What do you think of my grow space plans?

[freesativa]

Hi all, great forum! I'm starting my first indoor grow soon. I've already ordered (or have) everything. In the past I grew outdoors or in a greenhouse. I'd be interested in any advice or comments concerning my future setup.
I'm on my cell and adding pics is not easy. I will try to add pics tomorrow.

I set up a cheap ebay 4x4x7 tent with 6" vents.
A 400w hps/mh light, with a 6" air cooled hood.
And I'll be growing in a 4 5gal bucket dwc (with reservoir) from faster gardens.

This setup will be located in an unheated, moldy garage. I live near the ocean and the winters are cold and the summer's hot and humid. With spring and summer coming, I'm just focused on keeping the tent cool.

I plan on using 6" flexible ducting to bring in fresh air from the outside and vent it outside.
I am thinking of installing a 6" intake vent low on my north wall, connecting to a 6" T that will connect to the lower intake vent on the tent, and another 6" duct will go from the other part of the T to the light.
For the exhaust I will use an existing 6" vent that is about 7' on the west wall. I will connect a 6" 430cfm inline fan to the outside vent. The fan will connect to a T, that the light and top tent vent will exhaust to through 6" ducting.
During the hot months I will probably place frozen gallon jugs of water in the tent and smaller frozen bottles in the reservoir.
Thoughts?

 

[CO Finest]

Sounds great.

 

[freesativa]

Sounds great.

Thanks, I have most of the supplies in and hopefully will have everything set up next weekend. My concern is the airflow. Wind tends to blow west to east, and my intake will be on the north wall and exhaust on the west. I could switch the vents, but the existing vent is approx 7' up and I wonder if that will make the draft go against nature, ie heat rises and cool air settles at the bottom.

 

[CO Finest]

I have always done test runs to see how my grow rooms react to different things that I do. I also like to use Incense to track air flow and check for leaks.

 

[freesativa]

I have always done test runs to see how my grow rooms react to different things that I do. I also lie to use Incense to track air flow and check for leaks.

I like the way you think, that's almost exactly what I planned to do. Only difference is, I was going to use cigarette smoke before I hooked up the fan to see what the natural flow is.

 

[CO Finest]

I smoke cigs they work ok but the smoke is not really thick enough. I cigar works of but as with both you have to have someone puffing away to check up the lines. A incense does to great things. It smokes by it self and it lets smells out so you can find leaks or back flow into different rooms

 

[freesativa]

I smoke cigs they work ok but the smoke is not really thick enough. I cigar works of but as with both you have to have someone puffing away to check up the lines. A incense does to great things. It smokes by it self and it lets smells out so you can find leaks or back flow into different rooms

That's a good observation, thanks.
I was checking out a thread of yours, I see that you have fluorescent lights under/on the side of your plants. Does that work well for you? I thought about doing something similar. I'm using a 400w hps/hd light that I already had, but I fear it won't be strong enough for the lower branches.

 

[CO Finest]

It works outstanding. Doubles the size of lower buds and helps pull plant over to the walls witch makes it easy to scrog

 

[freesativa]

I'm concerned about humidity and bud rot. Since the air in the tent will be changed over so quickly, I will have very little control over humidity, right?
Every grow I've had (outdoors and greenhouse), there's been problems with bud rot. Maybe with the lights being on through 9am+, which will cover the coldest and most humid parts of the day, the lights will keep the tent warm enough to limit the growth of bud rot.

 

[freesativa]

So I've been wracking my brain trying to think of the cheapest and easiest way to cool the rdwc during the warm months and it dawned on me, what if I add a second reservoir and burry it? My garage has a sand floor, so it wouldn't be hard.
Thoughts?

 

[PlanetJ]

You'd need to pump it out of there again .. If you use a bigger reservoir to catch the water coming from the plants, and use an overflow into your feed-tank, you should have the problem solved .. if not, add a few frozen 2l bottles to the big reservoir to cool it. Everything you burry, you'll have to dig up to maintain. You need to clean your resservoirs between grows afaik .. and in case of an issue, you have to get a shovel first ..

 

[freesativa]

Thanks for the advice!
I was thinking of a 10-20gal tank or bucket/lid, buried up to the lid, with an additional pump. Preferably a tank/bucket that is long with a thin diameter. That way there's more cooling action from the ground.
Cleaning the in ground reservoir might be an issue. Maybe a long scrub brush and a shop vac?

 

[freesativa]

My rdwc from fastergardens came in. It has a 3/16" feed line and a 1/2" return line. It came with a 370gph pump.
I'm debating changing the feed line to 1/4", or even 1/2". If I change the feed line, should change the return line as well?
At what distance from the reservoir with either a 3/16", 1/4" or 1/2" feed line does the water become room temperature?

Edit- the seller says the feed lines are 1/4"