Grow Tent - Temperature & Humidity Control

[YokaYampi]

Hello!
I recently bought a grow tent( 2ft W x 4ft L x 5ft H) for my intermediate to warm growing orchids (Phals and oncidiums for now)
i'm slowly starting to adjust the temperature and humidity I’m just wondering about air exchange.
I have a Two AC infinity 120mm PC fans on 2/3 shelves to circulate the air.
I also have a AC infinity inline duct fan that will exchange the air in the tent, the inline has a controller 67 that automatically turns on/off to whatever parameters i set up I’m just wondering how often others exchange the air in order to not have any ... issues,
One an hour? Once a day.. twice a day aha?
At the moment the Controller is set to turn on the inline fan when temp is above 29C or humidity is about 80%
and to exchange the entirety of the air in the tent twice a day
Also, Im wondering about temperature. Im in the Quebec, Canada region which means our winters are cold (-30c) and our summers hot (30+) so finding the balance is going to be tough.
What are your normal tent settings?
The current light i have in there heats up so much, im looking into barrina LED lights which ive heard wonders about.. however id love to hear all the recommendations
If anyone has tips id love to hear them.

[Ray]

I don’t think air exchange will be an issue at all. First of all, the enclosure probably isn’t totally sealed, so there will be some “leak” exchange.

Then, when the lights come on and the air heats up, it will expand, pushing some out that will be replaced by outside air when it cools again at night.

Control the temperature, humidity, and light levels, keep mild air circulation on 24/7, and you’ll be in great shape.

[Shadeflower]

The Barrina lights are garage lighting units.
They are not grow lights. CFL's can be used to grow orchids too. The point is to use less electricity by using lights that have the right wavelength. I am not a fan of the barrina lights. I know they work but so do CFL's.

leafmite just posted about this light recently which looks good:

https://www.homehardware.ca/en/18w-1...ight/p/3698278

there is even a special offer of 40% off the 12 watt bars which would also do nicely, you could get two of them which would provide more uniform light over one 18 watt in a grow tent. You can set up two levels for example and use twice the space. The 18 watt would be good for Cattleya's and high light plants, the 12 watt model will be good for phalaenopsis.

Sunblaster Prismatic Lens LED 12W HO Strip Light - 1ft | Indoor Growing Canada

[YokaYampi]

Originally Posted by Shadeflower

The Barrina lights are garage lighting units.
They are not grow lights. CFL's can be used to grow orchids too. The point is to use less electricity by using lights that have the right wavelength. I am not a fan of the barrina lights. I know they work but so do CFL's.

leafmite just posted about this light recently which looks good:

https://www.homehardware.ca/en/18w-1...ight/p/3698278

there is even a special offer of 40% off the 12 watt bars which would also do nicely, you could get two of them which would provide more uniform light over one 18 watt in a grow tent. You can set up two levels for example and use twice the space. The 18 watt would be good for Cattleya's and high light plants, the 12 watt model will be good for phalaenopsis.

Sunblaster Prismatic Lens LED 12W HO Strip Light - 1ft | Indoor Growing Canada

Thanks ray!
The tent is sealed pretty good, so i think ill cycle the air out twice a day and leave the PC fans running consistently

---------- Post added at 04:16 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:07 PM ----------

Originally Posted by Shadeflower

The Barrina lights are garage lighting units.
They are not grow lights. CFL's can be used to grow orchids too. The point is to use less electricity by using lights that have the right wavelength. I am not a fan of the barrina lights. I know they work but so do CFL's.

leafmite just posted about this light recently which looks good:

https://www.homehardware.ca/en/18w-1...ight/p/3698278

there is even a special offer of 40% off the 12 watt bars which would also do nicely, you could get two of them which would provide more uniform light over one 18 watt in a grow tent. You can set up two levels for example and use twice the space. The 18 watt would be good for Cattleya's and high light plants, the 12 watt model will be good for phalaenopsis.

Sunblaster Prismatic Lens LED 12W HO Strip Light - 1ft | Indoor Growing Canada

hmm thats interesting, thank you for the links
Ive heard good things about CFL's ive also heard wonders for led's so im a bit torn.. i have some plants in another room under led's and they absolutely love it.
Do the CFL's generate any or more heat compared to the leds?

---------- Post added at 04:47 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:16 PM ----------

Would something like this be good?
(id get four of them)
which should be 400 lumes x 4 = 1600
Access Denied

or what about two of these
https://www.canadiantire.ca/en/pdp/n...-0529643p.html

[Shadeflower]

lol I just mentioned CFL (compact fluorescent), tube fluorescents (called T8 or the more modern version T5)
are actually even better than compact fluorescents.

But well made LED's produce the least heat.

Those Noma's they might be cheap but you have to look at the fine print. It only uses 7.5 watts. The lights only last 25,000 hours (a good light will last 100,000 hours) so automatically this light will need to be replaced 4 times as often and the 25 dollars turns into 100 dollars if one wants to be completely accurate in comparing lights.

They might be cheap now but you will end up needing to buy more.

Now if the led is compact then 7.5 watts is a good amount for Phalaenopsis but the more spread out the light is the weaker it gets. Imagine your light is the size of a penny, at 7.5 watts that would be bright, if the light is 1 meter long then 7.5 watts would be like a weak night light, spread out over one meter.

So 7.5 watts for a light bar is very weak. Just about enough for orchid seedlings.

I know it's difficult to justify but that 12 watt price is very good imo.

If you think about it 7.5 watts is nearly half as strong as a 12 watt. It makes a big difference. The one light is 60% stronger than the other and in light terms there is a diminishing effect so the weaker the light the less light exponentially reaches the target.

You'll be dissapointed if you get lights that don't perform as well and you will be truly impressed with what a top of the range full spectrum can do.

[YokaYampi]

I see what you’re saying.
I’ll admit lighting, wattage, lumes and what not is not my thing.. I’m trying though aha.. I’d just like something not too too strong and not to hot either..
oh the joys of the hobby aha
I suppose back to the sun blasters, they seem very good
What did you mean by set up two levels? Like have two of the 12w on top and have the higher level orchids on the first shelf and the lower ones on the second?
Or two per shelf?

[Steve83]

You can illuminate that whole tent with approx. 50-70 watts of a decent led light bar.

My first suggestion, would be to hang the light from the tent frame. It looks like the top light is sitting on the top shelf. (hard to tell) Get yourself a pair of adjustable hangers from a hydroponic shop and hang it from the tent frame.

Now you can remove the top shelf, allow more light to penetrate, and you also freed up airflow by removing mass.

[stevek216]

I have a 4x4 grow tent set up and this is my current strategy:

Grow light: High powered LED (Spider Farmer SF2000) - probably overkill but I have some high light orchids that seem to love it, and I like the idea of the lower shelves still getting very solid light. I may add another at some point since I'm currently only really growing in half the tent.

Humidity: I have a humidifier running on the same timer as my light. Humidity varies between 75% and 95% when everything is on. I was initially worried about this but I have strong air movement and I've had this setup going for close to half a year now with no sign of any fungal infections.

Air movement: I have two decent sized fans running 24/7. They're not inline duct fans, they just recirculate the air in the tent. I do crack one of the vents at the bottom and the vent at the top for some turnover, but like Ray said I don't think it takes much to turn over the air in there sufficiently.

Temps: It's winter in Michigan here so probably slightly warmer than Quebec but not by a ton. My house stays around 70F during the day and down to 60F or a bit lower at night. When the grow light is on the temps in the tent tend to hover 5-10F above ambient. We have hot, humid summers so I'll be watching to see how the plants do if the tend gets consistently up into the 90s, but I figure I can always just vent it a bit more if need be.

So far pretty much everything I've put in their is thriving, with the exception of some stuff that I think I blasted with a little too much light. That stuff is still doing fine it's just on the red side. The roots seem to looooove the high humidity, I have green root tips everywhere. I've taken to potting most things in those mesh hydroponic pots so they get a lot of air movement around the roots. With the very high humidity I don't end up having to water all that often even with the mesh pots.

Feel free to PM me if you have any more questions about the tent. I was a bit reticent to set it up but now it's definitely my happy place, and the orchids' happy place as well!