How to control temperature in grow tent

Lighting is an essential part of the cannabis growing process. Your plants need light to thrive and produce well – but what happens when the heat from the light becomes too much? Your guess is as good as mine – they burn out.

At all stages of its growth process, your weed plant has specific optimal temperature requirements for performance. When the grow tent is too hot or humid, the plant will suffer. Too much heat and humidity or too little can be counterproductive to your farming venture. The idea is to find a balance that works. In this piece, I am sharing a few tips on how to control the temperature in a grow tent.

The Grow Tent

As you already know, the grow tent is the desired housing for most indoor cultivations. Asides from the low cost of setup, the grow tent offers a sense of modularity that makes the setup and operations of your farm easy.

Having a good setup, grow tents, lights, watering mechanism, nutrients, and quality seeds are the precursors to obtaining a good harvest; if these are set right, the other stuff needed is good pruning and day to day temperature and humidity control. Like the winemaker’s metaphor, it’s all about what you’re growing, where you’re growing it and the conditions under which it’s grown.

Maintaining Temperature and Humidity in Grow Tents

Creating the best growing environment focusing on humidity and temperature controls should be uppermost on the mind of all cannabis growers. Temperature and humidity are two peas of the same pod – an increase in temperature would invariably lead to an increase in humidity. Your ability to control the temperature in the grow tent would always amount to controlling the humidity.

Here’s how to control the temperature in grow tent.

Tip 1: Increase Air Flow

Increasing the fresh/cool airflow and the quick removal of hot air from your grow tent would cause a drop in temperature to manageable levels. Upgrading your airflow fans to ones of higher ratings or, rather, running your existing ones at a higher velocity can do the trick.

You can also make improvements to how your fans are arranged. Since hot air tends to hover above, your exit air vents should be positioned higher up your grow tent and the cool air inlet at the tent’s base(floor) level. This would definitely improve airflow and quick removal of hot dense air.

Tip 2: Regulate Lighting

Try regulating the lighting sequence in your grow room. Have “lights on” only at night and “lights off” during the day. This way, you can reduce the length of time the lights are on generating heat.

Tip 3: Invest in Reducing Humidity

Since high humidity levels trap heat, you can invest in a decent sized dehumidifier to keep up with the demands of your grow tent. Dehumidifiers can help improve the airflow of your grow tent and reduce temperature. As an extreme measure, you can consider installing air conditioners to reduce humidity and increase airflow, but that could be a bit extreme.

You can try these tips for cases where we have lower temperature and lower humidity levels and need to increase the levels.

Tip 4: Introduce Mist Sprayers and Heating Mats

Mist sprayers increase humidity levels and keep the soil surface moist. Paired with heating mats, you can generate enough humidity to force an increase in the temperature levels of your grow tent. Other options to create humidity include leaving large baths of water open in the tent to force an increase in humidity levels. You can also introduce humidifiers, the opposite of dehumidifiers.

Tip 5: Invest in Space Heaters

Space heaters with thermostats can function well to increase and maintain a set temperature in the grow tent through a specific period. While they might be a little pricey to purchase and run, they are worth the investment.

Tip 6: Reconsider your choice of lighting

I intentionally left this for last as it can relate to both sides of the divide of controlling temperature in a grow tent.

The most common lighting options for grow tents tend to generate a lot of heat, as seen from the conversation above. For situations where heating is required, these lighting options are well suited, but when there is a serious challenge of excessive heat in grow tents and all options seem to have been exhausted, we may consider changing our light source. LED lights are a growing option for grow tents owners and cannabis farmers.

But, can LED light grow weed?

Yes!

In fact, they are the perfect lighting option if cost isn’t a consideration. LED lights are highly efficient light sources for grow tents as they use less energy, create very little heat, and produce wavelengths across the light spectrum. LED lights can grow weed, and they are suited for all stages of the growing process, from the vegetative cycle to the flowering cycles.

The only challenge with using LED lights is cost. An LED lighting installation would cost 3 to 5 times the cost of your average HID light. If cost isn’t a consideration, then LED lights are the best option for controlling the temperature in a grow tent.

Key Takeaway

Lighting, airflow and humidity are the key factors to consider when looking out for ways to control the temperature in grow tents. If you can fix these, then you are good. I wish you all the best.