res. chillers & air tempature
Been looking around and haven't found the answer to this yet.
Do chillers have a significant cooling effect on the air in your enclosed grow space as well? I know they significantly bring down the tempature of the nutrient solution; but does that also significantly bring down the overall tempature inside your grow?
I use a hydrohut deluxe grow tent, so the cubic footage of the grow area is around 224 cubic ft . I am running 2x600w digital hps and 7x125 cflo (all of the lights, including the fluroescents, are air cooled), so there is a significant amount of heat being generated even though everything is air cooled and air conditioned. I plan on using either a 1/4 or 1/10 hp chiller.
I would imagine that if the nutrient solution was 30 degrees cooler, that would bring down overall daytime cycle air tempature by 10 degrees or so (especially since the night cycle would get extra chill as a result)... any holes in my thinking so far? Any insight is appreciated.
Thanks in advance,
-CG
res. chillers & air tempature
Well the obvious answer is yes, it will bring tempature down because the air in the room and the water in the res will want to equalize (to a degree). To what degree, I doubt all that much and youll be making the cooler work extra hard (but if you dont mind that energy cost then who cares). But water temp is extremely import with hydro so who cares if it doesnt lower the ambient temp in the tent...youll have the benefits of cooler res water which means more dissolved oxygen, better nutrient uptake, faster growth, and less chance of algae or root rot.
is your water temp ok right now? are the plants ok or suffering from the heat? leaves curled and cupped under? stunted growth? if your water temp is ok then for the cost of a res chiller, you could get a small A/C unit and just run it into the room and onto the res. if you get a good enough unit, this will enable you to drop 10 degrees F no problem both in the tank and in the air.
res. chillers & air tempature
Quote:
Originally Posted by Racerx
is your water temp ok right now? are the plants ok or suffering from the heat? leaves curled and cupped under? stunted growth? if your water temp is ok then for the cost of a res chiller, you could get a small A/C unit and just run it into the room and onto the res. if you get a good enough unit, this will enable you to drop 10 degrees F no problem both in the tank and in the air.
Water temps are too high for my liking (low 80's peak), and daytime peak air temperatures are around 95 degrees. No leaf deformities, but the growth rate is definitely being affected. I'm only 1.5 weeks into veg, so I have a little time to work it out. I would like to keep my setup sealed if at all possible (I like to maximize the co2 enrichment), so while the AC sounds like a good idea at first I just don't think it will be practical for this sealed setup since I do not want to exchange any air. If there was an air conditioner with some type of remote heat sink, than that would be great but I have never seen a device like that before.
I think my best bet would be to go with the chiller, and just set it to 50 degrees or so. Perhaps run some fans over the res. to help faciliate the evaporative cooling effect. How does that sound?
-CG
