Thoughts on Temp

[Gone Camping]

deke, are you using fans for air exchange/circulation? How are they set up?

I grow in a detached garage, in tents, utilizing exhaust fans and speed controllers till outside temps hit around 40*F. At that point I start to exhaust back inside the garage and adding 2x 1500w oil filled radiator heaters as needed. Heaters never need to be turned above low.

I am picturing you taking air from rest of basement and exhausting outside? Exhaust back into larger part of basement, utilize odor control if needed in your situation.

 

[Deke]

The simplest method, you could put a small fan in the top corner blowing the warm air off the lamp down into the tent,

I was thinking about this. I have one small fan blowing down from one side, so another doing the same thing on the opposite side would force the warm air coming off the heat sinks at the end of the lights. Even if I get a 2-3 degree increase I'd be happy with that.
As far as running any kind of ducting or venting, that's a bit more than I had in mind. My grow area is in the back corner of one room in the basement, the room it's in is 20x40 approx. Then it would have to go through the sump room another 15ft to get to the closest warm air. That's a lot of duct work. And that opening woukd be in the media room, it might be hard to explain that new vent in the wall to those that don't know about the plants, which is everyone! lol
As far as a tent, good points about being able to control the temps better. But a good 5x5 plus all the air moving and filtering stuff would be as much as next year's soil , nutes, and seeds cost combined. So for now I'll stick to my homemade grow partitions. But it's not completely off the table. And if I have to get a heater maybe I'll just run it at night when I'm here?

 

[Deke]

If your running LED, your temps are going to make a big difference. Leaf temp target of 78-82.

If your running HPS, leaf temps in the mid 70s is great.

If LED, you might think about hps for the cold months, I know several growers that swap back and forth for that reason.

Or you could add an extraction fan on the intake, and pull air from a warmer source.

I'm running COB's. They run pretty cool, unfortunately now, lol.

 

[Death The Cultivator]

You need to heat the room up. Space heaters or something otherwise there cooler temps can interfere with metabolism. I have an InkBird temperature controller in my tent with a small space heater that maintains my ambient temps between 80-86f.

Switching to LED strips cooled my tent excessively and when the frost hit my sativa's that I had just translated told me to go fuck myself. Found my tent running at 58-72f and I ended up with some transplant shock plus I had to start heating my reservoir for the 55f water.

Even if you could erect a makeshift wall from OSB with some insulation nailed to and throw in a heater with a temp controller it could make a world of difference to your environment. Better control of your environment influences everything from metabolism, hormones, root growth, microbe/fungal activity.

Good luck

 

[BII]

....As far as running any kind of ducting or venting, that's a bit more than I had in mind. My grow area is in the back corner of one room in the basement, the room it's in is 20x40 approx. Then it would have to go through the sump room another 15ft to get to the closest warm air. That's a lot of duct work...

Running ducting/venting can be ridiculously simple, quick and cheap. Just attach and stretch out common folded/accordian-type plastic-reinforced aluminum foil ducting, the type generally used to vent clothes dryers. If you want to suck air into the tent from the warmer "sump room," at that distance you'd likely need an inline fan to better suck/push air into your grow area, and also best to use 6-inch or even larger diameter ducting.

 

[automan2]

When I got started 14 yrs ago, I grew in a 16x25 room with 1000w and 400w hps which made enough heat even in that much space...I just kept a fan going and a small heater for lights off time during cold weather.
There was so little info available back then and never worried about (or tried to change) humidity or air exchange...even grew in miracle grow...and somehow stumbled through several seasons of growing my meds, and did pretty damn good in spite of being worse than novice according to today's standards.
Guess my point is... growing weed is not as difficult or requires so much as some try to make it. Weed is a weed...its us old potheads who try to make it grow bigger and better wacky weed.
Oh I've definitely got better at it over the years and sometimes miss having a huge grow. My little tent handles my grows now but I still keep it simple.

 

[Deke]

Running ducting/venting can be ridiculously simple, quick and cheap. Just attach and stretch out common folded/accordian-type plastic-reinforced aluminum foil ducting, the type generally used to vent clothes dryers. If you want to suck air into the tent from the warmer "sump room," at that distance you'd likely need an inline fan to better suck/push air into your grow area, and also best to use 6-inch or even larger diameter ducting.

My issue with that is id have to go through walls, 2 of them. The sump room isn't heated so it's going to have to go through that one and connect to the media room . I measured and its like 37ft, and two walls.

I guess I might start looking for a small heater that has a good rating and safety features. Still bothers me to run one unattended.

 

[BII]

My issue with that is id have to go through walls, 2 of them. The sump room isn't heated so it's going to have to go through that one and connect to the media room . I measured and its like 37ft, and two walls.

I guess I might start looking for a small heater that has a good rating and safety features. Still bothers me to run one unattended.

For running unattended, you can't beat oil-filled radiator heaters, with everything fully enclosed. Otherwise, with air/convection-heating and infra-red heaters, somewhere there is more exposure of heating elements and more hot spots.

Or consider a propane/LPG catalytic heater, which would also provide carbon dioxide.

 

[MrOldBoy]

You need to heat the room up. Space heaters or something otherwise there cooler temps can interfere with metabolism. I have an InkBird temperature controller in my tent with a small space heater that maintains my ambient temps between 80-86f.

Switching to LED strips cooled my tent excessively and when the frost hit my sativa's that I had just translated told me to go fuck myself. Found my tent running at 58-72f and I ended up with some transplant shock plus I had to start heating my reservoir for the 55f water.

Even if you could erect a makeshift wall from OSB with some insulation nailed to and throw in a heater with a temp controller it could make a world of difference to your environment. Better control of your environment influences everything from metabolism, hormones, root growth, microbe/fungal activity.

Good luck

Exactly what I did ..... heat space up outside the tent but avoid heat sources close to the tent ..... In my case I put an oil heater about 10’ away and had a small fan blowing warmer air towards the tents bottom intake vents ...... I also added small temperature controlled heating mat under each pot .... the temp controller has a soil probe that goes down into your soil so you can tell what the soil temp is and adjust mat accordingly - my soil at bottom of pot was 67-68 degrees ..... The mats also help warm the room - during summer I don’t find them necessary but winter I do .... but most important is to increase room temp..... which in turn will increase tent temp inside ..... good luck!