Benefits of an air purifier in the grow room

So I'm getting my grow room ready for when my girl becomes highly recognizable (currently in the 4th week post germination) and I was thinking of installing an unused air purifier I used to use in my bedroom. Has anybody tried this before to control the odor during flowering? I was also wondering if there's any other pro's/con's to having one of these running in the grow area that I don't know about?

Do your homework on these units. A lot of them are actual breeding grounds for mold and bacteria. They collect all the bad stuff in the air, but don't kill it. So make sure to use one that sterilizes with UV. It's not going to control odor good enough either, but it will help.

macsnax said:

So make sure to use one that sterilizes with UV.

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Just be sure that if you run a sealed room that you are aware that the UV will make ozone and too much ozone is unhealthy for you and your plants.

Renfro said:

Just be sure that if you run a sealed room that you are aware that the UV will make ozone and too much ozone is unhealthy for you and your plants.

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Sure is. What are your thoughts on running ozone? I see benefits, but too much is bad for plants, and doesn't it wear out material/equipment?

macsnax said:

Sure is. What are your thoughts on running ozone? I see benefits, but too much is bad for plants, and doesn't it wear out material/equipment?

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Yeah I used to run an ozone generator long ago to control odor. At the levels required to control odor it was disintegrating rubbers and plastics in the room lol. Grommets would crack and leak... No fun. And it's definitely not healthy for you or plants if at high levels. Now I would only use it as an inline ozone generator on an exhaust to kill odor. I actually have a 12 inch corona discharge inline generator that is on a 12 inch exhaust run from when I had air cooled lights. Now that whole line just sits idle but I can fire it up if I need it. It can be a good disinfectant but the levels required cause the aforementioned issues.

Renfro said:

Yeah I used to run an ozone generator long ago to control odor. At the levels required to control odor it was disintegrating rubbers and plastics in the room lol. Grommets would crack and leak... No fun. And it's definitely not healthy for you or plants if at high levels. Now I would only use it as an inline ozone generator on an exhaust to kill odor. I actually have a 12 inch corona discharge inline generator that is on a 12 inch exhaust run from when I had air cooled lights. Now that whole line just sits idle but I can fire it up if I need it. It can be a good disinfectant but the levels required cause the aforementioned issues.

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Ya screw that, I'm not ruining a bunch stuff. I've been thinking for a while about using it to disinfect.

Yeah if you wanted to sterilize an empty room, say after a powdery mildew outbreak then high PPM ozone with good air circulation for 24 hours might do some magic. A short 24 hour high PPM level would probably cause less damage than constant lower PPM exposure. I would probably have the humidity as low as possible. I even had steel items rust like crazy by my ozone generator back in the day. lol I have even heard of experiments saying ozone can trigger plant defense mechanisms against PM but I don't remember what plant that was they did a study on.

The defense mechanisms against pm sounds interesting, I'll have to look that up. I've also been looking into a water ionizer, but I'm not 100% educated on them yet. I think for the price I would have to use it for plant water as well to justify the cost.

Well I do know the water ionizers alter the pH of the water. I have never used one nor do I know anyone who does. A good RO filter is all you need for growing and some people don't even need that.

Renfro said:

Well I do know the water ionizers alter the pH of the water. I have never used one nor do I know anyone who does. A good RO filter is all you need for growing and some people don't even need that.

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I want one for pm/mold. I think they'll also help with certain pests too. But at 4 grand, I would want to use the water for my plants as well to have a good enough reason to sirens the money.

Is it a sealed room? If it is IMO you’d be better off using a good carbon filter (Phresh) and a fan as a scrubber. If it’s not you could use the same system to control heat and odor.

Renfro said:

Yeah I used to run an ozone generator long ago to control odor. At the levels required to control odor it was disintegrating rubbers and plastics in the room lol. Grommets would crack and leak... No fun. And it's definitely not healthy for you or plants if at high levels.
............. It can be a good disinfectant but the levels required cause the aforementioned issues.

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I know this is in an older thread, but it came up when I searched 'ozone'.
They are now using Ozone in the air in greenhouses. They claim that by distributing ozone in the greenhouse with the existing CO2 system, fungi in the greenhouse can also be controlled. they say that Ozone is a residue-free way of treating fungi. It therefore should leave no traces on your product. The distribution of ozone in the greenhouse reduces mold pressure by around 50%. (their words, not mine)

But it shows that they are still working with it.
So far it are huge machines and it is not for us growers.

The greenhouse growers also use it a lot to treat the drainwater. It cleans it up before they start reusing it, or before it goes in the sewer.

I also read some articles from people who use ozone distributed in their ponds. It does not harm their expensive Koi and also not the waterplants.

All the info is a bit (a lot) to hard for me to understand, but I will wait till I read more and more stories and the amount of Ozone one would need.

Back in missouri like 20 years ago I used ozone generators in my grow rooms. Eats up plastic and rubber and makes anything oxidize faster. Not healthy for lungs so I quit because I could feel it.

I have an inline ozone generator on a 12" exhaust, thats good because the duct is sealed and all the ozone goes outside but no odor is left. Haven't ran that 12 inch exhaust line since I stopped using vented hoods with SE HPS.

Another trick is a negative ion generator. Used in duct before a filter. It makes the particles in the air drop out by charging them. So your HEPA filter can grab them much easier.

Renfro said:

Back in missouri like 20 years ago I used ozone generators in my grow rooms. Eats up plastic and rubber and makes anything oxidize faster. Not healthy for lungs so I quit because I could feel it.

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Helath and safety regulations are reall strict, so I doubt that in the greenhouses the employees are in danger.
I think it is the amount of Ozone that gets in the air that does the trick.
I guess us small growers just have to wait till there will be devices for small size growers (and I mean growers of fruits, flowers, vegetables, etc.)

I think the safe limit was like 5 PPM for Ozone, but I am not 100%. Thing is 5 PPM doesn't get the job done on odor. It would have some sanitation effect I imagine. Too much ozone definitely hurts plants too. So some sort of device like a CO2 controller would be required to keep the PPM as the regulated limits.

On odor, I think it is best to use it in your exhaust pipe. Even behind your filter to kill that last smell.
It works without a doubt. Carefull with everything that can oxidate indeed, as you said.

But the new machines they now use to kill molds, that is more interesting. Mildew and botrytis; how wonderful would that be?

Edit: The company that places them in greenhouses say that they reduce mold pressure by 50%. That is not the same as killing, and it is also not a fact as far as I can see till now. I can't find any scientific papers on this (yet)

Keesje said:

Helath and safety regulations are reall strict, so I doubt that in the greenhouses the employees are in danger.
I think it is the amount of Ozone that gets in the air that does the trick.
I guess us small growers just have to wait till there will be devices for small size growers (and I mean growers of fruits, flowers, vegetables, etc.)

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You could get a germ guardian hepa filter for like 50-150$
I got a dyson fan + air purifier for 300$ but I put 0$ down and and made 6, 50$ A month payments.