Not sure if this is a problem, but thought I’d get ahead of it:
I switched my lights to Flowering 12/12 a few days ago, and immeidately started having trouble keeping the humidity down. It will routinely get above 80% when the lights are off. I have the humidifier completely unplugged. I have an AC unit in the room, but obviously I don’t want to freeze the plants either.
I have 3 circulation fans in the tent, 2 directly on the canopy of the plants, one up high to push hot air out. I also have 1 cool air intake fan, and one filtered vent fan, so I don’t think circulation is an issue, but still, this…
It’s in a tent, but the room that contains the tent is separated from the climate of the rest of the house.
I have a small heater designed for grow tents (AC Infinity), but it feels, uh, silly to run the AC to dehumidify while running the heater at the same time.
Same situation here. I put a good dehumidifier in the lung room to bring down the humidity. The past few days I didn’t turn on the dehumidifier and here is what the tent environment in like just before lights on. The plants don’t seem to care too much but I do wonder if they have a negative impact at all.
This is the device I added to the lung room which is a small bedroom that is HVAC controlled wit the rest of the house. It works great. Any dehumidifier 50 pints or better will be more than enough to bring humidity down in your lung room.
The opposite. It will raise the temp a few points. I time my hvac to a lower temp at night when the lights are off to adjust for the added temp from the dehumidifier
High humidity equals airy buds from experience, and had bud rot a couple of times. Temp drops humidity goes up. I set my lung room temp to 68 with dehumidifier set to lowest setting. I added 2 to 6in ducts per tent with screens. So my exhaust is pulling dry air directly in, while also keeping light out for my photoperiod plants.
I have even duct taped the intake directly to front of dehumidifier.
The large fan leaves raise humidity in the tent. I try to leave as many leaves as possible but sometimes I have to do defoliation to lower humidity.
I get it, I pay someone’s wages at the power company. My electric bill is outrageous, but still cheaper than dispensary for what I average. Plus way higher quality.
My power bill goes way up when the plants are in flower. Between the light, dehumidifier, devices in the tent, and the running the HVAC at 68 at night.. yep.
I also run a dehumidifier as needed in my basement lung room. @1_q, you did not mention whether your tent exhaust goes back into your lung room or outside (usually better).
Yes, pipe that hot moist exhaust air to the outside as soon as you can. It’s expensive to instead use the AC and dehumidifier to cool and dry the same air.
An easy temporary fix while you’re waiting for the dehumidifier would be to turn your lights up to raise the temperature in the tent. You’re averaging 77°, so you can afford to increase by 10° or so temporarily.
Botrytis spores are plentiful in the natural environment, so it’s likely they’re present on your (and everyone’s) plants. Whether they take hold and cause harm depends largely on the RH. Given the devastation bud rot can wreak on a grow, I’d rather let my plants be too warm for awhile than risk The Brown Plague.
“Better hot than rot!” – Michael Peter Balzary (aka Flea)
