My new grow room as a beginner

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dezahp

dezahp

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I finally have my room all set up and ready. It is a 10' x 11' room I've been using this forum a lot and reading up on a lot of information. I also have tons of friends who grow too but I personally haven't done it before yet. It would be nice to get feedback and any suggestions that you guys might have.

Man....building the room to how I wanted and was satisfied with it was a shit ton of work. The ducts were the worst part and the part I hated the most. I'm running a 2x 10 inch q-max fans, one for intake and one for exhaust with a charcoal filter on the exhaust. I used insulated ducting and shooting my exhaust up into the attic. I think most people have their intake set up so it shoots out somewhere around the floor but mine comes out from the ceiling with a insulated duct hanging down and shooting down into the room. I didn't want to cut open a hole in my hardwood floor and there was no option for a window duct for the room. I also panda filmed the walls and install some lining on the hardwood floor. I used pond liner which I got as an idea from of my other friends. It's pretty thick so it is really durable and pretty easy to clean up. I'm using 4x 1000 Gavita HPS lights. I have HLG 600 V2 Rspec LED lights coming on the way but I probably won't switch to them until later Spring. I also got some wifi hygrometers so I can keep track of my temps and humidity on my phone whenever I want without having to go into the room and have alerts set up to alert me if temps/humidity is too high or too low. I also have two 16in Hurricane wall fans.
 
My new grow room as a beginner
My new grow room as a beginner 2
My new grow room as a beginner 3
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dezahp

dezahp

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Now here are the girls. I got Gelato clones for my first batch and they looked really good when I first got them. The sucky thing is that I was still working on the room and couldn't finish as fast as I wanted to cause I'm still really busy with work so I didn't have all the time in the world. I just literally finished the room after working the whole night from 5pm yesterday to 5 am this morning. It's been a week since I had the clones and they definitely needed to hurry up and pot up. I watered their tray about 2-3 days ago and they were still moist but their roots definitely looked like they needed to be potted. So as soon as I finished the room, I cleaned up and hurry up and potted them to 1 gallon pots. I am using Sunshine Mix soil and the nutrients I have are the GH Flora, Rapid Start, Silica, Cal and Cal Mag. I'll be getting my blooms later on when I flip. I also tested my tap water at 18-20ppm with a TDS meter.

Disclaimer: One of my buddies lights went out so I'm helping him hold his plants just for a few days so these are not all mine.
 
PXL 20201201 0348046361
PXL 20201206 231718561
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dezahp

dezahp

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One of the first issues I'm encountering is keeping an ideal environment that I want. I want to be able to keep veg at 70F-78F at 50-60 humidity. I'm running the lights at 3 feet at 600 watts and will gradually bump up later. I'm only running 2 lights so far on the back side of the room where the girls are directly under. I don't see a need to turn on the other two lights right now. I'm hanging my hygrometer near plant level and one up on the wall above light line. After my first night lights off cycle, I found it hard to maintain a temp above 66F, was generally at 64-65F. I'm doing a 18/6 cycle with lights off from 9am-3pm. I tried various things like also turning off my exhaust fan but obviously my humidity would shoot up and was up around 77-80 humidity. I'm also not running my intake fan at all since the exhaust fan is already pulling enough air from the intake duct without running the intake fan. The exhaust fan is also on the lowest setting and also is still really strong on low. It should be a good thing but I wish there was even a slightly lower setting lol. I tried putting one of my personal small heaters in the room but it didn't help much at all. I'm thinking I may have to get a bigger, better working heater. I saw some people recommend putting the heater next to the intake to warm up the air from the intake but I don't have that option since my intake duct comes out from the ceiling. I also thought about the option of turning off the exhaust during night and get a dehumidifier but I want fresh air going to the girls all the time. Plus, my neighbors house on both sides are really close and I also store a lot of things in the attic where I'm shooting the exhaust into so I want to also prevent any odor build up.

I also would ideally want my humidity around 50-60 but even with my exhaust on the lowest, my humidity is at 44-45% at around 75ish temps during day. Any ideas or tricks to slightly increase the humidity?
 
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BushelTits

BushelTits

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If your looking to decrease your exhaust you can install a manual damper with a locking nut. Restrict air flow to what you want. Keep in mind the motor to the centrifugal inline fans is in the airflow and relies on air passing through to keep the motor cool.
 
dezahp

dezahp

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Does anyone have a suggestion on which fan controller to get for the q max fan? I think I heard some fan controllers don't work well with max fans
 
dezahp

dezahp

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If your looking to decrease your exhaust you can install a manual damper with a locking nut. Restrict air flow to what you want. Keep in mind the motor to the centrifugal inline fans is in the airflow and relies on air passing through to keep the motor cool.

Thanks. Which do you think would be better? Install a damper or add a fan speed controller for my exhaust like this one? Also is it ok to use a speed controller with a fan that already has a adjustable knob? I would like to be able to control my exhaust output with a little more precise especially with getting a slightly lower output than what is on low mode on the q max. Also, it said not to use speed controllers on fans with brushless type motors but I'm not sure if my q max pro is or isn't.
Variable Vent Fan Speed Adjuster Inline Duct Fan Speed Controller

Also I will swing by Home Depot today to pick these up to see if i can install some temp/humidity power control on my exhaust. I would like to see if these work so I can have my exhaust on or off depending on temp/humidity. Would be a lot cheaper this way instead of getting fan temp and humidity controller. I would mainly use this for veg and have exhaust kn 24/7 for flower.
Wyze-Wi-Fi-Smart-Plug
 
growsince79

growsince79

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313
I finally have my room all set up and ready. It is a 10' x 11' room I've been using this forum a lot and reading up on a lot of information. I also have tons of friends who grow too but I personally haven't done it before yet. It would be nice to get feedback and any suggestions that you guys might have.

Man....building the room to how I wanted and was satisfied with it was a shit ton of work. The ducts were the worst part and the part I hated the most. I'm running a 2x 10 inch q-max fans, one for intake and one for exhaust with a charcoal filter on the exhaust. I used insulated ducting and shooting my exhaust up into the attic. I think most people have their intake set up so it shoots out somewhere around the floor but mine comes out from the ceiling with a insulated duct hanging down and shooting down into the room. I didn't want to cut open a hole in my hardwood floor and there was no option for a window duct for the room. I also panda filmed the walls and install some lining on the hardwood floor. I used pond liner which I got as an idea from of my other friends. It's pretty thick so it is really durable and pretty easy to clean up. I'm using 4x 1000 Gavita HPS lights. I have HLG 600 V2 Rspec LED lights coming on the way but I probably won't switch to them until later Spring. I also got some wifi hygrometers so I can keep track of my temps and humidity on my phone whenever I want without having to go into the room and have alerts set up to alert me if temps/humidity is too high or too low. I also have two 16in Hurricane wall fans.
My advice is get the exhaust out of the house. A room that size can easily put 5 gals of water a day in to your attic. that's just asking for mold too breed .
 
dezahp

dezahp

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I also think I will need to pick up a humidifier and dehumidifier. I'll go see what they have at Home Depot.

Regarding temp and heating especially for night, it should be ok to turn off exhaust with wall fan on at low for night right? This way I don't think I'll have to run a heater and just get a dehumidifier. This is for my veg right now and I was told that veg doesn't need that much air circulation but I'll have my exhaust back on during day.
 
dezahp

dezahp

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My advice is get the exhaust out of the house. A room that size can easily put 5 gals of water a day in to your attic. that's just asking for mold too breed .

I'm not sure how I'm gonna do that. I also don't want any holes or ducts sticking out from the house that people can see. My logic was that it might be ok with the vents to the roof in the attic but if I needed to then stick a hygrometer up there and put a dehumidifier if I really needed to. Do you think it is a bad idea?
 
growsince79

growsince79

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I'm not sure how I'm gonna do that. I also don't want any holes or ducts sticking out from the house that people can see. My logic was that it might be ok with the vents to the roof in the attic but if I needed to then stick a hygrometer up there and put a dehumidifier if I really needed to. Do you think it is a bad idea?
I would at least run the vent to whatever vent is already there.
 
PipeCarver

PipeCarver

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Ok thanks I'll look into that
I use a small grow box for seedlings and clones I vent it with a 12v fan and a timer set for 30 sec on every 15 minutes. This allows me to keep the temp 75 -78f and the humidity in the 60s. The light keeps the box warm enough & the wet soil keep the humidity in check.

I know my small box isn't your tent but the timer may help you control the H & T the same way.

There are $25 timers that you can set to whatever increments you need. If 30 sec every 15 min doesn't work for you you can do 2 sec on 2 sec off or whatever works
1607378332572
for your needs.
 
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Ryboburton

Ryboburton

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I'm not sure how I'm gonna do that. I also don't want any holes or ducts sticking out from the house that people can see. My logic was that it might be ok with the vents to the roof in the attic but if I needed to then stick a hygrometer up there and put a dehumidifier if I really needed to. Do you think it is a bad idea?
The easiest way to handle that is to get something like a dryer vent connector from Lowe’s etc. they have them in different sizes and you can run it horizontally in the attic and out of a gable. No one will know what it is
 
BushelTits

BushelTits

9
3
One of the first issues I'm encountering is keeping an ideal environment that I want. I want to be able to keep veg at 70F-78F at 50-60 humidity. I'm running the lights at 3 feet at 600 watts and will gradually bump up later. I'm only running 2 lights so far on the back side of the room where the girls are directly under. I don't see a need to turn on the other two lights right now. I'm hanging my hygrometer near plant level and one up on the wall above light line. After my first night lights off cycle, I found it hard to maintain a temp above 66F, was generally at 64-65F. I'm doing a 18/6 cycle with lights off from 9am-3pm. I tried various things like also turning off my exhaust fan but obviously my humidity would shoot up and was up around 77-80 humidity. I'm also not running my intake fan at all since the exhaust fan is already pulling enough air from the intake duct without running the intake fan. The exhaust fan is also on the lowest setting and also is still really strong on low. It should be a good thing but I wish there was even a slightly lower setting lol. I tried putting one of my personal small heaters in the room but it didn't help much at all. I'm thinking I may have to get a bigger, better working heater. I saw some people recommend putting the heater next to the intake to warm up the air from the intake but I don't have that option since my intake duct comes out from the ceiling. I also thought about the option of turning off the exhaust during night and get a dehumidifier but I want fresh air going to the girls all the time. Plus, my neighbors house on both sides are really close and I also store a lot of things in the attic where I'm shooting the exhaust into so I want to also prevent any odor build up.

I also would ideally want my humidity around 50-60 but even with my exhaust on the lowest, my humidity is at 44-45% at around 75ish temps during day. Any ideas or tricks to slightly increase the humidity?
Multiple speed controllers will cause over heating And result in failure
 
dezahp

dezahp

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Multiple speed controllers will cause over heating And result in failure

Yea that's pretty much the general consensus I came across is that the speed controllers are bad and can cause early failure and loud humming. Unless I get a variac but theyre pretty pricey. I think I'll just stick with getting a damper. Do you know if turning off/on your duct fan is bad? I was thinking of hooking it up to a smart plug to turn off/on to certain temps and humidity. It should basically be the same as when people run fan temp/humidity controllers right? I spent a lot on this q max pro so just want to make sure i dont end up ruining it.

Btw: what do you think is the minimum I should keep the damper open to keep the fan motor cool?

The easiest way to handle that is to get something like a dryer vent connector from Lowe’s etc. they have them in different sizes and you can run it horizontally in the attic and out of a gable. No one will know what it is

Sounds like a good idea if it comes to that. Thanks.
 
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Aqua Man

Aqua Man

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Yea that's pretty much the general consensus I came across is that the speed controllers are bad and can cause early failure and loud humming. Unless I get a variac but theyre pretty pricey. I think I'll just stick with getting a damper. Do you know if turning off/on your duct fan is bad? I was thinking of hooking it up to a smart plug to turn off/on to certain temps and humidity. It should basically be the same as when people run fan temp/humodity controllers right? I spent a lot on this q max pro so just want to make sure i dont end up ruining it.
Inkbirds have a 3 min delay programmed into them i think. Sure maybe a touch more wear and tear but not like those cheap speed controllers. The 3 min delay pertains to once it shuts off it will not come on for 3 mins even of called for. This is typically to protect any compressors that may be running on equipment. But on/off is absolutely an option imo. I think the delay can also be programmed but maybe double check
 
Grownsince95

Grownsince95

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Inkbirds have a 3 min delay programmed into them i think. Sure maybe a touch more wear and tear but not like those cheap speed controllers. The 3 min delay pertains to once it shuts off it will not come on for 3 mins even of called for. This is typically to protect any compressors that may be running on equipment. But on/off is absolutely an option imo. I think the delay can also be programmed but maybe double check
Yes you are correct! I learned the hard way with a cheapo controller that burned out a compressor on my AC unit. Now Inkbird all the way or a cloudline fan 👍
 
dezahp

dezahp

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Ok thanks for the suggestion guys. I think for now I decided I will just get a damper for now and run my exhaust on low along with getting dehumidifier/humidifier and see how that turns out. If I think I need it later though then I'll pick one of these up. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07GQWY9HM/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_fabc_JZSZFb58W3G96
This should be good right

I'll be going into my attic tonight also to place a hygrometer up there to see how the humidity up there is like.
 
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