A company called West Marine has them over here
Maybe there’s a web site
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Catchy tune : )
Close all doors at nite and check smoka alarms once at he start of every month
Hey bud, sorry for the long silence, was on vacation with the fam for a week or so and committed to putting the phone/computer away.
So to answer your question I feel like this is basically an ongoing evolution. I had been running the small oil filled heater in the veg tent but it finally kicked over the summer and I’ve just been letting things deal with no heat assistance since, but I’m still kinda shopping around for the next solution. For the 3x3 I’m still using the terrarium heaters with the ceramic bulbs hung from the ceiling. I don’t love how this kinda neglects the necessary heat at the root zone but it works for the limited space I have running two earth boxes in a 3x3 and the plants seem happy, so I’m letting it ride. I have/had both heaters connected to inkbirds to kick em on/off when needed. Until I identify a better way across the board this is how I’m limping down the road. Hope that helps, and hope the discussion continues here. One thing about all aspects of growing, even room design, is nothing ever seems to be final 
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@Papalag @Pigeonman Elide Fire got a new distributor in Canada in the last year who deals with agro industry specifically, you can order from their website:
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I’ve been trying to study up on the inkbird way. I currently just run a Honeywell ceramic that kills my rh. I have it directly plugged into my outlet, not the safest but hope to evolve. I have two humidifiers to get the 5×6 closet just right. Hoping I didn’t stunt a few of my projects but oh well. Thanks for the response!
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I’m in the states these peeps are a bit cheeper
https://www.westmarine.com/search?search-button=&q=Fire+ball+&lang=en_US
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I posted this earlier in the thread. I now have two of these in my tents. I like them as they use less than a ceramic and as they are made for outdoors I feel good about using them. I have had them for 3 years so far.
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I run 3 terrarium heaters with 150W ceramic bulbs in a 5x5 and they keep everything nice & toasty, floor to ceiling.
Could you help me understand what you mean by neglecting necessary heat at the root zone? I’ve always understood the root zone should be a bit cooler than ambient air.
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I’ve passed this on Amazon a few times. Is it hard to get it zoned into a certain tenpature? This Honleywell ceramic heater is making it a work out to fill up the humidifiers.
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So I guess maybe I’ve heard or even just had conflicting thoughts on this. With traditional heaters the heat is starting at the bottom and then rising, as heat does, vs with the hanging heaters it’s starting up top and coming down. On the one hand this does mimic the heat from the sun, but I had heard that the part of the plant that needs the heat most is the root zone, I.e. cold roots will mean slower growth etc. its totally possible that im overthinking it and/or have it backwards
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I run a raised flood/drain tray in the tent, with a heater underneath. I’m forced to run the heater all year long due to low ambient temps.
I also have a Growlink system which monitors my substrate temps. Despite the heaters directly underneath the plants, the substrate temp is always 6-8f degrees lower than ambient air. So I don’t think we need to worry about that.
BUT - my heaters do increase my substrate temps by a similar 6-8 degrees, and I generally find that beneficial for growth.
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I got you bud:
After 7 days of root-zone heating, root dry weight and relative growth rate increased compared with those of the control, accompanied by increased mineral nutrient uptake and xylem exudation. These changes may explain the increased shoot growth after 21 days of heating. In roots, development of the epidermis and stele, including the xylem, was promoted by heating, in contrast to previous research on root-zone cooling at high air temperature, which promoted xylem-specific development. Although the proportion of dry matter distributed to the fruit was not changed by root-zone heating, individual fruit size and total yield were higher than in the control due to a higher total dry weight in the heating treatment. Our results suggest that root-zone heating is an effective low-cost heating technology at low air temperature because of its effects on root activity, growth, and fruit yield, but that the mechanisms may differ from those in root-zone cooling at high air temperature.
Effects of root zone temperature on tomatoes.pdf (719.6 KB)
https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/jjshs1/83/4/83_MI-001/_pdf
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Whew I’m not totally crazy!! Haha always count on @Dirt_Wizard to swing in with the research
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It is a balancing act tho, not too cold not too warm. This study on hydroponic lettuce found that lower temperatures reduced stem and leaf yield and weight but increased phenols and other interesting flavor and scent compounds that we like:
These folks offer some research into how targeted biologicals can help offset the negative effects of low root zone temp, for all you uninsulated garage and shed growers:
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Except that this whole study is based on warming the root zone with low air temps that would otherwise cause stunted growth. If you can heat the ambient air to standard growing conditions, you don’t need to warm the roots.
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Spend a lot more money warming the air!
@SmackyMcSmackers
Also they quote research in there going back to a Bruce Bugbee paper from 1984 showing that root zone heating even at optimal air temps can increase growth up to a RZT of 84F. They just specify that they’re studying cold air temps themselves.
Here’s a more recent South Korean study:
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I wanted to excerpt some of their review of the existing literature in the introduction because it really shows how plants respond to different environmental conditions by changing their growth enormously:
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A plant factory system is useful for medicinal plant cultivation because of the managed and optimized environmental conditions such as light intensity, air and root-zone temperature (RZT), humidity, CO2 concentration, and a nutrient solution [5,6,7]. Controlling environmental conditions significantly affected the plant’s synthetic pathways, plant metabolic, and secondary metabolites content [7,8]. Besides air temperature, root-zone temperature (RZT) is an important factor for plant growth and development, nutrient uptake, and accumulation and biosynthesis process of bioactive compounds [9,10]. For example, 10 °C RZT decreased plant growth but increased RA and luteolin concentrations and the contents of red perilla (Perilla frutescens, Labiatae) due to water stress [10]. Optimal RZT for nutrient uptake and plant growth of snapdragons (Antirrhinum majusL. “Peoria”) was 22 °C [11]. Root zone temperature at 26 °C significantly increased shoot growth; however, lower RZT (10 °C) significantly decreased shoot growth and increased soluble sugars in both roots and leaves of cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.) at 10 °C RZT in the hydroponic system after four weeks of RZT treatment [12].
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Mineral nutrient absorption and plant biomass were increased at higher RZT. In addition, the uptake of total N, P, and K of cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.) was decreased at low RZT (10 °C) compared with other treatments [13]. Phenols, anthocyanin, nitrate, antioxidant enzymes, and sugar concentrations at low RZT at 10 °C were increased in leaves of lettuce (Lactuca sativa L.) compared with higher RZT (20, 25, and 30 °C) [9]. Plant growth and water content were decreased at high RZT (33 °C); however, soluble-solid content and total phenolic compounds in carrots (Daucus carota L.) were increased at high RZT treatment compared with other treatments (20, 25, and 29 °C), because high RZT caused drought stress [14]. Plant fresh and dry weights of muskmelons (Cucumis melo L. “Gold Star”) were the highest and the lowest at 25 °C RZT and 35 °C RZT, respectively [15]. Biomass accumulation, antioxidant power, vitamin C, and sugar content of lettuce (Lactuca sativa L.) were affected by root-zone heating [16]. The concentration of N and P and total mineral accumulation K, NO3−, Ca, Fe, Cu, Mn, Mg, and Zn in plants at 20 °C RZT were higher than other treatments [17].
This is another paper I want to dig into soon it’s got some intense charts in the figures section that need studying for me to get them:
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Just saw that AC infinity is coming out with a new tent heater. It looks promising. You can pump the heat into your tents via ducting, and it only uses a maximum of 500 watts (instead of 1000-1500 like most heaters). Any savings on electricity are always welcome for me! lol
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Ok that’s pretty fuckin sweet I’ve been waiting for someone to make a good mid-power heat and humidity all in one. I picked up a Dyson PH02 humidifier/fan/purifier at a junk grow but haven’t put it into rotation yet. Those do everything but heat, but the retail price is stupid expensive so not really an answer
The closest I’ve seen before this is Vornado’s smart humidifier/fan that can go warm or cool mist, which would be a neat sort of swamp cooler thing maybe but not enough of a heater like the AC seems to be
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