Hey guys, my box is almost ready! The size is 2' x 1.5' x 6' - pretty small, stealthy Scrog Box. Area 51 RW-75 in the top flower chamber (with plans on adding additional Cree bulbs) and 8x 9w Cree bulbs in the bottom veg chamber. I plan on adding another couple if I can fit em. My only worry now is that we're going into winter and I will probably have to heat my box up a bit, and perhaps control the humidity. So, my first thought was to get some kind of small personal heater, maybe something like the Sengoku (not sure if that would be a good option or not... It would fit nicely directly behind my passive intake! Maybe one of those small personal ceramic heaters? Or maybe even a small reptile heater? Not sure if they make small enough heaters that I could actually fit INSIDE my box, ut that would probably be more effective than behind the passive intake..) and hook it up to a temperature control inside my box (not sure where the probe should be, either.. directly in front of the passive intake or somewhere in the top chamber? If I use a heater I'm also unsure of whether or not I will need to have a dehumidifier or humidifier pumping as well? And some kind of humidity control. Not really sure what to do here. Looking for suggestions. I would really love to NOT run an HPS during the winter.. I just got all this LED stuff set up and I want to put it to use! Winter is coming John Snow, and my place has gas heat and I can't leave it on all day. The room my box is in gets the least amount of heat as well... pretty chilly room, but I am working on insulating the window in there. Anyway, what do you guys think? That room might get pretty damn cold this winter and I want to be prepared! Any suggestions would really be great. I'm not sure how hot my current LEDs get, but not enough to heat the box up from 40 degrees F, that's for sure. TL;DR - Pretty small grow box with LEDs, need a way to control the heat and humidity for winter. What should I do? Best points for cost effectiveness! All my experience comes with growing in the summer with HPS bulbs and just having my A/C on all day... Never had to keep my box HOTTER! Thanks guys!
Box is looking pretty stellar! Just wondering why you don't wanna run your HPS ? Wouldn't that make enough heat to keep your box at the right temperature?
you could try adding some cfl in the flower instead of more led(if i understood correctly cree bulbs) or if you go reptile style i guess yeah like a heat lamp...meh can you vent from the veg to the flower room? i mean so the veg area gets the worst of the cold and warms the air before it gets to the flower chamber? personally id just add more light, cfls shoudl keep it warm oh btw, easiest cheapest and very effective way to insulate a window is to just put plastic over it, i mean like builders plastic that comes in rolls, tape it up nice and you are done good luck
Can you drive the temp in the room up over 70 for a few hours a day, and keep it from dropping below 50? If so, that's the temp conditions for an outdoor grow throughout the season in Washington State and British Colombia...known around the world for killer outdoor bud. Humidity isn't the bugaboo people make it out to be. What is important about humidity is fungal infections. These plants grow naturally and wild best in tropical latitudes...from jungle to high desert. Think Forrest Gump's "Little stinging rain, big fat rain that falls off leaves, rain that blows sideways, even rain that comes from underneath!" It only rains when RH is above 75%, and even then only if pressure or temp drops. If pressure/temp is stable, it won't rain without 90% humidity. In the 'Stans, it's high desert...4-6 weeks of "monsoon", where you wonder what the fuck all this water is doing in a desert, and you start hunting for a surfboard because you figure you could catch a wave in a wadi and ride the board clear to India. The rest of the year, it's "Humidity? What is this humidity you speak of?", while spit evaporates before it hits the ground, because the air's so damn dry. What is important about humidity is low humidity fosters dry mold, some mildews, a few other "dry area" fungal infections, while high humidity fosters white mold, other mildews, leaf and bud rot, and similar. Just buy Greencure and a 1 gallon pump sprayer, and treat your walls and plants (including stems and undersides of leaves) a couple times a week. Problem solved. Worried about buds and chemicals during flower? Make a little funnel out of paper, switch to a hand spray bottle for precision application, use the funnel to shield the buds as you spray the leaves and stems. You'll be constantly checking for, and if necessary fighting, fungal infections, anyhow...why create a headache looking for them and fighting them after they've become established when you can just constantly treat for them, and never have them establish as a problem? CFLs...I HATE CFLs. Lumen for lumen, they are the least efficient "normally used" light. Watt for watt, too. Only plus to them is that they are cool enough at the emitter (bulb) you can hang them damn close to the plants...but to match an HID's intensity, it takes 20 of them hung a foot away to match a 400 watt HID hung 2 feet away. Which will create a shitload more heat than the HID. LEDs, I'm OK with, though not the biggest fan...they rate themselves at "4 times the intensity of this bandwidth than an equivalent HID", and similar...the problem is that lux (light intensity where it's delivered) is measured from the emitter, and each individual diode is a single emitter...you lose intensity faster (also known as "penetration issues"), and...say you have 3 red/deep orange channels. 650 nm orange, 720 nm red, and 790 nm deep red/near IR. Give them each "15 nanometers" wiggle room per side (unusual in an LED...they're usually pretty close to exact on wavelength produced). That gives you ranges 635-665 nm, 705-735 nm, and 775-805 nm. You're missing 130 nm of bandwidth out of a total of 200. 65% of your bandwidth just isn't there. So not only do you have 35% of the bandwidth at 3 or 4 times the "amount" you'd get from an HID, but you're MISSING 65% of the useful bandwidth in the red-to-orange range...total advantage to the LED? If it's "4 times as intense", you have 40% more effective light, yes...but effectively, you're feeding it the same three course meal day in and day out, just bigger portions than a "normal diet", while missing out on 65% of the "vitamins and minerals" the plant needs from that spectrum. How healthy will you be if you eat a 14 ounce steak, 2 cups of mashed potatoes, and 4 ounces of string beans every day...and nothing else? THAT is my objection to LEDs, though I agree, they are the future, and the problems I just discussed/described are being removed, bit at a time. But they haven't been, yet. The box looks fucking amazing...good work. But don't stress climate control as long as you keep what I said about conditions they do well in nature in in mind, and just try to maintain a similar pattern. That's what an indoor grow is, after all...doing our best to imitate proper outdoor conditions inside, in an enclosed area. Most people try to "average" conditions and maintain them...that's not what happens where they grow best and produce best. Keep it in a "range", and don't overcontrol or change things that get out of whack too quickly (for instance, if your pH gets a full point out of where you want it, don't go and try to force it back right away...do it so you bring it back by a half point this week, a half point next week.)...the plants grow just about everywhere in the world, and in most of it, they'll grow outside with minimal true caretaking. I swear to God, most problems I see are where people overcontrol, or shock a plant out changing conditions back to "healthy" too quickly, even before the plant starts showing any signs of damage---("oh dear, my pH is down to 5, and I've been told it should be 6.5 to 7 range...I better change it back to 7 RIGHT NOW, before my plants get sick!"...shocks the plant..."guys, help! why's my plant sick?"). Most of the rest are either cases of not knowing (or understanding) something important to ANY plant, not just MJ, or having a "disaster" that COULD have been avoided by taking the attitude from the beginning that you WILL have such problems, so treat for them BEFORE they show (devastating fungal infections, mite explosions, etcetera). make sure you don't face that kind of problem, it becomes a matter of fine-tuning to get the level and quality of yield you find acceptable.
i agree about the clfs being very meh, I only use them for warming up a cab in the winter, good point about overcontrollinng etc peace
rrg so annoying that i typed a long reply and anywa... ooops en thinking about this all weekend because im setting up a similar space here is an idea for the winter, in the summer you could extract from th eheat shelf. cant figure out how to put a pic in this post so here is the idea http://forum.grasscity.com/gallery/image/148682-7yta398/