Humidity!! help me avoid rot and mildew

[dr.thumbgreen]

Hey team

Week 1 flower
Had a crazy rollercoaster of a 1st grow. Underwatering / overwatering and cold roots ,/ tent in general. Have rectified all these issues and plants are super happy and healthy.vpd temp and humidity have all been dialled in and slowly turning up lights since the flip.
Tent is 2.0 x 0.8 x 1.8h
Lights 2 x 4 seasons quantum par 450w currently @60%
Homemade self draining saucers
Homemade dripper system with hydro halos
T8 exhaust running at 30% with controller 69
Thermoforge t7 recirculating for heat
Have a duct to a lung room which is at 40% humidity duct has a 100mm centrifugal fan to boost intake
2 above canopy circulating fans 1 below
Intake is bottom of tent and exhaust is setup with fan and filter outside pulling from top


Have not long had dehumidifier in lung room with centrifugal fan installed and was keeping tent around 55 after a lollipop and defol as i wanted to drop from 65 ish when i flipped. However since the flip started the stretch canopy is thickening again and im unable to get rh under 65 or so. Tent is in ceiling and cold overnight with outdoor environment 100humidity and 3 degrees celcius. My questions are. Do i just make do with what i can and wait till stretch finishes to defol for rh sake and is there another way to lower my rh.

Some photos of the journey appreciate the help

 

[compostmike]

65% in week 1 flower wouldn’t scare me by itself, especially with plants that healthy and still stretching. The part I’d be watching is the cold ceiling space overnight. When the tent temp drops, RH jumps even if the actual water in the air barely changed, and if the leaves get near dew point you’ve got the mildew window.

If the lung room is really sitting around 40% and the tent is still 65%, air exchange through the canopy is the choke point. I’d let that T8 ramp harder on humidity, especially lights off, and make sure the intake is actually pulling lung-room air instead of attic/roof air leaking in. Also aim one fan through the middle of the canopy and one under it. Tops can be moving while the interior is still a damp little pocket.

I wouldn’t strip them hard right now. Week 1 is still stretch, so a heavy defol can slow them and then they refill the space anyway. I’d take the obvious interior junk, leaves laying on leaves, and anything blocking airflow down low, then do the real cleanup around day 18-21 once the stretch shows you the final shape.

Watering timing helps more than people think too. No standing water in the saucers, and if you can, water early lights-on so the pots aren’t pumping max moisture into a cold tent all night. Later in flower I’d want low/mid 50s, lower if the buds get chunky, but right now I’d worry less about one 65% reading and more about stale air, wet pockets, and big night temp drops.