Most efficient ventilation for 5x5 tent.

As title says. (1st time grow)

I recently purchased a 5 x 5 x 6.5 ft. tent, the light kit I purchased comes with both 1000w HPS and MH, according to the reviews the bulbs put off some good heat.

As far as ventilation goes, what would be the best most affordable way to go about this? thanks!

If the hood is air cooled get a six or eight inch inline fan for it. Mount the fan outside the tent close to the hole going to.the outside air. This is sucking air out. On the other side use the rite size duct pulling room air from outside the tent in winter. Make sure you have an outside air hole and flange to pull cool night time air in the warmer months of summer. This lamp cooling setup is on its own run and separate from the actual tent exhaust. Run this lamp from 9;00 pm to 9:00am to take advantage of night temperatures. Run another 6 or 8 inch fan for tent exhaust. Again mount this fan outside the tent close to the outside air hole.You can hang the appropriate charcoal filter inside the tent if your worried about stinky air blowing outside because it will. Like a skunk with muddy sweaty gym socks on. Hook this fan to a combo humidistat/thermostat or run it 24/7. Dont be a turd and cheap out by hooking it to a timer. Good luck with your tent. Grow fat buds and smoke them!!!

By the way....insulated ducting now will save you a headache down the road. Get some. Put up with the itch. H Depot or Lowes has it in stock. Oh and if your lamp is not air cooled....good luck zipping that tent up. Grow stores sometimes sell "Kits" with a tent and lamp combo. Often times this lamp is an open "batwing" style. They should be ashamed of themselves. They no better than that.

^^^ Good advice right there.

Lo Budget said:

^^^ Good advice right there.

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Fuck that. Mount the fan and the carbon filter inside. Run it above the light on one side running through the light air cooling and pushing out all the top hot air over the hood. Carbon filter, fan, ducting, light, ducting, out >

Not ideal. But you can.get away with it. All that humidity from plant transpiration passing through the hood and around the bulb isnt good. Especially all night then the bulb kicks on. Using one fan for both room exhaust and hood exhaust should be used with those on a limited budget only. Once you get your ducks in a row another fan should be purchased and do it the right way. And much more efficiently.
Ive tried it everyway you can imagine. Negative pressure with the fan sucking out is much more efficient. And it should be on its own seperate run from the room fan and filter.

Carbon filter inside, everything else outside the tent if possible. I mean you can do whatever you like but there's no compelling reason to cram everything inside the tent unless you have to, IMO. I run separate cooling and extraction fans. 6x24 filter. Granted, I'm in a 4x4 but a big-ass hood and filter take up a lot of room. Add a couple of small fans for circulation and things get tight. Additionally, having fans outside the tent often means less bends and kinks in the ducting because you don't have to keep everything confined to a small cube. Personally, I like having as little as possible inside the tent, but in the long run the most important thing to me is that people grow. Inside, outside, tent, no tent. Keep it green!

The main reason besides space for them fans being mounted outside the tent is the radiant heat they put off from sucking all the bulb heat out of the tent and outside the house. I use to run 6x6x6 tents with 4 600 aircooled lamps in each. 2 430 cfm inline fans (one for every 2 600 watts) sucking hot bulb air out a basement window (plywood of course) and they radiate heat as does the ducting. Hence why i highly suggest putting the fans close to the plywood "window" with the appropriate flanges and definitely outside the tent. And the insulated ducting (not necessary on the intake side but does soak up condensate dripping) is a no brainer. Much more efficient, much more cooler. Once your tent is setup properly and maximizing what you can do with ducting and fans then its just a matter of the climate outside (winter, summer) that determines whether you need air conditioning or not. Thats a whole other ball of wax. Tents are great for a portable deal. Highly reflective. Light bounces all around. But what ive learned over the years is the smaller room you grow in the more of a pain it is to fully enclose and control temperatures and relative humidity. Ive since moved on. Still use my tents in my spots (houses around town). But they are loaded with t5's and used solely for vegging, stock plants (mothers), cuttings, and seedlings.

Oh and controlling temperature, humidity, and employing suppmental co2 (bottled) at levels plants noticeably respond to in a tent was always near impossible for me.

Thanks for the replies! Now my next question, I read that It is better to push cool air over/through your hood, instead of pulling it, any input on this? with winter coming up in the northwest is get's pretty cold here, going into the negative digits isn't uncommon so ill have a plethora of cool air, with that being said potentially I would like to:

(Looking at the front of the tent)

Left side: Intake filter on the outside, paired with intake fan, pulling in air through the bottom.
Right side: Intake filter, paired with intake fan, pulling air in/through hood, straight out the opposite side(left)

Still considering a carbon filter, as mentioned it's 100% legal, If smell becomes an issue this would change.

Next question: Without a carbon filter would you just mount the exhaust fan normally, obviously at the top pulling all that hot air out, would positioning be the same? could I have it vertical? Thanks!

Use the light fan for the hood sucking (negative pressure) hot air from the bulb. This is the most efficient way. Its ideal if your not injecting co2 gas and if smelly skunky air is not of much concern. All the online suggestions of.having the fan blow over the hodd and.bulb (positive pressure) is ridiculous to me. Not efficiient at all but it does allow the fan to run cooler and not radiate heat. Ive tried it both ways. Sucking and mounted outside the tent close to the hole is by far superior method. Mount the room exhaust fan the same way if you can and just hang the ducting with or without a filter (your choice) high up the tent as possible as heat rises. If your winters get pretty cold i wouldnt suggest putting the open sideof your hood ducting to another hole sucking in cold ass winter ait. Its not good for your bulb and you will get condensate water dripping off the duct. For colder months just pull the cooler air from.your basement on the open side. In the warmer months you can.pull the air from outside running over you bulb and sucking out the hole with the fan. Every setup is different. Iam in michigan and all the basements have atleast 4 windows (Usually 2 on each long wall).

Looking over 5x5 1000w setups I came across this image, would this be ideal? This is very similar to the image I had In my head, the exhaust would be an 8" with my hood/intake being 6", a concern I have though, would a 6" be enough when attached to an intake filter to cool a 1000w bulb? or would 8" be a safer choice, thanks!

Six would be fine. Tha photo is exactly how you want.to.setup. Both hood fan and tent fan (the one with the filter) close to the holes with flanges the duct outside. The intake on any tent ive ran for the tent has been passive. Just open the flaps on the bottom. The ones with the screen. And from.the suction of the tent fan will draw passive cooler air.from the room through and out. In the winter you want your hood fan doing the same thing. In the summer the intake should be outside air also. From another hole sucking.in cool nightime air throught the hood.

This is mine. Make sure whatever ducting you use will fit through the socks. My 6" barely fits, but it's insulated.

since1991 said:

Six would be fine. Tha photo is exactly how you want.to.setup. Both hood fan and tent fan (the one with the filter) close to the holes with flanges the duct outside. The intake on any tent ive ran for the tent has been passive. Just open the flaps on the bottom. The ones with the screen. And from.the suction of the tent fan will draw passive cooler air.from the room through and out. In the winter you want your hood fan doing the same thing. In the summer the intake should be outside air also. From another hole sucking.in cool nightime air throught the hood.

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And with this setup, where is the hood fan located? My guess is left side on the outside of the tent, pulling the air out. Sorry i'm just trying to get everything 100% haha. thanks!

I'm fortunate to have some open ceiling in the basement so I can hang my fans from the joists. If I had a finished ceiling I'd still hang from ceiling. Of course you'd wan to find the joists for that as well, but a couple small holes are easy to patch if/when necessary.

Locate everything you can outside the tent, even if you have to get creative. Good Luck!

ParkerD said:

Looking over 5x5 1000w setups I came across this image, would this be ideal? This is very similar to the image I had In my head, the exhaust would be an 8" with my hood/intake being 6", a concern I have though, would a 6" be enough when attached to an intake filter to cool a 1000w bulb? or would 8" be a safer choice, thanks!

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Did you ever find your picture set-up?? I'm looking for the same set-up

Good luck getting that pic ParkerD hasn’t been online in three years lol.

Lol damn did you get your setup?