How Many CFM For A Grow Tent?
With the hot season increasing the temperature we find it hard as humans to adapt sometimes with the waves of high temperature that we might need some technology aid like air conditioners for example. Well, plants are no different. But, how many CFM for a grow tent? In this article we are covering everything you need to know about setting up a ventilation system for your grow tent.
Growers know how sensitive plants can be towards increasing temperature as it has an immediate effect on the growth of the plant and in some cases can cause the whole crop to die. and that is the reason why growing during the hot season needs extra environmental control to make sure the plants are growing in their ideal atmosphere that they can thrive in. Environmental control can be many things but one of the most effective ways to control the environment including the increasing heat is setting up a ventilation system.
Ventilating your grow tent has never been so important that rising heat and global warming endanger plants with excessive heat. But to set up an effective ventilation system, there are many questions to answer: What is the equipment needed? how to install the ventilation system? and how many CFM should the fan be? Answering these questions beforehand would make the task easier and less time and effort consuming. It is also important to know that perfect ventilation set up for your grow tent will not only get rid of excessive heat, but it will also regulate the fresh air into your tent as well as controlling humidity and prevent odours and that in general provide a healthy surrounding for your plants to grow.
A ventilation system ultimately consists of an inline fan, ducking and a carbon filter, these are the most essential components for a ventilation system that any serious grower would use to enhance his growing environment. Fans and filters can be configured in any order to pull air out of the grow tent, it can also be placed outside the tent or inside the tent according to the space availability, however, it is common that growers place the fans and the carbon filter inside the tent for ease of management. It is also important to use ducting with clamps to connect the carbon filter to the fan. Using duct tape would be an extra assurance that there will be no air leak that would affect the efficiency of your ventilation system.
Another crucial aspect of the ventilation system is finding the amount of airflow needed for the grow tent measured by CFM (Cubic Feet per Minute) by calculating the volume of the grow tent in feet = length x width x height. This will calculate the whole volume of air that needs to be exchanged. When ventilating a grow tent the air should be exchanged every 1-3 minutes, for a better growing environment ideally it should be no more than 1 minute. So CFM will equal the actual volume of the grow tent, but that doesn’t mean that the CFM of the fan should equal the same figure!
Normally a fan with much higher CFM than the calculated above would be needed and that is because other factors interfere in this calculation.
Accessories: such as a carbon filter, ducting or a silencer, these accessories restrict the airflow in the ventilation system which will require a higher CFM rated fan to move the previously calculated airflow. For ducting, an increase of 20% in the CFM would be needed and another 20% if a silencer is used. While the carbon filter will require an increase of 40% in the CFM.
Grow lights: grow lights are the main source of heat inside the grow tent and it also affects our decision while calculating CFM as it requires up to 50% increase in the CFM to balance the rising temperature increases.
Generally, when deciding on a fan for a grow tent, the CFM should always be greater than the minimum amount calculated according to the previous factors, this will allow the fan to run quieter, on a low speed which will affect the electricity bill and also account for future grow tent changes, changes in the temperature, changes in the grow lights or changes in the accessories which will make it a choice to depend on for a long time without needing to change it to adapt to any modifications in the grow tent.
Setting up a ventilation system that works effectively to let you control the environment inside the grow tent to the plants liking is full of details that every grower should pay attention to. We have covered some of these important details, but just not to let you wonder what equipment should you get for your ventilation system, we have got everything you need in one place. Check out our environmental control section on our website and choose the high-quality ventilation system equipment you need here: Environmental Control