Darkroom Growtent Ventilation Help

TaoWolf

Active Member
Sorry I didn't respond back until now - but as far as how many plants: with 5 gallon buckets in my tent, I only grow two at a time. I could easily fit three but I like a little floor-space work room, and as time goes on I get a little lazier as far as the amount of work I want to do during reservoir changes and what-not... so two works for me. I just grow them a little bigger. If you were doing pots in soil you could probably do four easy though (especially if you used square buckets or grow bags).

Just wanted to give you a little reference since you asked. It's all personal preference and grow style though.
 

bekindbud

Well-Known Member
Tao and Baja,

Sorry I havent been replying but I am in the middlle of moving apartments from a one bedroom to a two bedroom. I hate moving but I am excited because tomorrow Im taking off work and my Grow Tent will be up and running. Finally going to have a decent set-up with good ventilation and light, I was thinking about making some homemade CO2, has anybody ever made or used CO2 out of yeast and water? I remember reading something about it and was wondering if it really worked? Also when ever I get situated I will finally start a serious grow journal that i would like you guys to help me with and follow on my grows. I am going to grow bagseeds first before I start using my other good seeds, I want to gain some expierements with my plants so if i screw it up it will be bagseeds and not my Attitude Seeds that I sent $$$$ on. You guys are so awesome and I am really thankful for you guys helpig me and all other newbees.....I will post pics of my grow tent set up once I Have everything up and running. Peace bros!!!!
 

bekindbud

Well-Known Member
Well here is my update as of right now.....
- 4x2x5 grow tent
- 400watt mh/hps cool tube
- 2x 14 watt Quad Spectrum LED panels
- 6" 440 cfm Fan w/charcoal filter
- 2x 8"to6" reducers(home depot) rip off!!!! 2 for $20 plus the are way too big!!!!
- 6" Air Ducting non-insulated

Now here is my problem....my tent is too damn small....lol but I cant go any bigger cause of my apartment. My light is large too but it fits nicely inside and I really feal a 400 watt would be perfect for this size tent. The reducers I purchased from home depot are way to big, though they fit perfectly on my cool tube. The reducers are 9" long(too big for my setup) My light is 28" and both reducers on each side are 18" totaling 46" which leaves me with about 2 to 3 inches of clearance on each side. So i know buying another tent that is larger would be the easy fix but I dont have that kind of money especially after dump some change on all that I have now...I need smaller reducers....does anyone know where I can get smaller reducers or is there some way I can fabricate or make small reducers??? Other than that I do have my plant in there and the temp is 79*F and 48%rh. I will take pics and post as soon as I am done smkoing up!!!! Be back soon!!! PEACE!!!
 

LetricBud

Active Member
I dunno man....Personally i dont see the point of the 6" fan....440 CFM for your tent...which is what...40 cubic feet?

And whats with the 8" part?...Do you have an 8" cooltube or something? Usually they're 6".


I run a 3x3x7 tent, with a 177CFM Vortex 4" Inline fan, a 400w HPS with just an Econo-wing...My room temperatures stay about 70-75, and my tent rarely goes over 85f, but its more around 78-82 on average.

Your tent is small...and that large of a fan, with all that big venting, and the cooltube...im just not sure you need it.
 

bekindbud

Well-Known Member
yes the cool tube is 8" on mine....my light length measures @ 31" my tent is 48" it doesnt give me much room to do anything with ventilation unless there is a reducer that i can go from 8"to 6" and not be large like the ones I got that are 9" long each. If I use 6" duct my fan wont work as hard as if I used 4" duct lines and always if I go w/a larger grow tents I will be good with a 6" But yes this grow tent is too small for what i want to do. I want to be able to have all items in tent like the fan and filter but I cant figure it out... Any help would be great great. Right now I am stuck!!!
 

LetricBud

Active Member
eh...live and learn i guess.

But now you have a good tent for vegging in. Its a good tent for all purpose, but i think if you were to flower in it, theyd hit the ceiling.
 

bekindbud

Well-Known Member
My tent is fully set up now and is working like a charm....I would like to thank everyone who has helped me and pointed me in the right directions, especially Bajafox! +++REP for Bajafox:clap:!!! Also TaoWolf too!!!! Thanks for dealing and handling my newbee-ism...I will help anyone with setting up there tent like you guys did for me from here on out.

Ok here is what I did, my 6" 440 CFM Fan is perfect for my tent, its doing great work. My tent is not sucked in like some people said it would, although the front of it is sucking in a little but nothing what I thought it would be. The sides of the tent are NOT sucking in at all. :clap:+REP for Bajafox and TaoWolf for recommending me to go with a 6"fan! Its perfect! My temps are (MAX:81.2F/50%rH and MIN: 73.2F/39%rH) it is usually sitting at around 77F-80F. I really cant move my light up and down too much cuase i dont have the room. I will probably get another in the near future but it will be a larger one. I will post pics soon, I made a video and I dont know how to post it on here. I tried uploading it like I do my pics but I cant. So bare with me and I will figure out a way to get video up. I will get back on later, peace to all!!!!!
 

fusion13

Well-Known Member
Hey everyone, im new to grwoing and these threads. Everything sounds great so far but i got a couple questions.. I have everything set up to where the fan is taking in the heat and smell from in the tent to outside the tent to the filter. since i am living in an apartment, smell is a big concern. you are saying to take in from the filter and blow it outside the tent. but what about the smell if u do that? is the smell not bad since it breaths in from the filter?
 

bekindbud

Well-Known Member
Fusion here is my ventilation diagram. My air gets pulled through my filter to the cool tube and out my tent through the 6" Fan. My cool tube is 8" so I used 8" non-insulated air ducting. I have a reducer on my filter and fan. I keep my fan outside cause I dont have that much room inside. Take a look at my pictures. As far as the smell...I dont know yet cause I still havent flowered any plants yet. Flowering is where your plant is going to have its strongest smells. I am putting alot of hope into my filter. I asked a lot of people about the filter and everyone say they work just fine. Hope my diagram and pictures help....I was completely wasted making that diagram.....took 2 hours...hahaha!!!:bigjoint:
 

Attachments

bajafox

Well-Known Member
I dunno man....Personally i dont see the point of the 6" fan....
The purpose for a 6" fan is to keep the tent nice and cool, especially here in SoCal where we just had a heat wave with temps hitting 110, if I had a 4" fan in my tent (same size) I would have been looking at dead plants afterwards. My GrowLab 60 (2' x 2') has around 260w cfl with a HydroFarm 4" inline fan keeping it "cool" and sometimes it runs hotter than my flower tent. When I set my ballast to 400w during the heat wave I was still hitting high 90's, I had to shut down for almost 2 days to avoid heat stress.

My tent is fully set up now and is working like a charm....I would like to thank everyone who has helped me and pointed me in the right directions, especially Bajafox! +++REP for Bajafox:clap:!!! Also TaoWolf too!!!! Thanks for dealing and handling my newbee-ism...I will help anyone with setting up there tent like you guys did for me from here on out.

Ok here is what I did, my 6" 440 CFM Fan is perfect for my tent, its doing great work. My tent is not sucked in like some people said it would, although the front of it is sucking in a little but nothing what I thought it would be. The sides of the tent are NOT sucking in at all. :clap:+REP for Bajafox and TaoWolf for recommending me to go with a 6"fan! Its perfect! My temps are (MAX:81.2F/50%rH and MIN: 73.2F/39%rH) it is usually sitting at around 77F-80F. I really cant move my light up and down too much cuase i dont have the room. I will probably get another in the near future but it will be a larger one. I will post pics soon, I made a video and I dont know how to post it on here. I tried uploading it like I do my pics but I cant. So bare with me and I will figure out a way to get video up. I will get back on later, peace to all!!!!!
Glad to see it all working out, the price difference between a 4" and a 6" is not much and knowing that you can run it at +400 cfm is nice to know. You're lucky you started right when it's starting to cool off too, I started in May and battled heating issues through my entire first grow.

Maybe you should invest in a cheap fan controller so you can lower it to around 200cfm while you see your temps rise, lol
 

bekindbud

Well-Known Member
Im sure when the winter months are over I will see enough temp rising....LOL. I am glad I started when I started. I only had about 2 weeks in when that heat wave came through, but its been perfect now and I am loving it.
 

bekindbud

Well-Known Member
right now I am purchasing a in-line duct fan that I can just stick in the bottom 6" vent hole in my tent. I also have 6" ducting going from my 6" 440 CFM Fan to my window blowing all filtered and hot air out. My temps ever since I had my tent running has been MIN:68F 40%rH MAX: 84F 58%rH. I am very pleased with my set-up as for enviroment control.....what i dont like is the space availabilty....Tax season is right around the corner, I am going to buy a bigger tent and use this one I have now as a Veg tent and go with a bigger tent for Flowering. But for now I am pleased with my set-up. I did spend money on it but I know in the long run it will be well worth the money spent!!!
 

eyezla

Active Member
Hello good people of Rollitup, this is my 1st post ever, so bare with me, lol. I have been enthusiastically watching this threat while doing my own research. I have one major concern regarding ventilation in a grow tent and I hope someone knows the answer.
I m planning on doing a very similar setup to yours BeKind, with the exception of a 600w vented hps hood, and a 4x4x7 tent. My initial plan, which seems to be a common configuration went as follows: Carbon filter->inline fan (400cfm)-->Vented hood-->out (with ducting connecting all of those). Seems like it would obviously be the most efficient to filter exhaust and cool all with one fan, BUT I found contradictory information sadly....

Apparently, when growing in a tent, a few years ago they discovered that the plastic in the lining, when exposed to high heat, had a toxic "off gassing" effect from "plasticisers" in the tent which was killing plants (and doing who knows what to people!) Its totally something worth looking in to!

ANYway.... on this link for the HydroHut silver edition which I highly recommend you all read and help me interpret : http://www.hydrohuts.com/Faq.html

They explain that even tho for "their" tents, the off gassing issue has been addressed, they still say that growing in an all plastic environment calls for specific measures, and that a passive air intake is NOT sufficient. What I THINK they are saying is to use a single ducting system to cool the light, a separate one to filter and exhaust the air, AND an intake fan to bring air in!? If this is the case, I am not happy to hear that my tent grow is about to go from 1 fan to 3! this means more money and more power, more plugs, ugh,,,,

What do you think about what that link said? is 3 overkill, or is this all new to you guys as well? I definitely want to keep my plants as toxin free as possible!! (Ps, sorry this got so long...ChemDawg did it, lol)
 

LetricBud

Active Member
Hello good people of Rollitup, this is my 1st post ever, so bare with me, lol. I have been enthusiastically watching this threat while doing my own research. I have one major concern regarding ventilation in a grow tent and I hope someone knows the answer.
I m planning on doing a very similar setup to yours BeKind, with the exception of a 600w vented hps hood, and a 4x4x7 tent. My initial plan, which seems to be a common configuration went as follows: Carbon filter->inline fan (400cfm)-->Vented hood-->out (with ducting connecting all of those). Seems like it would obviously be the most efficient to filter exhaust and cool all with one fan, BUT I found contradictory information sadly....

Apparently, when growing in a tent, a few years ago they discovered that the plastic in the lining, when exposed to high heat, had a toxic "off gassing" effect from "plasticisers" in the tent which was killing plants (and doing who knows what to people!) Its totally something worth looking in to!

ANYway.... on this link for the HydroHut silver edition which I highly recommend you all read and help me interpret : http://www.hydrohuts.com/Faq.html

They explain that even tho for "their" tents, the off gassing issue has been addressed, they still say that growing in an all plastic environment calls for specific measures, and that a passive air intake is NOT sufficient. What I THINK they are saying is to use a single ducting system to cool the light, a separate one to filter and exhaust the air, AND an intake fan to bring air in!? If this is the case, I am not happy to hear that my tent grow is about to go from 1 fan to 3! this means more money and more power, more plugs, ugh,,,,

What do you think about what that link said? is 3 overkill, or is this all new to you guys as well? I definitely want to keep my plants as toxin free as possible!! (Ps, sorry this got so long...ChemDawg did it, lol)

Im using one fan, in an off brand tent (GYO "Grow your Own") from amazon, and my shit is as healthy as can be. I think the off gassing was an issue in the past with poor quality tents, and possibly panda film. I have a 3x3x7, which is 60 cubic feet, and i use a 177cfm 4" vortex with passive intake. Temps are stable at 80 lights on, 70 lights off.
 

bekindbud

Well-Known Member
I agree with LectricBud.....:bigjoint:My tent is smaller and I am using a 6" 440 CFM. But I am new and I still have not finished my 1st grow but ever since I got my tent and set it up, my temps and air circulation are perfect.

Eyezla, welcome to the thread, nice avatar, I love Green Terrors, great fish!!! Best advice I can give you is to start off right and what I mean by that is spend money, if you dont u will probably spend even more money going cheap or small. I spent some money on my set up and so far I am happy with it, I could not of done it without the good people in this thread. So welcome to the thread and keep us posted, I am interested in seeing your set-up.
If u got the $$ spend the $$!
Here is a pic of my 45 day old Bagseed Plant. I made a lot of mistake with it and I am recovering the plant now, if anyone is interested in that thread, here it is: https://www.rollitup.org/marijuana-plant-problems/378712-need-help-please-phosphorus-deficiency.html

I love this pic w/LED as supplement....Peace!!!!:leaf:
 

Attachments

Top