What’s up OG? I have never grown herb in a tent before. I just started back up, got me a nice little set up and all is well! However, I’m having trouble thinking of a way to avoid light entering the tent during dark time through the air intake on the bottom. This may seem like a dumb question, but I’d love to hear what yall do. Keep in mind, my tent is in a room with three windows. The shades are drawn. But, my apartment is three larger rooms with no doors. It’s all open. Even though I have the side with the intake hugged tighter to the wall, I know damn well light is getting in there some how. And we all know that’s not good!
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Trying to mentally picture your scenario, are you talking about a Velcro type flap that can open up to let air in or the round openings that are designed for ducting to run in and out of?
If it’s the flap thing, I wouldn’t recommend leaving it open during nighttime for the plants if the room the tent is in isn’t in complete darkness during that time. If the tent has openings for ducting you can use ducting to bring fresh intake air in without letting light in by curving the ducting enough in a long enough loop and run so that the light doesn’t reflect through and into the tent where it could possibly disrupt your set light cycle. Does that help at all? Many blessings and much love
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Is it passive intake or are you using an intake fan?
I just do passive intake so I have ducting coming from the outside of the tent leading into it and the piece outside is long enough to curl inward and face toward the tent to sit in its own “shade” so to speak. Light doesn’t get in.
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Thank you guys! Yeah I was thinking something along those lines. It is the rectangular intake vent with the velcro flaps, that has the mesh screen to take in make up air for the exhaust fan. After researching, some people use a black filter material that doesn’t allow light through. They just duct tape it to the tent. I know a tiny bit of light leakage is not the end of the world, but most of all, I was just curious what kind of creative shit folks do to avoid it with this issue. I think I might try to make an intake duct coming off of it and wind it a bit so light can’t get through. Thanks for the help!!
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I’ve seen people attach a like a cardboard box to that vent also. It would be elevated off the ground to draw air in, but have four sides(five counting the passive vent) to prevent light.
Same concept as curving the duct tubes. 
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The vents naturally attract a lot of dust as they pull air in so if you add another layer make sure you clean it or you’re just going to clog the vent. If your tent has a bottom port hole you can open it up, put a small section of duct so it just sticks out the port hole sock thing and you can place black womens nylon stocking to cover the vent. The stockings have larger gaps for air to get through and usually 3 will block the light. Plus they’re super cheap so you just throw them out as they get dusty which they will.
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Or possibly one of the black HEPA filters(like for a furnace). Cut it up and stick it to it somehow. Then change out when it gets nasty.
Y’all think this would work?
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I’m loving all these suggestions yall! I think I will definitely be able to remedy my problem. The women’s nylons is a great idea. I will probably do that with the 6 inch duct hole in the bottom, as well as try to find some dark filter media to tape to the rectangular intake vent as well. It seems the more fresh make up air the better, as the exhaust fan should not have to work as hard pulling it in from one source. Again, thanks for all the killer suggestions!
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This is helping me too bro.
I’m trying to lockdown a deal on my first tent setup, and this has been a topic of concern.
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Make a light trap out of whatever you have laying around. Cardboard would even work. So here’s a really quick, crude drawing of what I mean (I couldn’t find a good pic online with a quick google search so I drew it. lol)
You just need to create an s bend inside.
To make a basic one out of cardboard or wood, it would have at least 2 walls on the inside of the box (you can do 3 if necessary). One that comes down about 3/4 of the way from the top and one that goes up 3/4 of the way from the bottom (so leave a gap for the air to flow around it, and a gap in between the inner walls too).Then paint the inside black.
The drawing on the right shows how the air flows through/around the inner walls. The idea is to allow the air to flow but not the light.
You can also accomplish something similar by taking a piece of flexible ducting (the kind that’s black on the inside), bending it into an ‘S’ shape and tying it (with twine, rubber bands, etc) so it stays in that shape, but that works better for a passive intake. If you plan to use an intake fan, I’d build a light trap box, but you could try the S bend first and see if it works without restricting the airflow too much.
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This is great! I’m loving all these ideas!
Describe what we’re lookin at?
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You’re looking at a light proof air intake system
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Ya dont say…
Lol.
What items/materials have you used?
Size? Environmental conditions?
How’s it work for ya?
To me it looks like you’re in taking air from the top of of the tent. If so, why is that?
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Some might disagree, but don’t worry too much. a few small leaks in my tent never caused problems. I think people running into problems attribute the problem to leaks when it’s the plants themselves that are touchy. If your plants get nanners from a light leak they’ll probably do it from something else. Conversely iv subjected some solid gear (a tga strain) to all sorts of abuse light and otherwise for about five years and it never slipped.
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- Get an old carbon filter
- Remove the old carbon
- Leave pre filter/sleeve cloth on
- Connect empty filter to your intake fan
This is the cheapest & and most effective way to make a light proof intake filter. I didn’t have an old carbon filter laying around so I had to improvise with the box. It’s the same concept.
There’s an air vent above the box that feeds cold air directly to the intake port.
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I was disappointed when I got tents that only had the passive, velcro covered mesh at the bottom.
On all the rest of my tents I have at least one of the double tie sleeves at the bottom. I take the venting hose from this around the bottom to the back of the tent and cover with filter material and dark fabric. I use either a zip tie, rubber band or hose clamp on it.
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I have a veg tent in my flower room also mate, so I have to keep the flapped intake window closed.
To counter this I have a 150mm diameter fan on a timer pushing air in, at low level and I leave the holes open at the top of the tent. I know most people pull air rather than push it but this works very well for my situation.
A small amount of light escapes through the fan out into the room but it’s not enough to create any issues. Good luck 
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Ok I didn’t see anyone mention it directly, so I will.
Many of the above mods will do as advertised.
Please keep in mind, when you place any restriction inline with a clear path of airflow, you encounter resistance. Plan this in your airflow calcs.
Ex. A 90 bend in the tube creates a restricted area of airflow as well as turbilance.
Every bend you make decreases flow. This also goes for filters.
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