Jerry's Winter Organic Garden

Wolverine97 said:

Does that actually save any money overall vs. buying a store bought carbon filter?

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This is the question of the day really. It costs ~$25 for the charcoal, and probably about $20 in parts to make each filter. The biggest difference I've seen in comparing my DIY to the store-bought version was the length of time it remained active. The store bought one supposedly lasts for 1 year...maybe they use a different type of charcoal?

I'm certainly open to suggestions for improving the filtering situation. While it helps a tremendous amount, it is by no means perfect at eliminating odor, especially during flower. Maybe there is a better type of carbon I could be investing in that lasts longer?

Plants are looking great Jerry!

There are all types and grades of activated carbon. I would recommend visiting an HVAC supply store or call around to local hydro stores as they often carry the carbon in 50lb sacks for a ton cheaper than the small boxes of aquarium carbon. I have an active air filter but by all means plan on cutting it apart and refilling it when the carbon inside goes bad - surprised more people don't do that.

Oh jeez -
The different types of activated carbon can be categorized depending on:
The source materials: Bituminous coal, anthracite, coconut shells, wood, peat, lignite, …In theory all carbon-containing materials can be used.
The physical form: Powder, granular, cylindrical (pellets), spherical, …
The activation process: Steam activation or chemically enhanced activation (by adding dehydrating salts such as calcium chloride, magnesium chloride and zinc chloride).
The post-treatment: Wash, sieve, dedust, impregnation, …

"For the purification of air and gases we mostly use extruded (pressed pellets) or coarse-grained (granular) activated carbon."

They do seem to use different forms for water versus air/gas.

Wow nice info tanker. Looks like I've got a bit of research to do on this topic...

Jerry Garcia said:

Wow nice info tanker. Looks like I've got a bit of research to do on this topic...

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Gastanker is full of good info. I've weighed the pro's and con's myself in the past, but I just buy em. Right now I'm rocking a Pro Filter that's almost the size of my water heater (no fun to move that beast). It's got reversible collar and base, so after a year you switch them and get another 9 months or so. No dicking around with messy carbon, having to vibrate it to get a good compaction, etc...

Ok, I've been looking into filters a little bit and the MountainAir brand seems pretty good...

"MountainAir Carbon is derived from sub-bituminous black coal deposited in a Pre-Cambrian formation deep within the Collie Basin over 230 million years ago. Thus, it is the planets oldest coal. Don't be fooled by claims that other carbon is any older as this would predate the carboniferous period. MountainAir carbon also has an extremely low ash content and trace element discrimination demonstrates it to be physically and chemically unique. This feedstock is steam activated in the presence of large concentrations of particular gases that affect the activation process in a certain way. The result is an irregularly shaped activated carbon granule, unlike any other carbon on earth, predominated by mesopores in a physical distribution which is absolutely ideal for adsorption of volatile organic compounds as well as other associated odorous particles. MountainAir carbon displays a property known as decarboxylation where it strips carboxyl groups away from larger VOC prior to absorption. In effect, the carbon acts as its own pre-filter. NO OTHER CARBON IN THE WORLD (we have real time tested eight other carbon types) IS KNOWN TO DECARBOXYLATE. This property partly explains why MountainAir filters are the longest lasting filter on the market-3 years +." http://westcoastgrowers.com/carbonfilters.htm

The price is pretty high, but they supposedly last for 3 years, which would definitely be a bonus. Maybe I could just get some of their carbon to use in my filters?

Also, the sizes they list are in reference to the wattage of lights used, not for the size of the room, so I'm not really sure which size to use. My fan is rated as 500cfm, but I have a dial that can throttle back the speed considerably.

I took some pics of the plants today, but forgot to use my SD card, so they are stored on the camera hard drive, and I don't know where the cord is to extract them (moving fucking sucks because you lose everything). I'll get them up soon though.

Edit: I've also been reading positive things about Rhino Pro Filters...my hydro store carries Phresh filters, but I don't know anything about those...

Damn, those filters look pretty sick. In 3 years you can pull quite a few crops through, but its hard shelling out all that $ at once for a filter. I think your gonna want to run your fan at full speed and just get a filter that is rater for that cfm so you don't have to sacrifice higher temps and less air exchange. If you were gonna go mountain air u'd probably wanna get the 14"dia. x 20" long according to their cfm ratings

farmer2424 said:

Damn, those filters look pretty sick. In 3 years you can pull quite a few crops through, but its hard shelling out all that $ at once for a filter. I think your gonna want to run your fan at full speed and just get a filter that is rater for that cfm so you don't have to sacrifice higher temps and less air exchange. If you were gonna go mountain air u'd probably wanna get the 14"dia. x 20" long according to their cfm ratings

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Yeah if I total up 3 years worth of aquarium carbon for my 2 filters it is WAY more than one of these bad boys, so I don't really have a problem paying up front.

They only have 2 sizes that use a 6" neck, which is what my tjernlund m-6 has, and neither match my cfm output. I didn't really want to get a reducer/expander, as it will invariably affect the cfm of the fan (negatively I presume), but there doesn't seem to be any other option unless I throttle down the fan or operate below the indicative cfm.

I have 2 of the m-6 fans, and was thinking of using 1 for ventilation (probably with one of my diy filters attached) and 1 solely for scrubbing within the tent.

Hmmm this is a good one.. DIY carbon seems good ffor the time of money is a issue but the store bought seems to last longer....
i like the idea of uusing one attacked to your DIY and another solely for scrubbing.

yeah i like that idea as well. you'd think that mountain air would make a 6" neck for compatibility with 6" fans. I wonder how much more of an impact on odor mountain airs carbon is compared to the other forms and types of carbon

wyteberrywidow said:

Hmmm this is a good one.. DIY carbon seems good ffor the time of money is a issue but the store bought seems to last longer....
i like the idea of uusing one attacked to your DIY and another solely for scrubbing.

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farmer2424 said:

yeah i like that idea as well. you'd think that mountain air would make a 6" neck for compatibility with 6" fans. I wonder how much more of an impact on odor mountain airs carbon is compared to the other forms and types of carbon

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Yeah I don't think there is any such thing as "overkill" when dealing with odor. While researching today I read a post where a grower said they would spend any amount of money on something that kept them out of prison, and I think that sentiment sums up this entire situation quite appropriately. I also have fabreeze plug-in scented thingies, scented candles, and a huge tub of ONA gel I like to bust out during the peak of flower.

For short term solutions (say if your parents or landlord needs to drop by on short notice) nothing beats cooking to cover up the smell of growing cannabis. I like to saute onions and peppers with some meat and spices, but bacon is the quickest/most effective for my money. If you have time, a crock pot full of chili and spices is great because your house will stink like the chili as long as the crock pot is running.

With my DIY I really needed those masking agents, and even then the stink tended to leak beyond my walls. If I can eliminate 99% of the odor (which is apparently what MountainAir claims to do) then these other things easily take care of the 1% remaining stink. So I'm definitely leaning towards getting me one of those!

A few considerations I uncovered today regarding carbon scrubbing:
1) High humidity negatively affects the carbon's ability to filter the air (I don't know why, but there it is)
2) Dust can easily clog the pores of the charcoal/carbon, rapidly reducing its effective life. The MountainAir uses a prefilter that needs changing every 3 months. Someone recommended using commercial ventilation hood filters as an alternative.
3) Refilling of many commercially manufactured scrubbers is possible (MountainAir sells replacement carbon), though adequate compaction is often difficult to achieve without special tools (vibrating table thingie, rubber mallet, etc), and in many cases disassembling and reassembling can be tricky.

That's about it for now...

Jerry Garcia said:

Yeah I don't think there is any such thing as "overkill" when dealing with odor. While researching today I read a post where a grower said they would spend any amount of money on something that kept them out of prison, and I think that sentiment sums up this entire situation quite appropriately. I also have fabreeze plug-in scented thingies, scented candles, and a huge tub of ONA gel I like to bust out during the peak of flower.

For short term solutions (say if your parents or landlord needs to drop by on short notice) nothing beats cooking to cover up the smell of growing cannabis. I like to saute onions and peppers with some meat and spices, but bacon is the quickest/most effective for my money. If you have time, a crock pot full of chili and spices is great because your house will stink like the chili as long as the crock pot is running.

With my DIY I really needed those masking agents, and even then the stink tended to leak beyond my walls. If I can eliminate 99% of the odor (which is apparently what MountainAir claims to do) then these other things easily take care of the 1% remaining stink. So I'm definitely leaning towards getting me one of those!

A few considerations I uncovered today regarding carbon scrubbing:
1) High humidity negatively affects the carbon's ability to filter the air (I don't know why, but there it is)
2) Dust can easily clog the pores of the charcoal/carbon, rapidly reducing its effective life. The MountainAir uses a prefilter that needs changing every 3 months. Someone recommended using commercial ventilation hood filters as an alternative.
3) Refilling of many commercially manufactured scrubbers is possible (MountainAir sells replacement carbon), though adequate compaction is often difficult to achieve without special tools (vibrating table thingie, rubber mallet, etc), and in many cases disassembling and reassembling can be tricky.

That's about it for now...

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I think it's worth a look to check out Pro Filter. They're much cheaper than Mountain Air and you get a very similar lifespan. I've used most of the brands out there at one point or another (except Mountain Air), I don't like Phresh, Phat are OK, Can Filters are great and I really like the Pro Filter and the fact that it's reversible.

Thanks for the info jerry

Hey Jerry glad to see you back I always enjoy your grows. I learned the hard way that some cuttings are too dank for DIY aquarium carbon filters. Turns out the aquarium carbon is specific for water filtration and has the wrong pore size for optimal air filtration. Coconut carbon is more appropriate for air (microporous) http://www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/marineland_carbon.php. There are a few eBay sellers with coconut carbon by the pound. I might give them a try in the DIY filters. $40 shipped for 10 pounds of eBay coconut carbon vs $115 shipped for 10 pounds mountainair.

SupraSPL said:

Hey Jerry glad to see you back I always enjoy your grows. I learned the hard way that some cuttings are too dank for DIY aquarium carbon filters. Turns out the aquarium carbon is specific for water filtration and has the wrong pore size for optimal air filtration. Coconut carbon is more appropriate for air (microporous) http://www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/marineland_carbon.php. There are a few eBay sellers with coconut carbon by the pound. I might give them a try in the DIY filters. $40 shipped for 10 pounds of eBay coconut carbon vs $115 shipped for 10 pounds mountainair.

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Thanks Supra. I had no idea water filtration required such a comparatively large pore size versus air. I'm definitely going to acquire some alternative form of carbon for my DIY, and maybe coconut is the answer.

One interesting note from the link...they said the pore size of bituminous coal was between 40 and 5,000 angstroms...does this refer to all types of bituminous coal? It would seem pretty inefficient to use bituminous coal for air filtration if only SOME of the pores were small enough to filter air. Maybe MountainAir chemically or physically alters the coal to have a specific pore size? Is that even possible?

Thanks for all the info on this subject friends!

Snapped a couple shots today after watering. You'll notice I added my typical layer of sand to help stem the tide of gnats living off my roots (little buggas!) though they still need a little more to completely seal off any exposed soil. Not surprisingly, each plant is growing at its own pace, with some branching like crazy and others resisting their training. All in all things are looking good.

It's a bit too convoluted for me to try and identify each one in the pics, but I'll give a go. From Left to Right: 2 CC Sour Diesel are on the far left, then 2 White Old Larry in the back and White Widow in the front, then 2 Sour OG with a Chemporer x Candy in front, then 2 Apollo 13 x Vortex with the other Chemporer x Candy in front, and finally the 2 Sour Hazy Jones on the far right.






Many are ready to be cloned, some are barely branching, all need to start flower pretty damn soon. Ugh.

So returning to the filter conversation, my hydro shop carries a few MountainAir, and the options are:
MA0620 6" neck - 10" dia. x 20" long, 265-326 CFM, 24 LBS for $199.99
OR
MA0640 6" neck - 10" dia. x 40" long, 580-714 CFM, 42 LBS for $309.99

I think they also carry this MountainAir, which better meets my CFM requirements:
MA0820 8" neck - 12" dia. x 20" long, 360-436 CFM, 29 LBS for $219.99

This one would be good, but I'd need a 10-6 reducer:
MA1020 10" neck - 14" dia. x 20" long 430-531 CFM, 34 LBS

I think the MA0620 is probably enough for my 4x4x6.5 tent, provided I dial back the fan speed considerably (which I don't really mind doing). I would like to get the MA0640, but I don't think my 530 CFM fan can handle the 580 minimum requirement.

So I guess it is between the MA0620 with my 6", or the MA0820 with a 8"-6" reducer. What do YOU think???? Please share your thoughts!

For only $100 more but with almost twice the carbon I think I personally would go with the MA0640. It might offer a tad bit more resistance than the smaller one but it should last much much longer and I personally really hate shopping. You might not get as much air flow as possible due to the added resistance but you should still easily get enough airflow for a 4x4 tent.

Both the 620 and 820 should work well - the 820 is $7.5/lb for coal and the 620 is $8.3/lb - but then you need to consider the cost of the adapter.

Gastanker said:

For only $100 more but with almost twice the carbon I think I personally would go with the MA0640. It might offer a tad bit more resistance than the smaller one but it should last much much longer and I personally really hate shopping. You might not get as much air flow as possible due to the added resistance but you should still easily get enough airflow for a 4x4 tent.

Both the 620 and 820 should work well - the 820 is $7.5/lb for coal and the 620 is $8.3/lb - but then you need to consider the cost of the adapter.

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Thanks Tanker. If you think my 530 CFM fan can handle the 640 then I'll probably go with that one.

I'm no HVAC expert but it's the same diameter just twice as long. In my mind this means to me that it can handle twice the airflow of the shorter filter but with the same diameter it probably doesn't offer much more resistance if any. I could see the thicker diameter filters offering more resistance as your fan is pushing through a thicker layer of carbon but even then your fan will still push through it, just at a lower velocity - This could stress your fan but considering the thicker diameter filter meets your CFM I really doubt the longer thinner diameter filter could possibly stress your fan too much. Again I'm no HVAC expert but in my mind my logic seems to make sense.

Not to mention your fan just barely doesn't meet the minimum.

the 640 would be nice, but i think its probably more than you need for your setup. With your dimensions you're only at 104 cubic feet. Running your fan between 400-450 cfm is still gonna give you more than adequate ventilation( although I don't know how you would figure how many cfm's your fan is pushing once dialed down). The surface area of the 640 to 820 is almost doubled, but you also have 13 more lbs of carbon. i dont think an 8-6 reducer is gonna hurt your airflow that babd, and you can always run your fan at a higher cfm if you feel its not pulling enough. WIth a 1:4 ratio running at 416cfm, your still gonna have more than enough ventilation to clear the tent. it'll be less negative pressure sucking the walls of your tent in as well. The 8-6" duct reducer on HTGsupply is only 11 bucks, so thats still over $75 in savings . You could buy a duct booster for an intake or nutes with those savings. I dunno, thats just my 2 cents.

farmer2424 said:

the 640 would be nice, but i think its probably more than you need for your setup. With your dimensions you're only at 104 cubic feet. Running your fan between 400-450 cfm is still gonna give you more than adequate ventilation( although I don't know how you would figure how many cfm's your fan is pushing once dialed down). The surface area of the 640 to 820 is almost doubled, but you also have 13 more lbs of carbon. i dont think an 8-6 reducer is gonna hurt your airflow that babd, and you can always run your fan at a higher cfm if you feel its not pulling enough. WIth a 1:4 ratio running at 416cfm, your still gonna have more than enough ventilation to clear the tent. it'll be less negative pressure sucking the walls of your tent in as well. The 8-6" duct reducer on HTGsupply is only 11 bucks, so thats still over $75 in savings . You could buy a duct booster for an intake or nutes with those savings. I dunno, thats just my 2 cents.

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Well it turned out they only carried the 620, 640, and 840 in stock, so my options were limited to the 2 6" collared ones. After an extensive conversation with a couple different guys at the hydro shop (much of what we have been discussing here), I went out yesterday and purchased the MA0640. They agreed that it was more than I needed for my smallish space, but felt that because my fan is centrifugal and pretty close to the minimum CFM that it wouldn't be a problem. The biggest issue they said was a too weak fan wouldn't be able to draw air evenly through the entire vertical section of the filter, meaning only the charcoal near the collar would be utilized, placing undue strain placed upon the fan.

Well, I hooked it up this morning and my fan seems to be pulling air evenly throughout the entire 40" column...I can place my hands on any part of the filter and feel air rushing around them and through the charcoal. So far it has done an excellent job of eliminating any odor, and I think I made the right decision by getting the larger model. It is definitely a BEAST of a filter compared to the little one, but I'd rather have too much air scrubbing than not enough!

My camera finally died, and I still don't know where the charger or adapter cord for the computer went, but I'll get some pics of the new MountainAir as soon as I can. Probably gonna start cloning a few of the branchier plants in the next day or so...I'll chronicle it all accordingly for your following pleasure!

Thanks again for your input everyone! Things should be picking up here in the coming weeks...flower is right around the corner