With winter hitting everyone, I gotta ask: has anybody ever used some kind of heating device to warm up your tent? I’ve read that warmer temps are best for seedlings and we just popped a couple of autos. Even though it only gets down to the 50s & 40s at night here, it can’t be optimal for the babies. We turn down the thermostat each night to 58 degrees, so we know it won’t be lower than that, at least.
But what do you guys do who live in Montana? Vermont? I know you can get heating pads to help in germination, but does anybody have any experience with heat lamps or…? No spot heaters, though.
We have a lovingly home-crafted, 3x2 Panda Film tent that’s already gotten us through our first harvest - I’d rather not have something in there that would make it melt or worse.
Your cable box is a great place to keep seeds warm to pop them, leave the box on over night and obviously don’t get it wet. In your room those electric oil radiators are probably safest, but there’s small ceramic ones that are nice
I haven’t had any heat problems my light keep the grow closet 10-15 degrees hotter then the rest of the house and we keep the house decently warm during winter
Thanks, all. We popped them between paper towels then moved them to their 7-gallon fabric forever home about two days ago. They’re starting to show their cotyledon heads now. As you’ll see from the pic, we have a humidifier pumping about 70% RH, pots are off the floor, and they get misted several times a day. They’re both up on a pvc rack we built.
If the tent only gets down to 58 each night, should I even worry? I have a feeling that more warmth would be beneficial to them, though.
Thanks, @Holmes. Maybe I’ll try @Covertgrower’s suggestion and put them under domes for the next week or so. I think we have a couple of extra small hygrometers that we use for our curing jars. Would you suggest putting one inside each dome so we could monitor temp & rh?
You could keep lights on 24/0 for a week or 2 to help keep the tent warm during the critical seedling stage. Other than a heater, you could use a 5 gal bucket of water with a small fish tank heater (25-50 watts) in it to keep tent warm as well. Doing that keeps my tent from going below 68 at night even with light off.
A trick I have used in my 32x32 is putting the heater about 4 feet away from my tent an letting my active intake pull heat in. I also use this technique for my humidifier since it does not have a auto shutoff.
Wow, thanks, @Hellraiser. That’s a great suggestion. I don’t have room on the floor for a 5-gallon bucket, but I’ll use my 3-gallon, which should work. Also have them under smallish glasses now.
I live in a cold state and when the cold hits hard, I have a space heater (electric in the same
room as my grow tent) and I leave the exhaust fan on low at night to draw in the warm air keeping the tent between 65 and 70 degrees F. During the day I have to modulate the fan
in order to handle the fluctuation in air temps combined with the heat from the lights.
Never goes above 82 but I prefer to keep it between 72 and 78. I live on the third floor
of an apartment building and based upon the behaviors, cooking and activity below, it can
raise my ambient temps 10 - 15 degrees.
It gets cold where I’m at too I have an oil heater setup outside my tent where the fans drawing in air and when my lights are off only time my temps drop then it kicks on and keeps me between 68 and 72 when lights off. Just read @PhillyRock post that’s exactly it basically same setup and it works stay away from the ceramic ones though try n get one that’s oil filled and likes like an old cast iron one you know.
