Ducting Question With Diagram

unity said:

Mate, I hope you won't but I think you are going to have issues with the way you are trying to do this

First off, I have a 3x3x7 sealed space in the garage @ about 76 degrees ambient. My space is insulated too about R6, but keep in mind it is wood construction, not a tent.
I have a designated widow type ac for this space and it comes on every 4 min. about in order to maintain my temps at about 81 degrees, it runs like 4 min. off 1 min on. Keep in mind AC also deals with dehumidification if done right! My light is completely isolated from my grow cab (I use co2 in a sealed enviro)
Your AC will not be sufficient I think the way it is run at this point. It lacks the necessary control you need. I would assume that your t-stat is somewhere in your house close to the air intake, which in turn means that your t-stat is rendered useless for your grow area, since it does not know what the temps are in your grow space. At best you will be wasting tremendous amounts of energy since you have to set the t-stat at an very low arbitrary temperature in order to make sure that you are not going out of range. This would mean that your house temps get waaaaay to low, and your ac unit will most likely ice up due to not cyceling off enough. There are ways , but by far the cheapest, best way would be to get a little indevidual window unit (check my grow cab/https://www.rollitup.org/grow-room-design-setup/86604-grow-space-build-sealed-no.html , maybe like 5000 or 6000 btu.

I think you may be able to make your set-up work somewhat, but your parameters will suck, you will not be able to use co2 due to the perpetual exhausting you are doing. I disagree with Bonz, Co2 injection is rather scientific and certain parameters need to be maintained in order for co2 to make a difference.
A good scinario would be:
Lights on:
Temp:81-83 (w. co2 only! IT NEEDS THE HIGHER TEMPS IN ORDER FOR THE STOMATA'S TO OPEN MORE AND UTILIZE THE CO2)
Humidity 50-60%
Co2 1100-1500 maintained with a controller (below 800ppm co2 will not make a difference, above 1500 will not give much added benefit. The shit is expensive so why waste it!

I do not exhaust during lights on, but I do run a intake in conjunction with and exhaust system that comes on during lights off. (Back-draft dampers are needed here so you do not loose your co2 during lights on.

Hope this helps somewhat, I'm sure I have left things out, but I'm happy to help out if I can!

Unity

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FullMetalJacket said:

Iv always like my temps 89-92 w/ C02 at 1500 PPM. I notice i get slower growth at 80. But that is staring specific i guess i have only grown DJs BB and Serios AK with CO2 and find that to be true with both those starins.

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Ahriman said:

Hey man, thanks for the info. I see exactly what you're saying and acknowledge the problems that my setup would cause, if I were using co2 supplementation. However, I'm not in a position that I can do that because I have to keep my air handler blower on all the time in order to keep fresh 75 degree air flowing into the tent. That's the reason that I have the continuous exhaust, so that the steady transfer of air keeps constant. When the condenser for my house A/C comes on, I drop maybe 20 to 30% humidity in the tent (from 65 to 70% down to 45-50%, I <3 the max/min temp and humidity thermometers). My low temps are at a steady 68 to 71 degrees before I switched to HID lighting, and my max temps were a consistent 77-79 degrees. After I put in an open hood 250W MH light, my temps went up a solid 10 degrees. This is why I bought the cool-tube and intend on moving the fan outside the tent to pull the air through the filter, then the cool tube, then the fan outside of the tent. The temps stay steady thus far (been going for 3wks now), I have 2 plants in Veg about 3-4" tall so far. One is a Northern Lights, the other is Master Kush. I just got back from HTG so I'm gonna install the cool-tube once the attic cools down a bit and I'll put up some pics. Thanks for the opinions and info fellas.

--Ahriman

EDIT: Also, I keep my house at 75f year round, I have a 3-ton air system and the blower motor consumer 300w of electricity, which is just about like having an extra computer on in the house. I'm able to turn the actual fan into the ON position and only have the condenser turn on when the temp gets higher than 75 in the house. This keeps fresh air from inside the house pumping into the tent in the attic. It works well.

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FullMetalJacket said:

Look for CGE grows...none of them have intakes/exhausts.

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The use of tanked CO2 can facilitate the killing of spider mites and other pests. In true sealed grow rooms that have no leaks, growers can kill all pests by upping CO2 levels to 10,000 parts per million (ppm) for one hour.

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AdReNaLiNeRuSh said:

I was thinking it was possible, was again, wasn't quite sure. Thanks for the information.

After doing some researching, I found an interesting article [here] that many of you might find useful. Also, here's a snippet that I found very interesting:


-AR

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I often talk with people convinced that plants need fresh air to grow. It's true that plants need what fresh air delivers- temperature control, humidity control and the addition of CO2. But it's not the case that these things are provided only but the addition of fresh air. How do I know? Plants are grown in the space station and space shuttles. Of course, there's no air in space and, thus, no chance for air exchange. The climate inside space vehicles is controlled using techniques similar to those used by growers raising plants in sealed rooms.

Another myth is that air gets stale. This is also incorrect. Air doesn't get stale; it gets polluted. And even in an indoor garden we have decaying matter such as dead leaves or organic fertilizers that are breaking down. This can create odors that are vented to the outside in open systems, but we can easily take care of the pollutants with the use of a carbon filter used as a scrubber to clean the air.

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