Can I help answer anyone's cooling questions?

[ttystikk]

Hey i know there is a few thing on putting a large chiller indoors but im lazy and really didnt wanna look... i was wondering what problems i can run into putting a 2hp chillking inside a garage where it will be in a pretty open area... this area in the garage will not be heated... and thoughts???

Hey, I'm rollin' the 2 ton Chillking, too- there shouldn't be a problem with putting it in your garage at all. If you're keeping a car in there for the winter, it will do a great job of keeping the car nice n toasty warm too! Chillville mentioned at one point that as long as the environment around the chiller is below 90 F, it should work at peak efficiency.

I put my chiller in the house and it's warming the whole place, all 2000 square feet. Might save me $1000 in gas bills over the winter, at this rate.

How many lights are you running, and in what sort of configuration?

 

[sourkush91]

Im only running 2k with 2 ice boxes and a current culture 6xl... i have a 70qt. dehu that is water cooled and im cooling the cc with the chiller... i def oversized the chiller for future growth...

 

[ttystikk]

Im only running 2k with 2 ice boxes and a current culture 6xl... i have a 70qt. dehu that is water cooled and im cooling the cc with the chiller... i def oversized the chiller for future growth...

Yeah, I'd say you did. I recently tested my bloomroom to capacity with all 8kW of lights on, and my chiller didn't break a sweat. I plan to do another bloomroom on the flip at some point, and I'm now confident this chiller will be more than up to the job. That's 2 times 8000W, plus multiple RDWC, plus the veg. room, plus a nursery. At this rate, I could put an Ice Box in my living room and keep it nice n cool all next summer!

I built my own RDWC setups from 1" bulkheads, 1" hose and 5 gallon buckets. I just upgraded from 10' of 3/8" copper line in the 24 site system to a 20', temps went from 66 to 60...

 

[aSilvrHaze]

I've read that using copper for the cooling coil will leak copper into your nutes/plants...

 

[Chillville]

I've read that using copper for the cooling coil will leak copper into your nutes/plants...

For sure, I tested it myself. Copper content quadrupled in about 5 days using nutrient water. If using plain water its not a problem but nutrient is corrosive (salts) and will leach copper from the pipe.

 

[sourkush91]

Ya running such a small setup this chiller doesnt have to run much... Planning on running 4 600s over 6 plants next run with 4 ice boxes...

 

[ttystikk]

For sure, I tested it myself. Copper content quadrupled in about 5 days using nutrient water. If using plain water its not a problem but nutrient is corrosive (salts) and will leach copper from the pipe.

Agreed its not the ideal setup. So far, no toxicity issues. Yes, I change my res. often. When I have a few bux ahead I'm going with the 25' stainless wort chiller from these guys:

http://www.nybrewsupply.com/wort-chillers/3-8-x-25-stainless-steel-wort-chiller.html

 

[smokey_waters]

75 lights on, 65 lights off

Hi,
I have an SPT dual hose 11,000 BTU a/c unit and wanted to know, if I just set it at 65 degrees in a 10x10 tent running 4 1,000W bulbs, will it be able to cool the room to 65 or will it end up 75- this is ideal for me cuz then I never have to change the settings.

If I do, is there some way to program it to run 75 degrees for 18 hours (during veg) and then 65 at night while they sleep for 6 hours.

Thx,

 

[Chillville]

Hi,
I have an SPT dual hose 11,000 BTU a/c unit and wanted to know, if I just set it at 65 degrees in a 10x10 tent running 4 1,000W bulbs, will it be able to cool the room to 65 or will it end up 75- this is ideal for me cuz then I never have to change the settings.

If I do, is there some way to program it to run 75 degrees for 18 hours (during veg) and then 65 at night while they sleep for 6 hours.

Thx,

Its doubtful that the a/c will be able to keep the temps at 75 with 4k watts running....unless you are air-cooling the lights. Your lamps alone put out 14k btu and the a/c will never produce 11k btu...more like 8-9k. I would honestly be surprised if you were able to run 2 lamps and keep ther room below 75 degrees.

Also make sure your ballasts are out of the room and that your a/c will be able to bring in plenty of fresh, cool air for it to work as efficienctly as it can.

 

[UCCONFUSION]

Hello to all I have been an installer specializing in water-cooled systems for over 8 years now. I just wanted to introduce myself and offer my help with any questions that I can help answer. I am familiar with the fish bowl style, the cool tube spiral, the water jacket and the fresca sol units so I can help with all. Throughout the years I have also done alot of hvac and chiller installs so I can help with these also. I see that chillville has a good grasp on things here and I am glad to see a forum that is specific for cooling your garden as keeping that temp as steady and constant as possible is the key to the best garden you can have.

Spent 2 hours on this site now...I don't know how people do it. All I'm looking for is a discussion on what temperature the water in UC system should be kept. I don't get how people navigate around this site... Hours and hours and can't find what I'm looking for.

 

[ttystikk]

Spent 2 hours on this site now...I don't know how people do it. All I'm looking for is a discussion on what temperature the water in UC system should be kept. I don't get how people navigate around this site... Hours and hours and can't find what I'm looking for.

Yeah, sometimes it can be confusing to find a specific piece of information. I run RDWC, a system pretty similar to the UC. I keep my water temps in the 62-65 degree range, and I have very healthy plants, white roots, and no hint of root rot. As insurance, I add 1ml/gal of Dutch Master Zone at each water changeout.

I've heard of people running their temps as low as 57, and as high as 75. I chose my range based on better oxygenation and people's anecdotal experience here on the Farm that pythium root rot can't really live below about 64 degrees.

 

[UCCONFUSION]

TTY....thanks so much for the reply.... SO...you don't see slower growth in your plants at these cooler temps? If not I'm not sure why everyone doesn't run at these temps with a chiller? It seems root rot is the biggest challenge and if this alleviates it without and side effects why not? I've had many problems, so many, it's not to be believed, I could easily run at these colder temps but I was told it will slow growth a considerably, is that not true? ....I hope this doesn't open a can of worms but I just read the difference between RDWC and UC here
I had no idea, about RDWC. Can you tell me why you do this? Do you only run a 1 bucket system? I have 18 buckets with circulating water with air stones in every bucket. The water seems to move well and if I add PH to the system it seems every bucket reads that changed PH very quickly... I have a bunch of pumps from a previous grow and I'm wondering if I should employ them in some RDWC/UC hybrid. Today we tried to add a top drip system but the hose was kinking as well as leaking at the joints, so we scrapped it, not sure we need it but now I'm reading about RDWC. The top feeding with our UC seems to be a hybrid between RDWC and UC. The top feeding helps circulate the water(I thought air stones help move water do they not?) and keeps the roots that are not submerged in the net pot, since water goes to the bottom of bucket only....You know there are about 3-4 inches of root NOT getting wet/fed. Without the top feed those roots will not have any direct water except whatever moisture the buckets and air stone provides. I really appreciate the help, we are dying on the vine over here. What do you think the main reason you don't get rot and when your roots get big in the bucket how does the sprinkler run? Your system seems to be like the Botoncare Cloner than has sprinklers that sprays the roots....Thanks again.

 

[ttystikk]

Well... no, not quite. First, I looked at that website and I'm afraid they've mangled the definition of RDWC pretty badly. UC is a form of RDWC, because RDWC stands for 'recirculating deep water culture.' that has nothing at all to do with spraying water on the underside of the pot your roots are in, it refers to the fact that all the buckets in a given system are connected with hoses and water flows from a head bucket (or 'epicenter' if you're using UC terminology) through all the growing sites, and then through a pump and back to the head bucket.

My design is very close to the UC model; I have a head bucket which has the hose from the pump flowing into it, a coil that circulates cooling water to chill the water in the system and four outlet ports, one for each of four rows of growing sites. I have six growing sites per row, for a total of 24. At the tail end, hoses from two rows go through a Tee fitting to one, and then each of those goes into a 'tailbucket', where the submersible pump sits, pumping water back to the head bucket. All bulkheads and hoses are 1" diameter, to ease waterflow through the system. Each growing site has an airstone in it, and I use a 200 liter per minute air pump to run them all. Currently, I don't have a 'top off reservoir', but when I do, it will have nothing but water in it. I keep the water temp. at 62-64, because Jalisco Kid and others said that was a good compromise between cool enough to inhibit root rot and too cold for good growth. pH can swing as low as 5.3 and as high as 6.5, my daytime air temps are in the upper 70s and humidity is kept around 65%.

I run DM Zone at 1ml/gal- which at roughly 3 gallons per site is about 80 gallons of water, or 80 ml of DM Zone. Since I don't have any root rot problems, I only add this at water changeout time.

I run 3g/gal of Jacks Professional Hydroponic dry nutrients, 1 g/gal of epsom salts and 2g/gal of calcium nitrate. I mix the jacks and epsom salts together and fully dissolve them in a 5 gallon bucket and add to the RDWC water. Then I do the same with the calcium nitrate, dilute it and add it in slowly, to avoid nutrient lockup. I add a little Superthrive and... nothing else. I run this for about 2 weeks, then dump the water and do a fresh batch. Jacks, etc is so inexpensive I can do this for less than one dollar a changeout!

That's a pretty good blueprint of my growing system, and it works. This needn't be complicated...

 

[UCCONFUSION]

TTY...again MANY Thanks! Well guess what? We have the same system. Current Culture, that's the system I have, and that's the system you described. I guess 'Deep Water' simply means a bubbling bucket...haha. I have the exact same function as you do. You've really answered all my questions...

Except the water temperature question...Perhaps it's because you have no reference as to whether your plants would grow faster at a warmer temperature or not. Would it be safe to say as far as you know your cooler temperature does nothing to inhibit the growth of the plant or the yield for that matter? Can you share with me how much you're pulling per site and how many lights and watts your running per lite? 65% Humidity! Wow, I'm in Veg now and were at about 30%...However we can get up to 75% during flower and use a dehumidifier to bring that number down closer to 50%. Why 65%? All the time? Do you use a humidfier for that? Thanks again, it's MUCH appreciated.... OH one other question...do you clone and go right into this system or do you use a cloner? If so what water temp do you keep the clone machine at? Thanks so much.

 

[ttystikk]

TTY...again MANY Thanks! Well guess what? We have the same system. Current Culture, that's the system I have, and that's the system you described. I guess 'Deep Water' simply means a bubbling bucket...haha. I have the exact same function as you do. You've really answered all my questions...

Deep water culture means you're using a growing site with deep water that the plants' roots can grow down into. Nothing to do with bubbling. the airstone part is necessary of course, because oyu have to have some form of aeration, but that's not where the system gets its name.

Also I have a fear of uniseals, so I did NOT buy an undercurrent. Instead, I re-engineered the system, using 1" bulkhead fittings and 1" hose to connect all my sites, and all containers are 5 gallon buckets. The major difference between a UC and my system is that I have a tailbucket, which makes several things more convenient, like checking for deris, adding water and nutes and reducing the possibility of clogging.

Except the water temperature question...Perhaps it's because you have no reference as to whether your plants would grow faster at a warmer temperature or not. Would it be safe to say as far as you know your cooler temperature does nothing to inhibit the growth of the plant or the yield for that matter? Can you share with me how much you're pulling per site and how many lights and watts your running per lite?

My reference is the mid to upper 70s, which is... deadly. I have not run any sort of experiment to determine an 'ideal' water teperature, I just took the advice of many of the most experienced people here and went with their recommendations. No point in reinventing the wheel. Again, I chose 62-64 because it's warm enough not to inibit growth and cool enough to inhibit root rot. All I can tell you is that it works very well for me.

65% Humidity! Wow, I'm in Veg now and were at about 30%...However we can get up to 75% during flower and use a dehumidifier to bring that number down closer to 50%. Why 65%? All the time? Do you use a humidfier for that? Thanks again, it's MUCH appreciated....

30% humidity is too damn low, unless you're in the last week of flowering. Plants' leaves have microscopic openings underneath called 'stomata'. These open under certain conditions, allowing the plant to take up CO2 and transpire O2 and water. If humidity is too low, they close to conserve water, stunting growth and inhibiting nutrient takeup. Too high, and the plant can't transpire enough water to pull nutrients up, so humidity is very improtant. Read up on 'VPD', vapor pressure deficit, for more details. If you run your veg. temps in the 75-80 degree range, you'll want humidity between 65% and 75%. For flower, run 55%-65%. Only at the end of flowering- last week or so- do you want to drop your humidity as much as possible.

OH one other question...do you clone and go right into this system or do you use a cloner? If so what water temp do you keep the clone machine at? Thanks so much.

I have several veg. stages that I use to grow the plants until they're big enough to go into the RDWC. Doing this allows a grower to tailor the size and shape of their plants to their specific needs and allows you to concentrate your useof the RDWC hydro system exclusively on flowering, which is the best return on its investment.

 

[UCCONFUSION]

Crap...I wrote a whole reply, posted, and it said some error. Fack. Anyway. Thanks a ton, of course you get a sample...changed temps lower..added zone, look better already...still some contemplation about the needed Humidity, we've run successful grows at this low humidity AT THE START, and the guy at my local shop whose been growing successfully for years says that's fine..>Going to show him your response and go from there. Got 2 close from in Boulder area... they don't grow, maybe you should meet them..

 

[UCCONFUSION]

So? Being in CO....you use a HUMIDIFIER in your rooms? Why type?

 

[ttystikk]

So? Being in CO....you use a HUMIDIFIER in your rooms? Why type?

You're developing a real knack for asking simple sounding questions that require in-depth answers! Good on ya... If you run a sealed room, you should not need to add humidity; the plants will do it. what you'll need sooner rather than later in this case is a DE-humidifier. I have a 70 pint Frigidaire and it's working fine. The other thing that must be added to sealed rooms is CO2.

If your room isn't sealed, you're likely using the air turnover to cool the room and bring in CO2. This works, but careful attention must be paid to how much air is turning over, and what air is leaving the room. Ideally, you want slower air turnover rates and only the hottest air being pulled out.

You'll still need humdification in this scenario, and since the air is used to cool things, you may as well use a swamp cooler. This will add moisture and in so doing it will also create a small temperature drop. The swamp cooler will get slime and algae and such in it, so add bleach, or H2O2, or a swamp cooler specific sterilant to keep it clean. DO NOT MIX such sterilants; it's easier than you might think to have some seriously bad chemistry happen.

 

[ttystikk]

This has kinda moved off the thread topic of water cooling grow rooms... PM me so we don't keep cluttering this thread up.

 

[UCCONFUSION]

If you can believe....I can't send you a private message? It says, 'new users' can only send emails to administrators...so not sure how I don't clutter a thread if they don't let me email you personally. I've got some serious problems I need help with...

My humidity is 30%. Obviously I need a damn HUMIDIFIER. I have a DE humid.... I've been reading and you're right... need more humidity. Amazing I'm in cali, 30 miles from the ocean and this is the humidity. I dunno man. It never ends. Thoughts? humidifier I guess? Some of my roots look like they got rot. I dunno again. I'm running Zone, water temp is 62-65..... Should I add H202? What else could I add?

Another question...When you change out the water every two weeks....Do I just empty and refill or do I flush with something for an hour or 24 hours, then empty and re-fill? Such a waste of water it seems to empty 150 gallons, flush 150 gallons, and refill 150 gallons? Merry Merry to you. Thanks again. I feel the questions should be coming to end soon and I wish I could PM you...