@blackthumbbetty@Bubblehead@MattyBear@Hballer21@merlin44@Covertgrower@dbrn32@poundcake Running a MH (400 w) for veg and a HPS (600 w) for flower in a 3x5 b7 7ft tent. No plants yet. Still trying to dial in my humidity levels. Being in the desert this time of year am fighting to get close to 50 RH. Best I can do is 26 RH with a temp of 75 degrees. Running a 400 CFM to push air in and a 435 CFM fan for exhaust. Also running a speed controller. Tried everything with the one controller. Tried dialing in with the inlet fan, tried switching over to using to control the exhaust. Opened up the inlet flaps and closed them. Put a humidifier and heater in. Help a little but only got that once when the humidity was a little lower. And I am dumping the exhaust back into my garage. Temp in the garage today is 55 degrees with a humidity of 35% Inside the tent RH is 29% Temp is 73 degrees. Have humidifier on & heater too. But I did adjust the LITE ballast down just a tad to see if that would help with the RH. Read during early veg one doesn’t that much light?
Have been studying up on diy swamp cooler and wondering what the thoughts were. I hadn’t planned on growing in the summer because consumption is only for me and one grow would be enough to last for the year.
Another question I have is I have no plants growing but when I do start growing how much are the plants going to raise the humidity? Am I being too concerned and once I get plants in there the humidity will go up to around 50% anyways. Probably not. Probably stupid question.
Below is data on my temps here in the desert. My thinking is after February the humidity will be lower so a swamp cooler might be just the ticket? Right now a A/C is a no go but any help here is much appreciated. Thanks
February Hi 52% Low 32%
March Hi 45% Low 22%
April Hi 35% Low 16%
May HI 32% Low 14%
June HI 24% Low 11%
July HI 28% Low 15%
Aug Hi 34% Low 17%
Sept HI 34% Low 17%
Oct HI 36% Low 20%
Nov HI 46% Low 26%
Dec HI 53% Low 32%
I wouldn’t stress too much over factors beyond your control. Every grow is a learning experience and there are plenty of ways to raise humidity, but at least you will have great humidity levels for flowering. I would just throw them in there and see how they do since everything else seems to be dialed in.
Tried several other avenues to raise the RH like ice n bowl with fan blowing over the top, humidifier, and bowl of water with towel. Only one two % raise was all. Everything I read is that RH is a factor that I need to get dialed in?
I found raising the rh in the room your tent is in will help I know ur in a garage tho. I’m in a pretty dry basement I ended up having to use my dryer to raise my humidity and heat up the basement. I found that with plants in there and ur pots ur humidity will rise. I would shut off the heater ( heaters dry the air) and turn ur intake and exhaust fans down. When u have plants in there u can spray the walls with water to bring your rh up also.
Actually turned the heater on yesterday because the temps n tent were 63 degrees. Set it at 73 degrees. Temp went up and even humidity a little. Have heater on now with humidifier and garage is at 61 degrees now. Humidity n garage at 43%. Inside tent RH is now 32%.
Exhaust fan set on low (speed controller) Inlet fan is at FULL. Don’t have a speed controller on it. Been thinking a 2nd speed controller might help? Do have a controller that I just purchased and that one can set shut off times. For instance 15 minutes on and off. And I have a controller for the humidity. But don’t think I can use that until I get that RH dialed in?
@Dutchem I’ll say that lower humidity is extremely helpful in bringing out trichomes. Also prevents mold issues. (Usually) I don’t think I would worry too much about humidity, i think the only way to increase humidity in such dry air is use misters. You may have to water more often, it’s a trade off. As long as you keep your temperatures up, you should okay. @garrigan62@MattyBear and maybe @TDubWilly might be able to assist farther. I know he’s in probably dryer air than myself.
@Dutchem 5 gallons would definitely hold water better. The humidifier should be outside of the tent. Otherwise you’ll be venting your treated air outside of the tent almost immediately.
Maybe put a humdifier near the intake fan inlet, outside of tent? It appears you need a lot of flow to maintain temp so that will always pull the humid air out and pull dry air in. So maybe adding moisture to the air coming in will help. And you are right that the plants will add moisture. Maybe add a bowl of water to simulate each plant.
Also, a bowl of warm water will add way more moisture than ice.
Also agree that you prob need to just get a grow under your belt. You can’t replace experience.
I’m also in a garage with low humidity. Inside garage I’m at 40 to 45, and inside tent, usually 30 give or take 5. I have tried humidifying the garage by leaving water on the concrete floor, spraying walls, etc. I’m moving my humidifier inside the tent tonight with distilled water. My exhaust is set to come on. When temps get to high, I have a 600w MH right now using. It comes on and off enough to keep fresh air circulating, and they’re to small to put off odor. This works right now, and it’ll get warmer. When it’s time to keep exhaust running 24/7, but j had to spray the fuck out of my tent walls every 6 hours or so. It did keep the humidity around 60% for my seedlings though. Don’t know if that would work for you short term?
Another thing, and I don’t how well it works yet. I have stuff coming by Friday. To create a small veg tent, and use the bigger one for flowering. I bought an exhaust call AC infinity. It has a humidity and temp prob attached to it for readings. The exhaust will run the exhaust faster and slower to try and keep temp and humidity in range you set. I have a 2x2x4 coming m, so got the 4" exhaust for like 120. I wont know how well it works. Until, I get the veg tent setup, and put 3 seeds in I planted for germination today. I’ll let you know though. If you want. It had great reviews at least, but I’ll see.
This correct. Due to longer light cycle the intensity doesn’t need to be as high to meet recommended DLI.
The rest of the stuff kinda comes with growing in garage in less than ideal climate. Outside of having the garage heated and cooled and things like industrial humidifiers, you’ll probably never be sitting pretty at ideal conditions. Doesn’t mean you can’t grow in there. You’ll just have to do what you can with tools available and take whatever comes along with it. It sounds like you tried all of the little tips and tricks I would’ve suggested, sorry.
@dbrn32 just stated that really well. I try and deal with my environment on the daily because it changes around here often (Pacific Northwest). Adjust, adapt and try to overcome
@poundcake Confused a little. Are you saying putting the humidifier outside the tent. I did try that also. Now I have the humidifier in the middle back of tent. Tried positioning several places inside the tent. But not inside the tent in front of the inlet fan. Will give that a try. What do you think of having two humidifiers. One inside one outside?
Ideally it would be so much better indoors. Didn’t go well when I brought that up with the wife. Lol. If I had a bigger house definitely the wifey would be okay with it.
The last plan I grew I had to grow inside my house instead of my garage due to some unfortunate circumstances, I had the tent in my room during the summer in the AC going constantly. I was running the whole thing off one Outlet so I was limited on the amount of electrical things that I could put in there and a humidifier was not one of them.
I grew the entire grow at 30% humidity or less and it did great. I’m not trying to say it could not have done better, because ideal situations lead to ideal yields.
I did however yield about what i usually do…1oz every square foot…i had 8 square feet and got 8 oz.
remove your intake fan and open the bottom vents, use the exhaust fan on the controller,
get some plants going and u r gonna be good to go.!!!
since u r venting the tent into the garage it does not matter where u place the humidifier,
i would put it outside of the tent near the intake vents just to have room in the tent.!
like everyone else has said…
do not worry too much about RH, anything between 30-60% is good,
below 10% and u start having headaches.!
