new room setup, few questions

[linky]

I finished my new room a few weeks ago, its 21'x13' total 11'x13' for flower room, rest is for veg, 7' ceilings. Its a sealed room, I built the walls, put up 6mm vapor barrier plastic on all walls and ceiling, put 1/4 plywood on all walls and ceilings plus I painted all walls and ceilings with kilz, then put up some 1/4" foam with silver foil on all the walls and ceilings. Caulked and spray foamed as another layer of protection for smell and leakage, room seems sealed pretty well, this was a priority of mine.

Carbon filters mounted on the ceiling in each room for smell (so far no smell in house and outside door to grow room with 36 8" plants) you can smell the plants in the grow itself though.

I have a 12k btu ac unit in the flower room, its a portable with intake and exhaust hoses going outside, ky32-as air conditioner recommended by my local grow room (was told it did not vent air in the room outside and pull outside air in, that it was a closed system). have a 65 pint dehumidifier as well.

I am using co2 with atlas 1 controller on a 20lb tank with regulator, set at 1400ppm.

I have 6 adjust-a-wing 600's in flower and 2 600's adjust-a-wing in veg running with 4 lumatek dual 600 ballasts. A 4' T5 fixture on mother located in veg room.


I have air being circulated from veg and flower room by two 6" fans located in the wall between the two rooms, configured so no light will go into flower room.


I have 6 wall mounted fans for air flow, 4 in flower and 2 in veg room.

Ok, couple questions. with just the 2 600's in veg room going I don't need to run the ac, temp is 82 with thermometer sitting on the pots under the lights. temp in room is 70ish if I move the thermometer from under the lights (lights are currently 21" away from top of plants. For the past week I have had half my plants under the two 600's in veg room and 2 600's running in flower room (19 hour on cycle in each room) and have had ac running, with temps still only at 82 with thermometer on top of pots under the lights.

To test temps with everything running I turned on all my lights, ac on high, dehumidifier running.. the room temperature not under the lights gets to 80, but putting the thermometer on the pots under the lights in flower room it gets to 91 degrees.. I am concerned this is to warm, even though in the rooms itself its only 80-81 not under the lights. stays at 82-84 under the 2 600's in veg room. Is this a problem? do I need another ac unit?

Another questions I have that makes me think the ac unit is not a 'sealed' unit like I was told, is once I started using the ac my last 20lb tank of co2 lasted only 3 days before empty, the first 20lb tank I ran without ac running lasted 6-7 days. Thoughts? Its a ky32/as portable air conditioner.


Thanks for any input/suggestions you can offer me.

 

[MEGA956]

//Got pic's?

 

[linky]

//Got pic's?

Not at the moment, I could go down and take some photos though.

** added some photos

 

[MEGA956]

//Very clean setup bro, looks real nice. I think your veg room is spot on. But 91
In flower sounds too hot. So is it 91 on the top of your canopy?

And is there any problem with your plants, or just the temp problem?

 

[MEGA956]

// I think your light is too close.

 

[linky]

//Very clean setup bro, looks real nice. I think your veg room is spot on. But 91
In flower sounds too hot. So is it 91 on the top of your canopy?

And is there any problem with your plants, or just the temp problem?

91 is with the thermometer sitting on the pot itself, its only 80 if I move the thermometer off the pots and on the wall in the flower room.

 

[linky]

// I think your light is too close.

21" is to close? how far from top of plants should they be?

thanks

 

[linky]

And is there any problem with your plants, or just the temp problem?

The plants seem to be doing ok, just repotted most of them, just the temp issue with all lights on, when thermometer is sitting right on the plants and the co2 usage, seems a bit high. from co2 calculator it says I should be going through a tank in 7 days, like I did with my first tank, once I started using the ac unit the tank was gone in 3 days.

 

[linky]

moved the wall fans down on the wall a foot, so maybe 3'-4' from the floor, lights at 22" above top of the plants, temps down to 87-89 at the plants, probably just need to go with a larger ac unit.

 

[ttystikk]

Before freaking out about the thermometer reading, do a little investigation; if all you did was lay the thermometer down under the lights, it's likely to read high based on the radiation from the light heating up the thermometer. That's not going to give an accurate reading. Try putting the thermometer and pickup in some shade under the light, and that will give you an air temperature, which is what you really want.

 

[MEGA956]

//If its not broken, then there's nothing to fix. Keep doing what your doing, plants look
healthy.

 

[naga]

the duel hose portables dont work on sealed rooms(no matter what they claim).on a really tight sealed room,your tank should last 10 days,minimum.

 

[dankworth]

the duel hose portables dont work on sealed rooms(no matter what they claim).on a really tight sealed room,your tank should last 10 days,minimum.

naga is right. My 20 lb tanks in a sealed-ish room with lots of small leaks gets me 2-3 weeks. I would get more if I had a real sealed room like yours.
I don't know if you can interface a wallbanger ac to your room right now. But if you can, that would be better and more energy efficient than your portable ac.
I built a box for the ass end of my wallbanger out of the 1/4" silvered foamboard that you use, then vented the box w/500 cfms per 12k btu. And I could close the little plug in the ac that made it where the ac did not leak air from inside to outside.
Regarding temp, you would really enjoy an infrared thermometer. I bought 2, so I could drop or lose 1. Harbor Freight has them for 15.00. Sometimes you can find 20% off coupons. This way, you can accurately measure ambient and canopy temps. The thermometer-in-the-light thing really leads to inaccurate reading. ttystikk was right, you need to keep your thermometer in the shade to get an accurate ambient temp read.
And you do need to back your light up a little bit.
And lots of people run 1400 ppms for veg. I used to use 1500-2000 ppms for a while for veg and flower, then like 1500, now I don't use more than like 1100.
More knowledgeable people than myself claim that co2 ppms should be matched to nutrient ppms. That does not always hold true, though. I am feeding at 2000ppms(big 'uns) and could not get away with 2000ppm co2.
Hope this information is useful to you.
You have a very nice set of rooms.
I bet you have a Home Depot card.

 

[dankworth]

Hey I noticed in the pics that some of your plants are pissed and hiding from the light. They cannot transpire enough to keep up with the heat and light. Dim your 600s a bit in veg. And 30% rh is low enough to fuck up their internal chemistry(according to Jalisco Kid, and my own experience).
Shoot for 65-70% rh in your veg room if you can. Flowering probably run 50-60% if you can, but less humidity the longer you get into flower. A couple of humidifiers from the store will be a good half-ass solution for starters. A full-on automated humidity regulation setup will be a little bit of money. Like maybe $400-500 to do it right.
Your rooms are awesome. Once you get these issues squared away, you are going to kick ass.

 

[linky]

Thanks for the info, I am ordering a mini split 24k unit, should get it next week, the portable I have is a no go, you go outside and get within 8' of the side of the house and can easily smell it, no good.

I thought my room was sealed pretty good, but I still once in awhile get a slight odor in the house, I have 2 carbon filters (12"x30"ish, have to measure to double check) with a 440cfm fan attached to it, mounted to the ceiling, once in veg room one in flower room.. do you think these are not big enough to take care of most the smell?

Thanks again all for your input, I appreciate it.

 

[dankworth]

If you have the means, get oversized carbon filters, and put your fan on a speed controller, that way you don't use up the lifespan prematurely.
Then you will always be able to handle the stink.
And you can always get a Harbor Freight 8" blower and the 8" duct that pulls over 1500 cfms for about $100 total.
I have a blower like that on a speed controller pulling through 2 8"x25" phresh filters, scrubbing the room. It handles it.