VPD and why do I care

Stumay111

Active Member
So, I'm growing in a 5x5 tent, organic soil. SF 4000 lights.
I live in the southeast US, hot and humid.
I have a small A/C in my tent.
My intake fan is sucking in humidified air from a humidifer/the room.

So one place I read that 70-85 F. and 40-70% humidity is where you want to be. Great.
Then I find out about VPD, and all of a sudden there are very narrow ranges of humidity/temp that won't stress out a plant. I mean VERY narrow ranges.

By the way - where do you guys take a measurement at? At the plant or on the floor of the tent?

Right now, I'm at 75 F. and 60%/ Veg stage. very young. 3rd week. No signs of stress.
I don't see how someone growing outside can abide by this.

Show me, I am blind.
 

bk78

Well-Known Member
So, I'm growing in a 5x5 tent, organic soil. SF 4000 lights.
I live in the southeast US, hot and humid.
I have a small A/C in my tent.
My intake fan is sucking in humidified air from a humidifer/the room.

So one place I read that 70-85 F. and 40-70% humidity is where you want to be. Great.
Then I find out about VPD, and all of a sudden there are very narrow ranges of humidity/temp that won't stress out a plant. I mean VERY narrow ranges.

By the way - where do you guys take a measurement at? At the plant or on the floor of the tent?

Right now, I'm at 75 F. and 60%/ Veg stage. very young. 3rd week. No signs of stress.
I don't see how someone growing outside can abide by this.

Show me, I am blind.
Well there’s a difference between rapid growth, and regular growth.

Keep vpd in check 24/7 and you’ll experience the rapid part
 

Lordhooha

Well-Known Member
Looking at an Infinity Cloudline 8" with the controller.
An 8” is too much for a 5x5 alone. For instance, my personal grow at home I have a three tents a 3x3 and 2 5x5’s one cloud line 8” will suck the sides in on all of them At a 1 which is the lowest setting. All of my mommas and clones are sitting outside of those tents and I use one 4” to vent that area. For my big commercial rooms I use one 6” per room Which are 30x15x15 and they’ll vent everything out of those rooms in 30 mins easy. Those fans move a shit ton of air. Choose your cloud line wisely.
 

Stumay111

Active Member
Also to note my garage is a three car and that 4” exchanges the air in there quick
I'll be following your advice.
I also have a 6" intake which is probably too big too.

Again, I live in the SE US, and the humidity and temp vary wildly during this time of year.
Keeping the temp/hum at a proper level is driving me nuts.

What I'm doing now can't possibly be right.
I have my 6" intake sucking in air from a room sized free standing AC unit with a humidfier next to it.
Inside the tent I have another humidifier.

I can't get to 75 degrees and 65% (approx) without all that.
And I'll look one time and see the hum is 65; 15 minutes later it's 55.

Manually adjusting the exhaust fan speed, I've noticed, definitely increases/decreases temp/humidity.

In a perfect world, I'd have something that controlled fan speed, AC, and both humidifiers.

I'm thinking I probably need to reduce my intake as well, possibly even do away with the intake fan and let the AC cool the room itself.

I do plan on upgrading to a 4x8 this summer. I guess the 4" will handle that too from what you say.

Try this and try that, one day I'll get it right.
 

Lordhooha

Well-Known Member
I'll be following your advice.
I also have a 6" intake which is probably too big too.

Again, I live in the SE US, and the humidity and temp vary wildly during this time of year.
Keeping the temp/hum at a proper level is driving me nuts.

What I'm doing now can't possibly be right.
I have my 6" intake sucking in air from a room sized free standing AC unit with a humidfier next to it.
Inside the tent I have another humidifier.

I can't get to 75 degrees and 65% (approx) without all that.
And I'll look one time and see the hum is 65; 15 minutes later it's 55.

Manually adjusting the exhaust fan speed, I've noticed, definitely increases/decreases temp/humidity.

In a perfect world, I'd have something that controlled fan speed, AC, and both humidifiers.

I'm thinking I probably need to reduce my intake as well, possibly even do away with the intake fan and let the AC cool the room itself.

I do plan on upgrading to a 4x8 this summer. I guess the 4" will handle that too from what you say.

Try this and try that, one day I'll get it right.
I'm in Oklahoma man I understand
 

guitarguy10

Well-Known Member
I initially went with a 4" fan thinking that's all that I need but now I regret it. You can turn down a 6" fan, you can't turn down a 4" fan and you're stuck if you ever decide to go with a bigger space.
 

Stumay111

Active Member
I initially went with a 4" fan thinking that's all that I need but now I regret it. You can turn down a 6" fan, you can't turn down a 4" fan and you're stuck if you ever decide to go with a bigger space.
I came up with the same conclusion, and I'm going with 6. The calculators for CFM don't lie.
I think one thing I'm apparently doing wrong is I have my air filter and fan outside the tent with a duct running in. Looks like everybody else mounts filter and fan inside the tent.

I had an intake fan too, I got rid of that, moved the AC outside the tent and have it partially blowing into the intake duct.
I have two humidifiers fighting the AC'd air. Looking at a single large one.

P.S. I play an old Takamine EAN40C that spent most of it's life in Muscle Shoals studio and has been played by Duane Allman just to name one of many.
 

guitarguy10

Well-Known Member
My grow setup doesn't really compare to yours but nevertheless I have learned some things along the way that I think apply in general and well .. take my advice or leave it lol but...

I also have my exhaust fan on the top of the tent just pointing into the hole on the top (with some ducting), but I don't have a filter. It's legal to grow here now so neighbours be damned lol they can deal with it. The other advantage to running a larger fan then your space needs is that by running it slower it is MUCH quieter (in my experience with the 6" AC Infinity that I am using).

With respect to exhaust though, even though it was a bit of work and required draping ducting all the way across my room I've found that it's basically a must to be venting your exhaust outside of the room, preferably outside of the house altogether through a window or something.

I had an active intake fan but the temps were HIGHER then if I just used passive intakes, and I tested this over and over with my arduino. I'm not a physicist so I don't know why but in my case the negative pressure that results from the passive intake led to lower temps then having an active intake fan. I also made this ghetto filter out of a $3 6" toilet flange, some cardboard, a cheap filter cut to size and some pantyhose and after one grow it's WILD the shit that it picks up, super nasty almost black lol but that shit didn't get into my tent so I'm happy with the diy cheapo filter I made.

I'm still trying to sort out what to do with A/C to draw in cold air to the tent because it get hot in there .. did I mention it's a pretty tiny tent just 2'x4'x5' and havn't come up with much except for maybe a swamp cooler (a decent heatpump or a/c unit is just WAYY too much for the 40sqft space that's in my tent) so I don't have much advice there on how to deal with other then if you can get the ambient temp of the room itself that the intake air is being drawn from you could probably avoid the headache of having to try to remove so much humidity created by having an A/C right next to your intake.

Infrared thermometer as @Arkos has suggested is a valuable tool to have and they're like $20, it's definitely very informative to have the leaf temp. I also try to take temp/humidity measurements at different locations in the tent (eg. one near bottom near the intake, one at canopy height and one near the top close to where it exhausts), you can buy a 4 pack of temp/humidity meter for like $20 so why not. The data doesn't reveal anything groundbreaking but it has given me an idea on how air circulates when the tent is closed and where there are hotspots. By placing the exhaust ducting at the same level as the light I've had a notable reduction in leaf surface temp and I only figured this out by having a bunch of meters in my tent.

You've probably already got your own but I've attached a VPD chart that I've found to be pretty useful as it shows the desirable values for the different stages of growth.

PS: I have no idea what any of your PS means, what is a Takanime? is that like a tiny nuclear fusion tokamak reactor lol? :D jk

PPS: In case you are curious (and I don't know why you would be) my setup is a 2'x4'5' tent with a 6" AC infinity fan at 5/10 setting exhausting; the light is a 400W HPS in a sealed air cooled reflector that has it's own dedicated 230CFM exhaust fan and the air cooled reflector is flanked by 2 70W HLG qb120 boards diyed into a frame of angle aluminum. I've managed to get temps at about 80-85F when I point the exhaust fans ducting near the level of the light which is only about 5F tops over ambient (and that's to deal with 540W of lighting in a 40sqft space) .. before moving the exhaust fan ducting close to the light it was 10+F over ambient. I have 2 intake holes open near the bottom of my tent with 2 of those diy filters. Still working on humidity though and have a raspberry pi sitting here waiting for me to try the Mycodo software which looks amazing (because I don't have to code it myself! lol) for automating my grow hopefully. Wish I had more space because it has been a nightmare trying to dial in my settings.
 

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1212ham

Well-Known Member
I initially went with a 4" fan thinking that's all that I need but now I regret it. You can turn down a 6" fan, you can't turn down a 4" fan and you're stuck if you ever decide to go with a bigger space.
Whey can't I turn down a 4"? Was it a Cloudline?
Air flow can vary a lot depending on brand and model.
 

RonnieB2

Well-Known Member
So, I'm growing in a 5x5 tent, organic soil. SF 4000 lights.
I live in the southeast US, hot and humid.
I have a small A/C in my tent.
My intake fan is sucking in humidified air from a humidifer/the room.

So one place I read that 70-85 F. and 40-70% humidity is where you want to be. Great.
Then I find out about VPD, and all of a sudden there are very narrow ranges of humidity/temp that won't stress out a plant. I mean VERY narrow ranges.

By the way - where do you guys take a measurement at? At the plant or on the floor of the tent?

Right now, I'm at 75 F. and 60%/ Veg stage. very young. 3rd week. No signs of stress.
I don't see how someone growing outside can abide by this.

Show me, I am blind.
 

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guitarguy10

Well-Known Member
Whey can't I turn down a 4"? Was it a Cloudline?
Air flow can vary a lot depending on brand and model.
It was a poor choice of words at 7:00am while sitting in the hospital this morning. I mean if you're stuck with a 4" inline fan you can never make it go faster so if you ever need to exhaust a larger space you're stuck. If you buy a fan one size too big it can be turned down with a speed controller for your current setup and if you ever choose to go to a larger space you have a fan that's sufficiently large. It's also quieter to run a larger fan at a slower speed.
 

1212ham

Well-Known Member
So one place I read that 70-85 F. and 40-70% humidity is where you want to be. Great.

Right now, I'm at 75 F. and 60%/ Veg stage.
With LED you'll get faster growth around 82 F, LED doesn't raise leaf temp above air temp with infrared.

I never used one but the Cloudline's with controller sure look good to me. @Lordhooha do you think the 6" is too much for a 5x5?

I've always used small fans with an Inkbird humidity controller, all I need is a enough airflow to keep humidity in check.
I don't care about exchanging the air every thee minutes or twenty minutes or whatever this or that website says with no logical explanation.
 

Lockedin

Well-Known Member
With LED you'll get faster growth around 82 F, LED doesn't raise leaf temp above air temp with infrared.

I never used one but the Cloudline's with controller sure look good to me. @Lordhooha do you think the 6" is too much for a 5x5?

I've always used small fans with an Inkbird humidity controller, all I need is a enough airflow to keep humidity in check.
I don't care about exchanging the air every thee minutes or twenty minutes or whatever this or that website says with no logical explanation.
I'm not Lordhooha - but IMHO --- No, the T-6 should be fine in a 5x5; it worked in my 4x4.

--Just remember to size up your intakes as well, that will improve flow and mitigate in-caving.
 

1212ham

Well-Known Member
I'm not Lordhooha - but IMHO --- No, the T-6 should be fine in a 5x5; it worked in my 4x4.

--Just remember to size up your intakes as well, that will improve flow and mitigate in-caving.
Yeah, almost any exhaust fan will pull in the sides to a degree, depending on intake size.
 

Lockedin

Well-Known Member
Yeah, almost any exhaust fan will pull in the sides to a degree, depending on intake size.
True - discovered that the hard way:
When I originally hooked up the T-6, I had one 6" duct and one 4" duct for intake. Out of curiosity I cranked the fan to 10:
- The tent incaved HARD - poles creaked & the intakes pinged with the pressure. Had no idea THAT would happen! :shock: :lol:
- Didn't do that again in the 4x4. :bigjoint:

In the 4x8, I'm running three 6" passive intakes (two pulling fresh air, one intake in the room - seems to even out my temps nicely)
No creaking or serious incaving - though the sides do pull in a bit when I turn the fan up over 7; which is never - I go to 5 to cycle the air once in a while, other than that - the fan stays on 2 or 3 and my tent maxes at 83f / 55%rh
 
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