Been a while since my last post.. Curious of any suggestions to dealing with humidity.
Here’s my situation, Few weeks into flowering and now that is getting warmer outside, I’m struggling to get my humidity below ~65%. I have my exhaust on high, closed off 1 of 2 vents to create negative pressure, 2 oscillating fans, two small electric dehumidifier and three DampRid Hi-Capacity Moisture Absorber -Fragrant Free 2lb buckets. Portable AC for lung room and maintaining good temp, just RH issue. I did some defoliating but wonder if I should do more. Defoliation opinions and any other is much appreciated.
AC is a dehumidifier, and it’s all I use in my tropical environment. Dehumidifiers put out too much heat and do very little for me on rH. They do battle the AC and spike my power bills.
When you close your tent, are you still having those issues? Your dehumidifier looks a little small. But what you can do is take a 4 inch vent. Like a dryer vent and tape it to the top and vent that heat out. The ones that really worked good are the ones that will hold like around a gallon of water. Or you can hook it up to a water hose to run it out. Sometimes you can go by thrift stores and get them pretty cheap. I got wounded that holds almost about 2 gallons of water. I got for $30. It was brand new. But the other ones I paid several hundred dollars for. But if you get a good one, they last forever. I reuse my water.
If you have the ability…get rid of all of those smaller dehumidifiers. IMHO, those tiny dehumidifiers are a waste…I have three that sit unused for that reason.
Eventually I ended up getting all equipment out of the tent except the lights, filter, and probes. Lots of floor space for other plant pots or aqua/hydro equipment.
Get a 70 pint dehumidifier, preferably with a automatic drain hose and it pump so have continuous dehumidification without having to empty them, and Put it in the lung room, set it at 45%rh or less.
Turn up your 6" or bigger exhaust and possibly add some 4" intake ducts on either side of the tents lower round port holes.
The ports allow for more air flow before the walls suck in getting the dry air in better. I have put inline fans on the inlet port ducts to force cooler drier air in as well ..all controlled by inkbird temp or humidity controllers.
Do you use a controller or just have dial for exhaust fan speed?
They make a pretty cheap humidifier and temperature gauge. I’ll get a picture of mine when I go to my tent. I think I got it at Home Depot. Here is the thing. If I wanted to, I could hook mine up to the water hose. I do not do that for a simple reason. I want to see how much water they are drawing out. With the gauge I’m talking about. It is very cheap and it will show you your high and low. On the 2 x 4 that I have. I just opened the vent. When I close the tent, I let the filtered fan suck fresh air in. But you can take another fan with a filter to push air in. You want to keep a constant pressure. But something else you can do if you don’t have that other fan. It’s just hook it up to a filter and then run the line into the tent.
Plus, do alternate watering. Do them at different times. Maybe not feed as much. Do less more often. I know it’s a little bit of a work, but sometimes you got to do it. But I got to say if you got plenty of fans going. You’re not really giving them too much fertilizer. You let them go a little bit on the slow side. Make sure like I said you got plenty of airflow with fans. You don’t have to get the high dollar rotating fans. Look for cheap stuff. Even ones that sit on the floor. Let your containers dry out a little bit more.
As others said a larger dehumidifier in your lung room will help…of course they do put out heat as well. I cant run my AC this time of year but i actually leave the door to my lung room open when the dehumidifier is running alot and its keeps the tent 2-4 degrees lower than with the door closed
67F is pretty cool. If your tent is room temperature your tents humidity level will almost always be higher than ambient due to the plants/soil. The higher the temperature, the greater its ability to hold water, the lower the humidity %.
Whats your daytime/nighttime temps and humidity? Because seeing 67f makes me think warming up the tent and/or lung room would help solve your problem, and would be a lot easier than fighting the natural humidity level with dehumidifiers alone.
As an example my lung room air temp is ~70f @41% humidity(.00047 lb/cu ft of water in the air). My tent with 3 plants in 5 gallon bags, just watered yesterday, is 82f @41%(.00069 lb/cu ft) humidity. Thats ~47% more water but because the temperature increased the relative humidity stays the same.
Unfortunately im traveling for work and will have to make adjustments when I return. Im hoping she hangs in there while I’m gone. It was first thing in the morning after the lights switched on. That was the first night i didn’t run a heater. Its getting up in the mid 80° so i pulled the hearter put. But it happened to be a cooler night. I think that why it was reading 67. ~67°-69° & ~64% RH is typically my nighttime temp/ RH in the tent and afternoon temps are mid 70s and RH ~65%~68%. This is a learning experience for sure.
