Hey DGC!
I am super frustrated with not being able to get my grow room environment dialed in.
I’m running the Mars Hydro fc8000 at 50% with a humidifier, dehumidifier, exhaust fan and just added a portable air conditioner to bring temps down. I use the Pulse Pro to monitor the room.
Now that the temps are right, the humidity has dropped significantly down to 34%!
My room is 10′ x 12′ in the basement. I currently have no supplemental heating going into the room. I do have a wall heater that I used last winter and everything was fine.
During the summer, I painted the room white, sealed the baseboards and added panda film to the ceiling (no drop ceiling just open joists).
I think I’ve sealed the room too well.
The a/c is sucking up the humidity but without it the temps run up to 83.9 degrees!
My humidifier is running non stop but can’t seem to reach the target set point of 65%.
I’m at a loss and hoping someone from the DGC can help me get this room dialed in.
I feel like I’m chasing my tail and I’m at a complete loss of what to do!
Your help would be greatly appreciated!
Maybe try one of those commercial ultrasonic humidifiers, I’m sure they could handle a room that size much easier than an evaporative humidifier. Also what temps are you aiming for? Mid to high 70’s should be low enough.
https://buildasoil.com/products/ultrasonic-humidity-maker
First off your setup is very clean and spacious so its probably already running fine as is, but your lights are too dim.
If your lights are running at 50% dim turn them up…your plants will use more water and transpire a good amount of it into the air. Having half the humidity you want is showing the lack of energy being introduced into your grow room ecosystem…you are extracting energy in three ways…AC, exhaust and dehumidifier. It takes energy to make humidity happen, so some of your light energy is being used up creating moisture through leaf transpiration…and your system is handling that load plus the pure thermal energy coming off of the light.
What your system is saying through data is you could be running your lights higher, and as a result, feeding faster and increasing the ambient humidity.
You have the gear to handle a higher load, so its turning your environment into a dry cool environment because your light isn’t introducing enough energy. This is why overkill on air quality pays off…just crank the light until you hit your marks.
Keep in mind all the environmental controls you have are for human comfort, not agriculture…so its doing the job it thinks you want done…dry and cool
You have to decrease their effectiveness by giving them an overheated climate to control, otherwise they are designed to and and are very capable of maintaining dry and cool.
Thanks for the info Burner!
I will bring the lights slowly up to 75% and see what happens!
I’m not using supplementary co2 so the max can only be 75%.
I’ll give an updated in a day or two. Thx again!
You can raise your light up so you can crank it up more. You can also get some white sheets and pin them up around your room to enclose it a little more it might help hold on heat where you need it.
It was interesting to see how it got solved, and getting free cooling from your outdoor climate without stripping moisture from the air with an AC unit is a nice bonus…same wattage on your lights and no wasted money and energy.
Oversized grow rooms are great to work in, glad to hear its back to normal.
throw them in a tent till they fill out a bit. crazy waist of electric runnig a room that size with 6 small plants. thats your flower room
I don’t think turning up the light in order to make them transpire more is going to solve your issue. Not enough volume of water in that soil to get that room where you want it. It will probably just make things worse for the plants. More light = more heat = greater leaf surface temp= a faster transpiration rate in an inadequate environment. Even if you raise the light and crank up the light your still setting yourself up for a high transpiration rate, due to the lack of humidty to begin with. More light is just going to put your same situation in overdrive. I like the idea toffee recommended about making the room smaller. Or you need a bigger humidifier. That small humidifier would work in a tent for the time being, but you really need to upgrade you humidifier for that size of a room. I’m sure if you filled that room with plants you wouldn’t be having this issue.
Totally agree. You don’t want to start burning young plants with too much light hoping for the rain to come, just doesn’t make any sense.
#1) when you apply practical application of the inverse square law to your light fixtures (raising and lowering your light) you can get the same amount of photon flux (light) for less power and less heat by moving your light closer to the plant, or the same amount of light and more heat by raising your lights and increasing the brightness proportionally. There is no reason why more power consumption and heat from the fixture is going to burn your plants, so that isn’t a concern.
#2) Nobody is hoping for rain to come in this situation, she waters those plants.
#3) For the sake of answering her question vs telling her how to refit her grow room, I have to assume she needs all that equipment. I don’t think its likely but for all I know she lives in a tropical climate. So assuming everything is required in that room…the answer is turn up the lights, or turn the thermostat up on the AC unit so the room gets warmer. However, room AC units often have a cold and fucking cold setting so that probably would have been bad advice. Maybe it makes more sense now.
That inverse square law is for point source lights, no led lights are point sources. I was really meaning that it could raise the VPD up too high for those young plants, so it might lead to them burning while they cannot keep up with 34% RH. Also, I meant the humidity from the rain or some outside source, not actually raining inside a house sorry for any confusion or any hurt feelings. We are ALL here to learn in public if you’re not IDK why you stay
Also wanted to point out that in my original comment I said that she could raise the temps to “Mid to high 70s” and that it “should be low enough”
Why are you running a dehumidifier? Stop. Then take a look at your environment. During veg I will be sloppy with watering tables. I will leave run off bucket’s full in front of fans. I MIST MY PLANTS WITH MAG SUPPLEMENTS . I wash the plants more often and I blast my humidifier. I can’t imagine why lowering your lights or turning them up will help what you’re asking about. Do you have fresh air moving through? An ac seems like a lot in the winter when we have free cold and often humidity filled air. I Dont know why I waste my breath. You rarely if ever acknowledge my answers. You know I do have a mustache…. Almost a cock that dosent ever distract me from the matter at hand. Women were the farmers in the fields for centuries. Not really sure where they ever got the rep of being the REAL farmers. Honestly, we just needs the guys to go to jail for us. We are also better at taking care of the kids when our support system is busy coughing and squatting.
Yea just reread the original question. Didn’t notice she was running a dehu. Yea try turning that off first for sure!
dehumidifiers probably set high with just the fan spinning untill humidity eventually gets there once the room fills up Leaf.
The dehumidifier is set up to work in conjunction with the humidifier but the humidity doesn’t ever reach the point where the dehumidifier needs to kick in.
I didn’t need an a/c last winter. I did need supplemental heat as it was too cold but since I’ve added the panda film to the ceiling, the room now runs too hot.
I do leave the runoff in the plant trays and started putting buckets of water in front of the fans but it doesn’t seem to make a difference.
I stopped running the exhaust fan but that also didn’t do anything.
As for women gardeners…I’ve been growing outdoors for 30+ years and don’t struggle like this!
I apologize if I failed to acknowledge your past replies to other posts but please know I read all responses and appreciate every one of them. No disrespect intended.
Your exhaust fan is pulling the humidity, cycle the fan with a humidistat on dehumidify mode.
There’s nothing wrong with 84⁰
Problem solved, next question.
We can’t read what you’re saying due to your flirting shoulders. I used to give my ma shit about her sexy shoulders too!
oh damn I see it…weird, I didn’t change anything. I’ll change the pic if it doesn’t fix on this comment.
hmm…re-upload
there ya go. now I’m a sad, fat nipped jpeg
So here’s my update!
I peeled back the panda film on the ceiling just a bit in one corner.
The temps came down and the humidity shot up.
The a/c is no longer needed! The heater is back on and
the girls are happy once again!
Thank you for all your comments and advice.
Lmao!!! Good one sunny. Broad shoulders and good answers. Stop making us look bad coach!
To further my comment now that I’m sober, if the ac still removes too much humidity after exhausting on a hunidistat and running the room in the mid 80s, you need a better humidifier. ideal air has good option$.
It just seems like the humidifier can’t keep up. If you have the option just put another humidifier to the room
I did add a second humidifier but it didn’t help. Peeling back the panda film a bit in one corner on the ceiling did the trick! Everything is now where it should be! Yay!
its too cold now, 31c 75% humidity. 1200-1500 ppm co2
youve got to grow hotter with led lights
In the meantime, you can always use an extra pot of wet coco to evaporate some of its water into your room like Scotty has before. This will be shooting in the dark, but it can raise that RH up enough for some of your ‘smart’ equipment to start managing your room properly. Kinda in the same vein as Bectopia is doing in Her room. Until those plants are big enough to start transpiring enough to offset the lack of humidity, you’ll have to upgrade your humidifier situation.