I'm definitely an absolute beginner. I knew absolutely nothing a couple weeks ago. I have quite the dilemma on my hands. So here goes... I ordered a 600 watt mh/hps light with switchable ballast & a 40" x 40" x 78" Mylar tent. I know I need a carbon filter fan which I plan on making and having it blow out one of the pre-cut tent holes. I was planning on putting an oscillating fan inside for circulation. And lastly, putting a small fan in one of the pre-cut tent holes blowing air in from outside the tent. From things I've read, I was under the impression that's all I would need. Now a friend is telling me I need this and that and duct work bringing air in from outside the house. Is this true? What are the necessities? Is it gonna be too hot in there? I was feeling really pumped when I ordered my light/tent, but now I'm feeling overwhelmed again I'm getting a clone in the next couple days and I need to be prepared asap and spend not much more money. Please help! Thank you so much! This place has been awesome.
Run the dryer vent ducting as follows for proper airflow venting. carbon scrubber >duct>air cooled light hood>duct>fan>vent hole out of your tent. Here is an example. Some people don't like putting their fan before the light because they feel it vibrates the light and puts more air pressure on it, causing your hps light to break faster. btw is your ballast dimmable or set @ 600w? As far as bringing in air from outside? no. If you get a good negetive airflow pressure in your tent your temps in your tent could run 5-10 degrees above your ambient room temps. However if your light hood isn't enclosed, you could find yourself running into some heat issues as i've read.
The ballast isn't dimable and I made a mistake...it's not switchable. It comes with both bulbs. No matter though. Anyway it's NOT air cooled. And I'm confused I guess because I imagined the carbon scrubber being the last thing air would go through on it's way out. But I definite need a more in depth system than just fans right?
I think you just need the right duct work, that you can buy at home depot or lowes. Look into a euro hood or a cooltube on ebay. I think I've seen them for ~35 bucks. It'll really help keep your temps under control when you cant reduce the power of your ballast output. You'll need an exhaust fan to pull the air out of the tent, I was hoping to use and inline duct fan rather than spend 150 or more on a fancy inline fan like the one pictured above. I too thought about putting my scrubber on the outside of the tent, perhaps it's a size issue outside the tent which will be my issue, but physics tells me that your scrubber being the starting point for the suction to exhaust will create negetive air pressure in the duct work causing more suction through the scrubber probably making the scrubber more effective in the long run, as compared to it being outside with a fan trying to push the air through it. Outside of the clipon fan or rotating fan, I honestly think you're close to being ready to go. What size planters will you use? Air pots? Grow bags? Have you considering any training methods? LST? Scroging? Sog? To top or not to top? Soil? Nutrient line? That seems to be all I can think of at the moment.
I'll have to go to lowes and price a few things today. My first grow is simply going to be the one clone. Then I'll clone that one into as many plants as I can fit in the tent in 3 gallon soil pots. I do want to look into training methods, but I wanna keep it simple for the first grow. Soil will be nothing fancy and for the first grow I'm also going to keep nutrients simple: blood meal, bone meal, vitamin b.
If youre only going to do one, try lst'ing. it's an easy enough method to get your feet wet, not hard to work with at all, and it'll add some weight to your plant in the end good luck.
When you get your Carbon Scrubber you will see it expressly says air gets sucked in not pushed out. Its not good for it to have air flowing out it. So find somewhere high in your tent to place it and strap it in..big zipties, bungie cords etc. That way air in the tent that is smelly and it will get very pungent...most likely bad pungent gets sucked into it and you can attach that to your light (How I do it) and it also cools your light. So basically in that set up your grabbing smelly hot air cooling the lamp all in one system Then the fan pumps that out. If its working you should smell next to nothing coming out of your fan.
I had a similar dilema. I have a 32x32x64 grow tent have a 400watt Air Cooled tube in mine. When you get it experiment some to see what the max and mini temps you get. Set it up turn on the light see how hot it gets on a temp gauge..get one if you dont have one. Run it zipped up, zipped up ac on in the house, partially open etc. That way you have a idea of how hot it gets in there. For me my 400watter added 15 degrees with the tent open with no fan. Zipped up it was like 90-95 probably would of gone higher. After I installed my Carbon Scrubber exhaust attached to a fan and another fan to bring in outside air temp is a steady 80 degrees with it zipped up. If i leave the top a little open its about 76-78. Once you have everything plan it out, go to Home Depot/Lowes get your ducting, and get zip ties and duct tape. Those two are your friend. Remember to that you lose airflow with really long ducts so keep them as short as you can and if you ad size adapters you lose some to. Try to keep it simple. Your friend is telling you wrong. In the summer would you really wanna bring in 100 degree air to your tent that has bugs etc in it or would you rather bring in your house air which is 30 degrees cooler. BTW feeling overwhelmed is a good thing. It means you don't know and are seeking help on here or elsewhere. I started all of this 2 months ago and know sooo much more then I did then and most of it was all off here. The point of all of that is to cool that dam tent from a light that is ultra hot. The cooler you can get it the lower it can be. With lights the Inverse Square Law is in effect. The further it is basically the less effective it is. If you could like totally cool it you could have it a few inches above your plants with no issues.