPS lights adding a little bit of heat). If you add about 30% to cover for those items, your up to 104 CFM to 173 CFM. Does that sound right for the 10x5x8 closet space? If I can get away with just purchasing the lights for now, then I'm going to take your advise...if not, then...well I guess I'll have to wait a while before I have the $400-$500 for another inline fan and filter setup. About lighting - I found what I think is a super deal on some 6" cool tubes. They have the crappy reflectors but I think they would be alright. Here is a link to the ebay page: 6" COOLTUBE AIR COOLED GROW LIGHT REFLECTOR COOL TUBE | eBay I also found some ballast on amazon pretty cheap, here is the link: [ame=http://www.amazon.com/Lumatek-400W-120-240V--Ballast/dp/B003TZ41KS/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1327897133&sr=8-6]Amazon.com: Lumatek 400W 120/240V HPS/MH E-Ballast: Kitchen & Dining[/ame] Another thought...do I really need to worry about using cool tubes? I could spend a lot less and get just regular open-air type reflectors...about half the price. Thanks again, I really appreciate you taking the time to work this out with me!
Ops, there is a type...at the beginning i said " he 400W lights, if I understand correctly, should cover about a 3x3 area which should 2-3 plants pretty good. So if I had 4 of them, I'd be able to support about 6 plants max" I meant to say just two (2) of the 400W HPS Lights. Also, another thought...Couldn't I keep a 2x4 tent in the same space just off to the side and use it for vegging and cloning? They are pretty dang close to 100% light tight....?
glad i found this your going to get pinched super quick trying to grow in that location... I'd say don't do it, few reasons first your sharing a meter??? adding 1600 watts plus timers, pumps and what not's, that's a significant amount of power..... second your reluctant to cut holes.... the previous poster had a good response.... with all that power comes a significant heat source, you have to remove the heat... and third, its a condo... condo grows are always a no no..... some have pulled it off, but it takes a dedicated grower to remove heat, smell and sound in such a cramped space without attracting the attention of others... if you cut holes in the ceiling/walls/doors maybe this might happen, but if your planning on exhausting hot/used air into a shared attic(most condos do) once the stink travels(and it will)=game over the only way to significantly rid a grow space of stink is using a ozone generator, but you still cant stop the sound... once the sound travels its a matter of time before the landlord starts looking and your forced out or jailed.... sorry bro.... but this is an opinion, others might feel differently
Your right... It's gotten out of hand thinking in terms of producing pounds and pounds. Its just for a personal medical supply afterall. I should stick with the small LEDs I already have and just one one of the 2x4 for a harvest every few months. That should be do-able, right? I mean just one little tent tucked away in the closest..? hmm, something to think about. Thanks buddy
I'd rather focus on quality anyway. So far, it's been a hobby that has been enjoyable but it's starting to get crazy. I mean hell, if I had that much bud... I honestly wouldn't even know what to do with it!
[quote name='"mrduffy"']I'd rather focus on quality anyway. So far, it's been a hobby that has been enjoyable but it's starting to get crazy. I mean hell, if I had that much bud... I honestly wouldn't even know what to do with it![/quote] Good thinking.....replace the door with a cheap shitty one and vent threw the door, plus led's= win