Grow Tent Temp Question

[dshimmy]

Hi everyone, I hope you all are doing well!

My grow tent's temp have risen a bit the past week due to the temps rising outside. I am growing in my garage and so far have had a pretty consistent temp and RH. Lately, my temps have been averaging around 83.5-85.2 degrees. My plants don't seem to be bothered and are growing nicely, but my anxiety pushed me to buy Exhale C02 365 bag and another inline fan to bring in cooler air. I've read online that with high temps and having a surplus of C02 can cause the plants to explode with new growth. It's been two days and I've seen some great growth thus far.

Any suggestions? My RH has been sitting between 60 and 65, keep in mind I'm on week 2, going on week 3 with my plants. I just started growing recently and trying my best to keep my plants happy.

 

[xtsho]

Those bags are basically worthless and unless your in a sealed environment you're just exhausting what little Co2 that bag makes. Any growth your seeing was going to happen regardless of that Co2 bag.

 

[DailyBlastin]

ok so first off @OP, seems like you need to do a bit more research and then even after that you need to probably take a step back and remember the acronym "KISS" (keep it simple stupid) in order to make supplimental c02 viable you essentially have to ramp up all other aspects of your grow, Lighting, temp, feed strength, feed intervals, and as @xtsho said a sealed environment to actually control half these variables. And this isnt just a "add more get more" formula, its a precise science, you would need equipment to monitor and maintain 1200+ ppm of c02 and dial in all other aspects of the grow precisely to react accordingly to the higher c02 levels.

That being said @xtsho is also a little off-base to call the bags worthless, they are infact a great tool to supplement c02 in areas that dont get natural c02 refreshment regularly, for example, small indoor grows that have no way to exhaust outside/draw in fresh air from outside, if your recycling the same air with no actual exchange to bring in fresh air then you will deplete the available c02 levels in the air rather quickly, this was the case for me when i lived in an apartment complex a few years back, the exhale bags did a great job in that scenario, however in your case they wont make much more difference than you would see by simply dialing in your air exchange and overall temp control.

The 100% best route for you to go imo would be add a window ac or a full on minisplit (depending on the size of the garage), this will give you much better control of temps within the tent by being able to cool the space around it, while your at it if your tent is not already ducted to exhaust to the exterior of the garage then that is your next step. Window units are cheap as fuck so unless your garage is more than 500sq ft then you really have no excuse to not be able to afford a window a/c especially when were talking about a small sub-300$ investment to get a much more premium product than you will without proper temp control, and of course AC will help you control that humidty also cuz if you go through flower with that 60-65% RH your gonna end up with mold.

 

[Coloradogrower710]

ok so first off @OP, seems like you need to do a bit more research and then even after that you need to probably take a step back and remember the acronym "KISS" (keep it simple stupid) in order to make supplimental c02 viable you essentially have to ramp up all other aspects of your grow, Lighting, temp, feed strength, feed intervals, and as @xtsho said a sealed environment to actually control half these variables. And this isnt just a "add more get more" formula, its a precise science, you would need equipment to monitor and maintain 1200+ ppm of c02 and dial in all other aspects of the grow precisely to react accordingly to the higher c02 levels.

That being said @xtsho is also a little off-base to call the bags worthless, they are infact a great tool to supplement c02 in areas that dont get natural c02 refreshment regularly, for example, small indoor grows that have no way to exhaust outside/draw in fresh air from outside, if your recycling the same air with no actual exchange to bring in fresh air then you will deplete the available c02 levels in the air rather quickly, this was the case for me when i lived in an apartment complex a few years back, the exhale bags did a great job in that scenario, however in your case they wont make much more difference than you would see by simply dialing in your air exchange and overall temp control.

The 100% best route for you to go imo would be add a window ac or a full on minisplit (depending on the size of the garage), this will give you much better control of temps within the tent by being able to cool the space around it, while your at it if your tent is not already ducted to exhaust to the exterior of the garage then that is your next step. Window units are cheap as fuck so unless your garage is more than 500sq ft then you really have no excuse to not be able to afford a window a/c especially when were talking about a small sub-300$ investment to get a much more premium product than you will without proper temp control, and of course AC will help you control that humidty also cuz if you go through flower with that 60-65% RH your gonna end up with mold.

I agree if you haven’t ducted your exhaust out side the room the tent is in that is the next step you will likely need an A/C if that does not lower it enough. I bought a portable AC unit and it blows right into my intake for the tent this can lower the temps by 20 degrees.

 

[Weouthere]

You could run your light at night to help balance the temp swings too

 

[TreeFarmerCharlie]

Are you running LED lights? If you are, then 85 is a good temp to be at.

 

[xtsho]

I agree if you haven’t ducted your exhaust out side the room the tent is in that is the next step you will likely need an A/C if that does not lower it enough. I bought a portable AC unit and it blows right into my intake for the tent this can lower the temps by 20 degrees.

I put one of those portable AC's inside my tent one summer to control the heat. It was a hassle and took up too much room in a 4 x 4 tent. Now I just shut down for 2 months in the summer and grow plants outside in the summer. I have a backyard and the sun is the best light out there. If they don't finish in time before the weather gets crappy I pull them inside and let them finish off under the HID when it's cooled down enough to run the light. I'm still growing 365 days a year.

 

[TreeFarmerCharlie]

I put one of those portable AC's inside my tent one summer to control the heat. It was a hassle and took up too much room in a 4 x 4 tent. Now I just shut down for 2 months in the summer and grow plants outside in the summer. I have a backyard and the sun is the best light out there. If they don't finish in time before the weather gets crappy I pull them inside and let them finish off under the HID when it's cooled down enough to run the light. I'm still growing 365 days a year.

Have you tried cooling the room with that, instead of the tent?

 

[xtsho]

Have you tried cooling the room with that, instead of the tent?

Tents out in a double car garage that isn't sealed around the garage door. That unit is nowhere big enough to cool the size of the garage anyway when it's 100F outside. It works out OK. I'm just not flowering for 2 months in the summer but this year I'm growing a couple auto's outside so that should solve that issue. It's also nice not dealing with the indoor tent as I'm busy outside in the garden.

 

[dshimmy]

Are you running LED lights? If you are, then 85 is a good temp to be at.

Yes I'm running 3 1500W LEDS in a 4x8x6.6 tent. Two clips fans, 1 osaliating fan, and two inline fans, one pushing out and the other in. Right now my temp is at 91 and RH at 58% with the C02 bag. I have my inline fan that's pushing air out on low. The other one is completely off.

 

[Weouthere]

Turn the exhaust fan up!! put it at least on half speed. Have you thought of a swamp cooler infront of your intake to cool the roomm?

 

[DailyBlastin]

ok so

Tents out in a double car garage that isn't sealed around the garage door. That unit is nowhere big enough to cool the size of the garage anyway when it's 100F outside. It works out OK. I'm just not flowering for 2 months in the summer but this year I'm growing a couple auto's outside so that should solve that issue. It's also nice not dealing with the indoor tent as I'm busy outside in the garden.

so your 'standard' 2 car garage is 24x24 which= 576 sq ft. which means you'd want ideally a 12k or 14k btu cooler. mini split would be the best way to go in that case. HOWEVER since you already have that little portable cooler then "quick fix" solution is to build a smaller room within the garage to house the tent, then you can run the portable cooler within the smaller room to cool off the tent and exhaust both the tent and the AC through an exterior wall.. this also gives the added benefit of extra stealth if done right.

also you really dont need an intake fan, that could be part of your problem to begin with, you want mild negative pressure within the tent, a small oscillating fan in front of the intake port can help to spread the fresh intake air around quicker but forcing it in with an inline fan is bad practice unless your exhaust fan is moving 3x as much air, and if that were the case then youd be doing too many air exchanges per minute for the plants to make use of the available c02, inline fan/filters are meant to be primarily for air exchange, not heat removal, you need both but not merged, too many people picked up back practices when "cool tubes" became a thing, everyone said "oh look i can remove my light heat with my exhaust fan now" when the proper way to use them was to use a seperate inline fan for cooling the lights from the one doing your air exhange.

And while it is true that when using LED's you can run slightly higher temps- if your looking to get the most premium product you'll still want to be aiming for the 70-75 mark, higher trichome production as well as denser buds will always be the result of favorable temps/rh If you keep running 85+ temps with above 55% rh you are just asking for fluffy airy buds that will still be susceptible to mold.

Best course of action imo- build an "insulated box" within the garage to house the tent that you can cool with the a/c and exhaust externally, your plants will thank you.

 

[xtsho]

Well I'm already using passive intake so no intake fan. Tent is exhausted through the attic except in the winter when they heat is a good thing. What I'm doing works fine the way it is. I'm not building out the garage to house the tent. I have a 400 cfm fan on a speed controller and the 600 watt HPS light is in a sealed hood. Running at night I can keep it below 80 and 70 - 75 is common depending on time of the year. I'm in the PNW so we only get hot a couple months out of the year. I'm growing more dense bud than I can consume myself so I'm not going to spend anymore time and money setting up my grow facilities. Could they be better? Yes. Do I need better? No. But thanks for the suggestions they make sense and I've thought about some of them but decided it's not something I need to do.

 

[Nefrella]

I'm currently in CA, the weather here is 100+ this week. My flower tent is running at night, helps a ton. My veg tent runs daily except 10AM-4PM (hottest part of the day).

That being said, im ducting the flower tent to the outdoors directly. Works great.

Veg tent, im ducting into the same room, as I cannot put a slat in the window to do so. On the nights where it gets cool enough to open the windows, it helps, but realistically, im sitting at 91 degrees most nights. Not noticing a slow down on growth, it just literally feels like the tropics in there.

I have a 6"infinity inline duct pulling exhaust, and a 4" pushing air into the tent, so there's no issues with that.

Just summertime and hot.

GL, im sure you'll be fine!!

 

[dshimmy]

I'm currently in CA, the weather here is 100+ this week. My flower tent is running at night, helps a ton. My veg tent runs daily except 10AM-4PM (hottest part of the day).

That being said, im ducting the flower tent to the outdoors directly. Works great.

Veg tent, im ducting into the same room, as I cannot put a slat in the window to do so. On the nights where it gets cool enough to open the windows, it helps, but realistically, im sitting at 91 degrees most nights. Not noticing a slow down on growth, it just literally feels like the tropics in there.

I have a 6"infinity inline duct pulling exhaust, and a 4" pushing air into the tent, so there's no issues with that.

Just summertime and hot.

GL, im sure you'll be fine!!

Literally how mine feels! Like I'm on a special island. They seem happy

 

[Coloradogrower710]

I put one of those portable AC's inside my tent one summer to control the heat. It was a hassle and took up too much room in a 4 x 4 tent. Now I just shut down for 2 months in the summer and grow plants outside in the summer. I have a backyard and the sun is the best light out there. If they don't finish in time before the weather gets crappy I pull them inside and let them finish off under the HID when it's cooled down enough to run the light. I'm still growing 365 days a year.

I put my intake fan on a shelf directly in front of the A/C so it’s blowing straight into the intake fan it works pretty well.

 

[Coloradogrower710]

Tents out in a double car garage that isn't sealed around the garage door. That unit is nowhere big enough to cool the size of the garage anyway when it's 100F outside. It works out OK. I'm just not flowering for 2 months in the summer but this year I'm growing a couple auto's outside so that should solve that issue. It's also nice not dealing with the indoor tent as I'm busy outside in the garden.

You don’t have to cool the whole space just cool the air that’s getting pumped in...

 

[Coloradogrower710]

I'm currently in CA, the weather here is 100+ this week. My flower tent is running at night, helps a ton. My veg tent runs daily except 10AM-4PM (hottest part of the day).

That being said, im ducting the flower tent to the outdoors directly. Works great.

Veg tent, im ducting into the same room, as I cannot put a slat in the window to do so. On the nights where it gets cool enough to open the windows, it helps, but realistically, im sitting at 91 degrees most nights. Not noticing a slow down on growth, it just literally feels like the tropics in there.

I have a 6"infinity inline duct pulling exhaust, and a 4" pushing air into the tent, so there's no issues with that.

Just summertime and hot.

GL, im sure you'll be fine!!

I’m in Colorado I also go with a lights off from 10-am to 4pm works pretty well to help with temps. What times do you run your flower lights

 

[Nefrella]

I’m in Colorado I also go with a lights off from 10-am to 4pm works pretty well to help with temps. What times do you run your flower lights

730 pm 730 am