Hi All!
First time grower that lives in the south, hot & humid summer is approaching (crap). So I’ve been playing with my setup for a couple days trying to see what it’ll do naturally & with lights and such… I can’t seem to get the climate to be what I’m reading it should be…
My setup:
I have my tent in my garage, in a small enclosed room under the staircase. ~ 4’x8’ (10’ ceiling but slopes downward bc of stairs). Right now, I have the door cracked open and exhausting my tent into my garage… Want to try to get things close to good before I go ahead and cut a hole to vent out keeping my door open.
HLG 150 Patriot
VIVOSUN S224 2x2x4 Grow Tent
AC Infinity CLOUDLINE Lite A4 4" 165 CFM
AC Infinity Air Carbon Filter 4" KJ293 210 CFM
HealSmart Tent poll fan
AC Infinity CLOUDRAY S6 Auto-Oscillation fan
3 Gallon fabric planting pot
Govee Hygrometer / Thermometer
FF Start Bundle - Big Bloom, Grow Big, Tiger Bloom. 12qt Ocean Forest
Organic Perlite 8 qts
APERA AI209 ph20 tester
General Hydroponics pH Up & pH Down
Tower fan in room outside of tent
Power timer / controller (analog)
Small Humidifier inside tent
I plan on growing 1 auto in the space at a time. Have my seed sitting in a glass of water right now
SO Climate wise!
The first night I ran my lights the whole night my average temp was 81F with RH @38%. Max / Min Temp: 87F / 72F
Max / Min RH: 94%/28% Where RH maxed when lights went out in the morning.
VPD averaged 2.28 kPa
Pictures below for data. I only ran the lights for 1 night and got super bummed out when I couldn’t get my humidity up.
The short answer is that it will be expensive or your grows will suffer a little trying to grow in a garage with hot climate. Which are you more prepared to deal with?
I could also set up my tent in my home office closet, however my attic is too much trouble to get over my HVAC system to install a vent outside (UGH!).
Since the tent is currently enclosed in a ‘closet’, I was thinking a small A/C unit may be able to provide adequate cooling even though the closet isn’t insulated on one wall.
If you keep your home around room temperature and us3 carbon filter thete shouldn’t be any need to exhaust outside or to your attic. This is how most of us do it anyway.
So I could just put in my closet, keep the AC set to 65 @ night & 70/71F during the day. Vent into my office with the door open or closed and let it do its thang?
I’m on the Gulf Coast (90% RH today) and have similar setups to both of your thoughts. The home office solution is much easier to manage. I also decided not to go into the attic to duct and the carbon filter is fine. I bought an a/c and used SmartShield to insulate, but it’s still harder out there. Inside, the conditioned air probably dehumidifies, but that’s pretty easy to manage (relatively - haha) and once you’re dialed in, you’ll be good with regular monitoring and tweaking along the way.
I live in the dreaded south. My rooms are in my shop. My flower room is a 12x8 which i have a portable A/C which i can control through wifi. If my veg room gets too hot, i have my exhause from my flower venting into my veg room (4x8) and i can cool it down like that.
I moved my tent into my office closet. Closet is significantly smaller. I ran my lights at night to see how everything would go. I’m reading 148.5 Watts from my light - I read that other people use a dimmer (don’t have one, but I could manually adjust it on my supply). I tried placing my thermometer slightly under my tray that the tent came with, so it was shaded a bit more. Results below.
I ran a humidifier inside the tent, it ran out of water bc I didn’t fill it up last night, but still.
Throughout the night, my temp stayed between 76F-77.8F, RH being 39-41%. VPD @ ~1.9kPa
How can I get my humidity up for the early stages, seedling / veg? Will be become more humid on its own when I have my pot in there? I just tried spraying my side walls with lights out to get my humidity to rise which it initially rose to 60%, then dropped to 54 & is still dropping.
My inside AC temp is @ 70F and at night I drop it to 65F for sleeping comfort. Keeping my closet door mostly open and venting into my room. Have my 2 vents half way open each.
I think you got it figured out, once you have pots and plants in the tent the humidity will rise.
You said you managed 54% that would be great for flower!
Don’t worry about perfection, that’s close enough, way better than what you had in the garage!
I agree, you’re close and rh will not be higher when there is more foliage in the tent. If you run into issues you could always add a small humidifier, but I think you are pretty good without it.
Awesome news! Appears we all overthink and worry on our first grow from the forums
I just took same pH samples of my water, we have a whole-house filtration system as do many due to the water here being so poor in quality. My pH out of the tap (first filter) is 7.6, my drinking water that’s double-filtered is 6.6, so I’ll be using that.
My seed is currently still sitting in a glass of water for 24 hours now in my cupboard, has not cracked open yet!
I think I’d like to plant the seed straight into my 3gal fabric pot, rather than solo cup it. Would it be wise for me to use my FFOF 3 parts & 1 part perlite? Then just water it until runoff slowly to compact it down?
Agreed!! While not necessary, I’d consider swapping out that humidifier for an ACI one that ties in to your system controls. If you’re good with that capacity I think they’re like $50 and then you can have it kick on and off as needed. I can’t wait til mine arrives…
Should I keep my grow lights on 24 hours once I drop my seed into its 3 gallon permanent home? My VPD is way too high with the lights on - 1.5kPa & humidity is too low (even with humidifier).
If I put a clear solo cup with mist on the inside, would that keep the plants environment well suited compared to without? I can’t measure what’s inside the cup since it’s too little!
If not for those, I could manually turn down my watts on my MeanWell driver which would definitely lower my temp, increase humidity (since its not burning up) and decrease VPD.
I just want to ensure that my lights work well for it to find the light!
