Grow Tent Getting Too Hot? – Do This!

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The quality of your plants depends on the ambient temperature within your grow tent and the humidity level.

The temperature level of a grow tent is highly important. An excess or insufficient amount of light will distort the normal growth of the plants.

The plants thrive when the required components are available in the right quantities; hence the temperature of the grow tent needs to be maintained at a suitable level.

When the grow tent is too hot due to excess heat, the plants tend to lose more water. Thereby they cannot produce their food.

When cultivating plants in a grow tent, one of the challenges is maintaining the ideal temperature within the room.

This increased heat within the grow tent is usually influenced by the temperature of the surroundings, the type of grow light and the type of ventilation within the grow tent.

Unfortunately, some grow lights emit excess heat, and this affects the growth of the plants. The crucial factor among the three is the grow tent ventilation.

A proper ventilation system ensures that the grow tent is kept under a regulated temperature, regardless of the fluctuations of the other two.

However, there is often excess heat stress in a grow tent, which is challenging to regulate mainly due to the limitation of free airflow.

Hence, handling these factors is significant in regulating the higher temperatures of the grow tent. Scheming a method to adjust to reduce the hotness of a grow tent requires controlling these factors.

Grow Tent Getting Too Hot – Ventilation Methods

Oscillating Fans Inside Grow Tent

Oscillating fans do not entirely take away the excess heat in the grow tents. The oscillating fans circulate the heat generated in grow tents.

In a typical grow tent, plants are usually close to the lights that generate the heat. Thus, oscillating fans placed close to the plants help circulate the heat from the lights to keep the temperature regulated.

Read on: How to Set Up Grow Tent Ventilation?

With Vent for Grow Tent Exhaust

Building a vent for your grow tent exhaust is critical. This helps to take the hot air out of the grow tent.

It’s often recommended that you use a ceiling vent because of the direction from which the heat flows. Placing the exhaust vent on the ceiling enhances the drawing out of the heat from the grow vent.

A Cooling Humidifier

A cooling humidifier also improves the humidity of the tent to a level suitable for the growth of plants.

This technique must be carefully monitored. This is because an increased level of humid cooler air and fresh air causes the temperature to rise, limiting the plants’ growth.

The recommended level of humidity for a grow tent is 40%.

Using a Container of Water or Ice

This is a traditional method of regulating the temperature in a grow tent. This involves creating a heat sink that will suck away the heat, causing the weak growth of the plants.

The cold water or ice is placed inside a bucket and positioned where it can absorb the heat. This provides a controlled humidity level as well as reduce heat in the tent.

The method works together with the use of oscillating fans, where the fan circulates the hot air towards the bucket of cold water or ice, and the temperature of the hot air reduces.

Ambient Temperature

The regulating temperature outside the grow tent also influences the air temperature inside the tent.

Naturally, the temperature of the surroundings is usually less than the temperature inside the grow tent.

Hence, the generated heat within the grow tent be dispersed to the surrounding areas by improving the airflow.

This is why it is essential to direct the exhaust vent to an external window to avoid heat accumulation around the growing section of the tent.

Integrating air conditioners and oscillating fans improves this regulation of the environmental temperature.

Enhancing the grow light performance

There are different grow lights available to provide light for your plants to grow.

Some of these lights include Metal Halide (MH), high-pressure sodium lights (HPS), Incandescent, Fluorescent, light-emitting diode (LED) lights, and high-intensity discharge.

Some grow lights have qualities that make them preferable as the best to use for your plants.

However, in controlling the temperature of the grow tent, grow light performance needs optimization. This optimization includes the following:

Reduce The Power

Most times, the amount of heat emitted within the grow tent is a function of the power generated by the grow lights. When you choose to grow lights to place in your grow tent, you are recommended to purchase one with dimmable ballasts.

Grow lights with dimmable ballasts imply that they have various power settings that allow you to regulate the power of the light.

Hence, you can control the amount of light released within the room, maintaining a moderate temperature in the grow tent.

This also helps you regulate the temperature of the grows tent under varying ambient temperatures.

The Distance of Grow Lights from the Plants

In a usual grow tent, the grow lights are usually at a height from the plants, hanging from the ceiling of the grow tent.

Keeping the lights at a reasonable distance from the plants helps limit the heat directed towards the plants.

At a closer distance from the plants, the excess light causes more heat and reduces the growth and reproduction of the plants. Plants become more heat-resistant with the grow lights kept at the recommended distance.

Small-sized Grow Lights

This does not mean that grow lights with low production of power.

However, grow lights with small sizes that still produce the required amount of light are advised to be selected when choosing to grow lights.

Small-sized grow lights also create more room for the ceiling vents that suck out the heat generated.

The metal halide (MH) and the high-pressure sodium (HPS) lights are not that suitable because of their big size.

Regulating the operating hours of grow lights

The excess heat often generated in the grow tent is usually induced by the number of hours the grow lights are allowed to operate.

Some farmers run their grow lights for 24 hours, thereby increasing the temperature in the grow tent, which diminishes the plants’ growth.

The recommended hours to run your grow lights are 18 hours, followed by 8 hours of darkness. This regulates the heat generated by the grow lights.

What else do I need to know?

Also, running the grow lights for 24 hours implies that your oscillating fans, exhaust fan, inline fan, air conditioner, and humidifiers have to operate for longer hours.

This could cause the malfunctioning of this equipment, resulting in increased temperature in the grow tent. Besides this, the electricity cost implication increases.

Hence, to regulate the grow tent temperature, keep your equipment operational, and reduce the electricity bills, run your grow lights for the recommended number of hours.

The most preferred grow light that is recommended to be used in a grow tent is the light-emitting diode light. Regarding the amount of heat generated, LED growth lights are the most efficient compared with other grow lights, especially compact fluorescent lights.

For the same amount of electricity supplied to different grow lights, LED lights generate the intensity of light needed by the plants with the least amount of heat generated.

Keep a proper distance of the LED lights from the plants. For the optimum flourishing of the plants, place the LED lights at a distance of 16” – 18”.

Grow Tent Getting Too Hot – Conclusion

The temperature of a grow tent influences the growth and performance of plants. Hence, it is essential to regulate heat generation, majorly from the grow lights, for optimum reproduction and higher yield.

The guidelines above, when carefully followed, will ensure that the heat produced within the grow tent is regulated effectively.

However, if you have practiced the guidelines and the plants are underperforming due to the high temperature, you may consider using carbon filter and supplements.

These supplements are advised to be used as a backup plan when the farmer cannot meet the guidelines in this article.

Farmers often use these supplements to protect their plants against the effect of stress caused by the increased temperature in the grow tent.

This also helps to reduce unnecessary equipment in the tent. An excellent example of a supplement is Seaweed Kelp extract.

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