I am currently in the process of getting my medical card and have been prepping my grow environment for what will hopefully be my first cycle next month.
I have spent around $700 getting my initial setup in place had been planning to use an older Sun System 2 all-in-one 400W HPS I bought in the late 2000’s and never put to use.
Yesterday I got the tent stood up, light hung about 19" above a thermometer probe, and a 4" 189 CFM inline fan with carbon filter strapped to the bars at the top of the tent. Of course, my next step was to swap out the HPS lamp for the slim MH and test what the ambient temps were with everything sealed up to get an idea of my veg environment. Unfortunately, with temps outside the tent at 70-72F, inside the tent it was around 86-87F where the canopy would be.
Currently intake is passive and I have yet to pick up the two small clip-on fans I plan to have circulating air within the tent. That said, I’m not sure how much I can expect things to cool down by changing those variables alone. At this point, I’m thinking I’m going to have to alter my lighting solution…
Cost is definitely a major consideration at this point so I’m not sure if I should cut my losses and just try to find a cheap-ish $90-150 LED setup or buy a remote ballast and lamp extension cord to the tune of about $85 and convert what I have to a remote ballast configuration. I’d prefer to stick with HID but I’m wondering how much I can reasonably expect temps to drop by removing the ballast from the tent. I thought some of you might be able to provide some insight.
Sorry for the long post. Thanks for any advice you can offer.