FieldEffect's Attempt to Grow Indoors

[Fuel]

I love these combo tents, smart choice for the case.

Planning to externalize your carbon filter in a box (directly attached to the “inline fan”/RVK) is a good move for a further evolution. The gain in silence is something also with a bit of insulating extras in this sense, growing in a quiet environment is almost therapeutic for me ^^ Your RH is quite low (i personally prefer this) so i don’t think that there is surprises to dodge, but that’s something you can also externalize later with a single active intake split with a “Y” and its own central filtering.

Take care about your clothes aside, we manipulate plants, smell them, complain about terps and all … but we don’t often realize how strong we smell the weed while we grow. I’ve a dedicated set of clothes specially to grow, and it’s not a joke. Even if the jacket is outside the tent, it stay a textile, so a sponge in term of odor each time you depressurize the tent (in opening it).

[FieldEffect]

Good point on the clothes. I was planning to keep my jackets in there still but that is a great point. Off to the bedroom closet they will go. Thanks!

Agreed on the humidity. The external split is essentially what I’m trying to accomplish with the baffles/fans internally. It hadn’t even occurred to me to place a Y in the exhaust tubing, probably because I was hoping everything would fit in the little tent still. Perhaps once I externalize the carbon filter that would be easy, maybe with a veg-side gate valve to control the flow.

[Nitt]

@Fuel

Your RH is quite low (i personally prefer this) so i don’t think that there is surprises to dodge

This piqued my interest. What RH do you target, what’s the air temperature you target at that RH, and if you check - what about the plants temperature there as well? And what’s reasons for the low RH preference.

(I just wrote “This peaks my interest” and thought, “peak”… that can’t be right. So I looked it up, and “pique” makes so much more sense, haha!).

[Fuel]

“Pique” is a quite good transliteration for this context in my native lang ^^ Mes cordiales félicitations.

Now my answer will be disturbing i guess because a bit off road with all i read usually. Short version : i like to grow in dry and temperate spaces (the whole RH). Just like the spaces used to store food conditioned for a long term storage, potatoes etc …

Actually i’m dealing with a stable 50% RH all the year, but i prefer the 30%-40% range by far. Just for the density of the plants that i like : the most per sqm i can, when i can count only on my own seeds. At a certain density, the plants themselves create a micro-climate and “self-regulate” it by their transpiration, the cycles but also the pot’s RH better than any machine from my point of view. I grow under neons too, i don’t have any radiating heat that dry the air like HPS/MH/CMH.

On temps, i grow “cold” i guess considering also what i read often. It’s very much more easy to control, so it’s set on a stable 20°c/68°f - 21°c/~70°c all the year. My house have a geothermic setup, but using an A/C if necessary is something i can do just for this if the house is not stable in temp or the space not well insulated. On temps it’s a cascading pack of factors : from hormonal balances, to acclimatization in passing by the final product. It’s just the sweet spot for me, for my technical context.

[Dirt_Wizard]

Hey! Great to see you growing indoors, I am following along and going to read this all today, can’t wait to see how things have come together for you after all that planning. It looks like you’ve got a great budget setup that’s super-modern and clean, nice and efficient!

Hope you don’t mind but you’ll be seeing me around here a lot, you’re my kind of grower the way you think scientifically and kinda hyperfocus on simplicity and iteration like me. By the way I feel like I promised you something I haven’t mailed yet, got your name on my desk but not sure why I’m so behind on seed mailing. Today I’m catching up after reorganizing the seed collection mess last night so I can actually find anything!

One first thought that might help is about the venting, I have that same problem since I’m jamming tents in so tight that I have 2’ walkways after this next rearrangement, and I have my tents connected as one sequential HVAC setup, so I’m using a bunch of the vents, two on each tent for ducting. I found these and I’m going to either buy some when I can afford them or DIY myself out of materials I already have like Coroplast board and Gorilla tape, and some galvanized duct I can hacksaw up for fittings. I’ve been gathering materials already to convert a nice metal cabinet I got from a doctors office into a drying box to replace my cardboard ones, now that I’m running perpetual and only need a week or two before the bin burping, I can use a much smaller dryer setup.

These are usually called “space saver” dryer vents, this specific type is the “periscope” and you could obviously assemble it with both fittings facing the same way and get duct up the back or side of a tent to the top this way:

https://www.lowes.com/pd/Lambro-24-in-to-41-in-Adjustable-Periscope-Dryer-Vent/3240566

[FieldEffect]

@Fuel I’ve been slowly reading through your thread and wishing I had found it just a week or two earlier. Good discussions and I find your posts hilarious to read with a similar tone as my own. The idea, the implementation, the realizations of drawbacks, and whatever the next steps are. Anyway, the lung box and the light baffle are very similar to what I had planned. Good to note your lessons learned there before I build a lung box. I laugh almost every time I read “torque” in your postings, it’s not a common word to native English speakers but so much better sometimes. Also “blunt powered” air intake cracks me up every time I read it.

Live & Reloaded

[StonedEngineering02b] I drew a bunch of things, crushed my head in all directions and not helped much by my level of English … I’ve not yet found a way to vulgarize the static pressure game. At one point a lot of specific parameters enter in game : temps (winter/summer/averages) : it set the average density of air to deal with height and barometric factors torque of the RVK and climate (barometric pressure) also the house insulation and exposition (winds) For obvious reasons i can’t enter t…

@Dirt_Wizard I don’t recall you promised me anything so you don’t need to worry about it. But, I mean, I love seeds. Always welcome in my mailbox

With regards to the venting, I actually looked at one of those periscope dryer ducts when I was at Lowe’s hatching my schemes. It’s all good stuff to be aware of when you play with this sort of thing. I had decided that I felt it was too clunky to go inside my tiny tent and I could build something similar with the inlet filter integrated. I decided at the end of the day to construct a simple pink-foam filter holder/register that sits on the floor outside the left tent wall and cut my own new inlet at the bottom of the tent. Regarding building one, I can’t emphasize enough how badass that Thermopan stuff is if you are building these - the Gorilla Glue works great on it and it’d just fold up to make this duct in minutes. I’ve very familar with Coroplast and it’s nice, but the Thermopan has supplanted that in my mind for this stuff. It’s just so easy to work with. Problem is it’s somewhat costly for what it is - around a dollar per sqft shipped.

Am I correct in understanding you are linking tents outlet-to-inlet? Do you run into issues with temp/humidity this way?

@Dirt_Wizard

Hope you don’t mind but you’ll be seeing me around here a lot, you’re my kind of grower the way you think scientifically and kinda hyperfocus

I not only don’t mind, I’m happy to see you pop in. I enjoy your posts and have learned quite a bit through them.

Cheers guys, hope you all have a great day. I appreciate all the input and help!

[Thetravler]

Good morning ! Get I get some advice on what I can do first time in a tent with an auto !

[Thetravler]

[FieldEffect]

Hey @Thetravler

Looks like you have some excesses and may be over watering. You’ll probably get some better advice if you make your own thread and share all the details about what is going on:

What soil?
What have you given them recently?
How much, how often are you watering?

You’ll get lots of good input here, I just don’t think I’m the most qualified one to give it.

[Thetravler]

Thanks for the advice my navigating around the site is still in a learning process ! I appreciate all and any input thank you !

[shade]

I wear a baseball hat, LED glasses, a fishing hoodie and fishing gloves. I keep them on a coat rack by the door. Hoodie is the perfect temp in a 80F/70RH room.

Baleaf Men's UPF 50+ Hooded Pocketed Long-Sleeved Shirt

[BigDaddyDrew]

Could they be to cold? Too close to a chilly floor?

[Dirt_Wizard]

Thermopan looks like interesting stuff, I’m adding that to my list of things to look out for in construction dumpsters! I have considered making duct for that sort of low profile use out of the foil faced rigid insulation board for garage doors, with the vapor barrier liner facing inwards, that might be more my budget since that stuff is dirt cheap to free.

@FieldEffect

Am I correct in understanding you are linking tents outlet-to-inlet? Do you run into issues with temp/humidity this way?

I do have them connected like that, my ACI 6” fan pushes fresh air into the 4x4 flowering tent where I need the driest air and most refreshes, controlled by an Inkbird humidistat hanging above the canopy in there. I also keep a 4” Vivosun inline pushing air into the floor of the tent 24/7 on low, the 6” feed is above my light from the roof.

There are two exhaust ducts both 6”, one dumps back into the room, one feeds over to the roof of the 3x4 veg tent which is currently the Vortex flower tent. It’s a bit moist in there for flowering but it’s nice for veg, keeps them happy. That tent gets left open a decent amount during lights on, either side mesh window vents or the door, but I recently installed a 4” duct booster can on some ducting sucking off the floor and dumping back into the room because of how moist it’s been during flowering. I’ll probably
keep that but make it Inkbird controlled going forward, tied into the same sensor as the 6” fan so it boosts the throughput in the smaller tent. Or just leave it on, it’s like 22 watts.

[Thetravler]

The tent is sitting on ply wood and insulation 1 1/2 inch pink ridged thank you for taking you time to answer and I live in an apartment and the long heater and the window is about a foot from the tent so it get a little heat from there .

[Thetravler]

I think what I did was put immature seeds in to hot ground I had transfered the seedling from their original cups . I had just made the soil mixture the day before I transfer them into the gallon pots and when I did I watered them . I didn’t know you were supposed to let organic soil to rest for awhile before planting in it and I don’t think I gave the soil enough time .

[FieldEffect]

It’s been a bit of work since last time. First part the best part, I think we’re ready to go!

I can crank the lights up full blast in the veg side without any detectable light in the flower side. The baffles work better than I expected. WAY better than I expected.

DONE: Flower chamber looking down

DONE: Flower chamber looking up

DONE: Filter tent air intake

DONE: Where the veg chamber exhausts to the flower chamber

DONE: Veg chamber air intake from flower chamber

DONE: Veg chamber looking down

DONE: DIY Veg light, I had to flip some things around so everything cleared the new baffle boxes

DONE: This is what the upper veg tray looks like with the exhaust fan to the flower chamber

DONE: This is where “fresh” air from the flower chamber enters the veg chamber

----------------BUILD PICS------------
First had to build/install the intake filter box:

Finished up my baffle boxes by spray painting interior flat black:

Install the intake fan and baffle for the veg chamber - mounted to frame:

Install the veg chamber exhaust fan and baffle box - again mounted to frame:

This is what the baffle boxes look like from the door of the flower chamber:

We’re really close. I need to figure out how to get the Controller 69 programmed with the smart plugs for the lights. Tomorrow I’ll pick up some Root Riots and a nice set of “normal” 10x20 veg trays. I have the fancy one but I want to keep some conventional, larger ones in stock. My intent is probably to use the fancy one to root clones and a more conventional tray just for keeping moms or small plants vegging. I’ll probably use the upper shelf for clone/seed starting because there’s less vertical room, and the lower for general veg stuff because it’s a little less cramped without the exhaust fan.

I need to decide what I’m going to run in the flower chamber. I’m really leaning towards doing an Ebb and Drain table so I can run several clones SOG-style. The goal is to make selections using this tent, and later on maybe use it for running males and collecting pollen.

I really want to run some of the 907 Blue Genes crosses I made last summer - NL #1 pollen and Shiskaberry pollen

I’m fucking STOKED

[DEFSeeds]

That is a job well done

[Budderton]

"I"s are dotted and "T"s are crossed! You’re set up for success @FieldEffect , just need to bring in the stars of the show! Best of luck with your endeavors!

[NoCal]

I knew the next update would be a good one after seeing nothing for over a week Good work! The lights looks professional!

What other options are you trading against ebb & flo?

[FieldEffect]

I like the idea of ebb and drain or flow for these reasons:

1. I basically add anything I want to grow on the table and it will survive
2. Easy to experiment with media/containers
3. I can start with a large number of plants, say 16 in a 4 x 4 grid. And easily remove males or undesirable phenos
4. I can switch it up and just plop a bigger container on the table and things otherwise work the same

Essentially, it’s the flexibility I like about the idea. Just throw it on the tray and go. Downside being I lose about a foot of height unless I get really clever.

It seems to me other systems (DWC, drip, wick) are most suited to a small number of plants. I want as many flowering plants as possible to select temps and effects, and keep mothers alive until that is accomplished. I don’t care about yield, I want to make selections.

Maybe I should start by asking if that is even a decent concept?