@Lostgirl helped me with my previous humidifier build, maybe you can give me some insight, I think you may use a similar 6 head unit to the one I’m considering.
I have an indoor grow space of about 8’x8’ that I’m slowly putting together. I found a powerful 4500ml/hour 6 head humidifier unit but it uses 165W. I’m worried about the 165W running up my electric bill. But maybe the unit would only need to power on for a couple minutes at a time because it does seem powerful?
My other option is a 3 head unit that only does 900ml/hour but only uses 60W. Less electricity but it would need to run for longer to reach the same humidity.
Be sure to use distilled or RO water if using this device. It will aerosolize the minerals in your tap water and you’ll get mineral dust clinging to surfaces everywhere nearby.
I use a six head in a 17 gallon tote. This uses little to no electricity whatsoever. You’re not even going to be affected like you would by using something like lighting, heat, air condition, dehumidifiers ect. I highly doubt you’ll even notice the increase on your electric bill.
As far as a six head versus a three head as @Budbrother mention that would really depend upon the growth space that you’re utilizing. Is it a tent is it open space would really be the deciding factors.
I utilize a 4x4x tent and the six head is incredible. However, I do believe a three head would be absolutely sufficient for a 4x4 tent as well with absolutely no issues.
@MidwestGuy makes a good point about the minerals creating a white Dusty film throughout the tent and sticking to your plants leaves and buds when using tap water. However, I found the solution to this issue that now allows me to use pure 100% tap water and I get no residue on my leaves it’s a simple as putting your exhaust duck into the tent from the bottom with a catch tray as pictured below.
What this actually does it blows the fog directly into the water collected into your catch tray preventing it from blowing into your tent and all over your plants. I would say I catch 85% of the white Dusty minerals as it sticks to the water in the catch tray and simply gathers around the parameter of the inside of the tray stuck to the walls of the tray.
About twice a week I simply empty the catch tray and you can see all the hard minerals you prevented from going into your tent or your plants. It works for me perfectly and boy my pocket appreciates it!
Using a 17 gallon tote with tap water I recommend using 1/4 bottle of hydrogen peroxide (the dollar store bottle) poured directly into the reservoir tote to prevent bacteria growth inside your reservoir to keep things healthy.
Let me know if you have any questions or if I can assist
Basically I was getting water all over the floor of the tent. So I decided to put this little baby tote (catch try) directly underneath the hose to simply catch the water and it worked wonderful and there were no more water I also noticed that all the minerals dust particles were floating in the water and stuck to the side and voila, an accidental discovery about the only thing on my plants leaves and buds are my curly hairs anymore ,
Also my tap water’s PPM is about 150 PPM so I would say my mineral content is slightly less than average. I see a lot of people on here with ppms above 300 in their tap water
4 to 500 PPM that’s very high and I’m sure creates a ton of mineral dust. Do you have a picture of the evaporative humidifier? Don’t think I’ve ever heard of that one
Wow that’s cheap. That cost less than just the six head ultrasonic mist unit. I’m sure your units powerful or you wouldn’t be using it.
Originally my 4x4 was not for weed. It was a tent. I couldn’t find a humidifier that would keep perfect humidity in the tent required for mushrooms. I had to keep adding humidifiers at $69 a piece and still couldn’t maintain the proper humidity. So I built the humidifier LOL and let me tell you that thing will go from 0% to 100% in 1 minute and keep it there all day if I had to.
Come to find out once I started using the tent for weed the humidifier was also a major bonus in keeping my environment on par for the girls.
I found that those , let’s call them Vics humidifiers just couldn’t get the humidity up and keep it up to assure a great well maintained environment
It’s actually an underground cellar. I’m estimating about 8 ft by 8 ft but it could be a bit smaller. I probably wouldn’t be using the entire space and seedling stage but might when they’re all full grown.
I kind of already knew that, I guess I just wanted to hear it from someone else before I make the purchase.
Since it’s an underground room, I was planning to have the humidifier inside the room, like in the middle of the plants with vents pointing up.
Any ideas on how to utilize your drip pan idea with the tote located inside the grow room? I was thinking to vent it out of a 90 PVC elbow at the top of the tote and put the drip tray under the elbow.
That’s all you do. Put it right underneath the elbow will definitely catch the water. As far as catching the mineral dust I think you want to concentrate more on making your exit mist hit directly at the catch tray for the best accumulation build up.
There’s some misconception out there that the humidifier needs to blow from the top of the room down like a rainforest and that’s not true. It’s in my opinion You’re simply making a water mess throughout your entire tent doing it that way. Humidity doesn’t work from smoke falling from the sky my tent will reach 80% humidity whether it fog blows from the top or it blows from the bottom.
I guess the point to this is when the fog is coming out of the tube the catch tray water Acts as a filter so to speak. It literally catches the particles and the particles float to the side of the catch tray and harden up.
Using a 90 is going to blow it more out into the room rather than down into the catch tray. My above point was to simply clarify the mist does not have to blow upward
I never gave that a thought, probably explains why my charcoal filter clogged up with white stuff. My water has visible calcium, and pretty sure my charcoal filter does also now.
about the only thing on my plants leaves and buds are my curly hairs anymore ,
tent. I couldn’t find a humidifier that would keep perfect humidity in the tent required for mushrooms. I had to keep adding humidifiers at $69 a piece and still couldn’t maintain the proper humidity. So I built the