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indoor Grow tent temperate

MiLK_MaN

MiLK_MaN

Melbourne is starting to experience some lowish temperatures, today for example, we have a high of 15 degrees centrigrade.

I'm trying to work out the best way to increase the temperature in my tent. I have a 600W lamp, a blowing fan as well as an exhaust fan, and an oscillating fan inside to move air around. The grow tent is in the garage, so it can get a bit cold in there given its a little more exposed to the elements.

Today, with both the blowing and exhaust fan running, the temperature wouldn't go over 24 degrees centigrade, which is a little low for my liking. How can I increase the temperature? Obviously heaters can be very expensive to run, and I have limited space in the tent, so running out of ideas.

Also, if I turn both the blowing and exhaust fan off, I can get the temperature up to say 27 degrees, but then the humidity starts to build given there is no fresh air being pumped into the tent.

Neil from TheHippySeedCompany suggested another light inside the tent to get the temperature up. Not sure how I could achieve that though, wouldn't I need to go buy another lamp holder and globe or something?

Any ideas would be appreciated.
 
what about reptile heating coils? check them out on ebay. or an old electric blanket or seed propagating heat pad?

use insulation, foam or cardboard and keep something between the tent 'floor' and the cold concrete. place near a window if you can for some natural warm sunlight. do you have an internal hot water system? put it near that.

use timers to keep your electricity bills down.
 
I have a timer on already, its set to 18 on 6 off for the moment, once the chillies start flowering, Im going to either 14/10 or 12/12.

Heating coil could be an interesting idea, never though of that. Probably be better than a heater actually, given that I'm limited for room and the chance of burning leaves would be high.
 
Just use a heater :) Your already running a 600w Light... That would be chewing up power, whats another few hundred on a heater? :)
 
A heater was something I definitely considered, but the lack of space means its likely at least one or two plants in the tent will get burnt leaves.

I really like the coil option, considering I am using an Autopot system, I can run the cable in between the the pots with a thermostat.

What would the ideal temperature be over winter? 29 degrees probably sounds good considering I have some Bhut Jolokia in there, and they obviously love the heat.
 
What about just an incandescent bulb in there for heat?
Maybe a 60-75W or so? A desk lamp should work.

One of those put out a lot of heat.
 
Ok, so here's what I've done....

Bought a thermostat, to turn the exhaust fan off and on at 30 degrees. A fan and blowing exhaust will be operating 24/7

I also had an extremely small heater that I bought, that has its own digital thermostat. That's now set to 20 degrees, and should only kick in when lights go out.

Here's hoping everything works out. Right now, its about 8 degrees centrigrade where I am, and the tent is running at 24 degrees and rising, with 47% humidity.

Might have to stay up late to see how it runs when the lights go out.
 
I hope you're not afraid of the dark...

just make sure that nothing can catch fire. if you can afford a portable smoke alarm it may be wise to stick one to the roof over the tent and maybe buy yourself a cheap fire extinguisher just in case, at least have some water nearby, a filled bucket or two until you get the process sorted. I'd also use a power board with a surge protector.

just call me Captain Safety
 
It's exactly why Im so bloody hesitant to run a heater in that small space, but I lack other options.

I spoke to a guy at the hydro store, he reckons the heating cable option wouldn't be worthwhile since it would just lose too much heat, they are better being dug into the soil to begin with.

I bought an oil fin heater, but I felt with the enclosed space, it was sitting too close to the wall of the tent as well as the plants.

The other heater is very small, about the size of a shoe box, it can oscillate, and with the accuracy of the thermostat, I felt more comfortable having it run for only 6 hours of the day max.

Not sure what else to do to be honest.
 
I bought a wall heater last year that puts out enough heat to keep a 10x10ft room warm unless it gets super frigid outside. It's two foot square sticks out from the wall 1/2 in and is about 3/8 inch wide. You can touch it with your hand and though it is warm, it doesn't burn. Best of all, it only uses 425 watts and has no moving parts. The downside - it isn't cheap, $100.00 but it will pay for itself in just over a month compared to a 1500 watt heater.

Mike
 
So the space heater didnt really work last night.

For some reason, I had set the thermostat to 20 degrees, but the heater was saying it was 22 degrees in the tent when my remote temperature sensor was saying it was 16 degrees.

Next is to try this oil column heater.
 
So it looks like the oil column heater works like an absolute treat.

It has 4 settings, 400W, 600W and 1000W, I'm only using the 400W for now. The tent during the daylight hours got to about 28 degrees, and when I woke up this morning, it was mid 19's.

Going on about temperatures, is there an ideal number? I tried desperately to search the net last night, heaps of sites talk about germination temperatures, but not so much once the plants are matured.

One website indicated 28 degrees during daylight hours, and 21 degrees overnight. Another said more capsaicin is produced when the temp is 28 - 36 when fruiting.

Any definitive answers or best practises?
 
from my library:
"Higher yields result when daily air temperature ranges between 18-32 deg C during fruit set. The base growing-degree-days temperature is 18 deg C and temperatures below 18 deg C provide negligible growth in pepper plants."

from another book:
"The key factor affecting fruit-set is night temperature, which ideally should be between 18.3 and 26.6 deg C. Fruit will not set when the temp is above 30 dC at night because of excessive transpiration, which causes the blossoms to drop...If daytime temperatures exceed 35 dC, pollen will abort and the fruit-set will be reduced...
Pungency is also increased when the fruit ripens at higher temperatures rather than cooler ones.. varieties ripening at temperatures between 30 and 35 dC have twice as many capsaicinoids as those ripening at 15 to 22.2 dC."

hope that helps
 
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