Hydro in the summer - bad idea?

Is hydro just a bad idea in the summer? Figure that you need to keep the water below 75, but if the room temp is 70, and 80 degrees with lights, your now using a bunch of electric for a chiller and / or AC.

Think it's just better to switch to soil in the summer? It's a mess, and a pain in the ass to switch everything, but hydro just doesn't seem doable, or at least not practical, if your using 1 watt of AC to cool 1 watt of light.

I think it depends on where you are. If you're in somewhere like Florida, AC is going to be a bigger concern than if you were in say, Colorado or Indiana.

I'm in Ohio, and I only grow in months with names containing an R.

Illegal Smile said:

I'm in Ohio, and I only grow in months with names containing an R.

Click to expand...

Whats your light setup like?

Think that might make more of a difference than anything. If you have a 600 watt, who cares if you spend $60/month to cool it -- if your running 4000 watts, now your talking a $700/mo electric bill, which looks even weirder in the summer than it would in the winter.

What about placeing the reservoir outside of the growroom, where its cooler?
I don't think I'll try hydro in smmer here though, gets to 110 degrees with a smile... Large sativas love it though.

if you mean by hydroponics DWC, then yes it is more susceptible to high temps than soil,n but if you are growing in growrocks flood drain setup, which is hydroponics, this is more tolerant to heat because there is more evaporation at the rootzone. bottom line, hydro or not, plants don't appreciate extreme temps, you need to cool your room. I dont aim at achieving perfect temps, I only try maintaining at acceptable ranges. i dont use a/c because of cost on electric. some tips for better temp control: lights on in night time, intake from cool area, cool tubes, place ballast outside room. hope this helps

I'm in hot climae in summer and grow, just drop frozen bottles in res to maintain or get chiller. You can wait as well if your so inclined.

Hydroponics is anything other than soil. Both flood and drain, and dwc are hydroponic.

Bottle of water in freezer, place in res as needed (usually at lights on). Nuff said.

Depending on how hot it is, a bottle of ice won't last an hour let alone 12. Plus you don't want the res temp up in dark time either.

use coolers to grow in not paint buckets. then the ice in bucket make a bigger difference? and as far as indiana goes. it hit 100 a few times last summer. indiana weather is hard if nto impossible to predict. but yeah for summers and winters coolers the best. during summer hold out heat during winter hold it in. i recently started hydro but this is info from experienced people and my own experience i had to scrap a grow due to water temps. coolers will fix that. and only a few weeks in starting over seemed like a better idea than fighting root rot for 2-3 more months. now i got coolers and seeds starting. new place new environment to work with . but yeah fromw hat i read coolers u can oput a couple frozen bottles and they will do the trick for a couple days(but again every room is different. but in a cooler lot less water. to tryt o keep res temps down i was putting bottles in 5 times a day. that was too much work nor was i home enough to keep up. but yeah gotta do what your comfy with. soil easier but takes longer. i'm determined to learn dwc soil has me bored.

I am in south Texas and I have a DWC crop going right now and my res temps are cool as hell...I'm talking cool enough to drink....and this is without a chiller or anything. I grow in a tent and I just make sure that the room that the tent in is always about 75 degrees

I'm in south Texas as well and from what I have noticed with my tent it runs about 80-84 and my Rez temp does not go over 75, I do have to make some changes cuz I think that's y I got a slime build up and choked my ladybud out so I'm going to try I cooler after my move this weekend and try round 2, ambient temp out side the tent in my room it runs about 80 for now till I move then around 70 so I hope that helps with my temps

Why not just put a window unit in the room, or just outside of it and blow the cool air in the direction of the door? How big and what kind of setup? I tried that bottled water deal and it would have to be gallon size jugs, and a lot of them if your res is big.