More light or more humidity...need to choose!

[Rootball]

I've got a question for the setup experts out there. I've got a grow going with 2*600w lights in week 2 of flowering and since the temperature outside is low at the moment I've got the possibility of adding in another 400w light.

At the moment with 1200w total I only need my exhaust on 25% or so to bring the temp to a nice 24.5c. Humidity is a not scary but lowish 30% at bottom line. If I add in the extra 400w or light I need to crank up my exhaust to dump more of the heat. To get it down to the same temperature I need to stick it on full. Although the temperature is doable the humidity falls to 15% or less. Can't quite tell how low as I don't think the meter measures accurately at very low levels.

So I need to make a choice... More light is good and screw the humidity... or stick to 1200w and have better humidity. My gut feeling is that I should dump the light and go for better general environment but I'm really interested to know what someone who knows their environments thinks on this. Any opinions ?

 

[toastfighter2]

I personally would add the light and a humidifier. If you are on a budget, a cheap way to add humidity is to lay a towel into a bucket of water so it wicks the water up into the towel then it evaporates. You could even step it up by pointing a fan at the towel(making it a diy swamp cooler at that point), and to get it even higher, you could add an aquarium heater into the mix. Since your air is so dry, it might even bring down your temps a notch or two, then you won't have to run your fan(extraction fan to be specific) as hard.

 

[Sleepy]

wow, i would add the light...as long as the electric service can handle it.

 

[Rootball]

I've tried a few wick type solutions for humidity but nothing much seems to work when I've got the exhaust cranked up to full. The 8 inch fan and exhaust pull air in from the passive intakes at a really impressive rate since its a fairly small space.

I get the feeling I'd get the same result with a proper humidifier too unless I change the air in the room less. I do that and my temps will quickly climb up to nasty levels with 1600w.

Going from 1200w to 1600w in the size of space I'm using seems to be a tipping point. I can easily control the environment with 1200w but it just seems to go crazy hot with that one extra light.

 

[dunkydunk]

Are you growing with open bulbs? Because if you can vent the lights separately from the room the exhaust won't kill your efforts to add humidity, and then you get the best of both worlds.

 

[Rootball]

Yeah. Just basic shades. I was looking to add the light cause it was just lying around but the overall cost of cool shades on the lights and reworking the ducting and filters to suit would be taking it too far just to try to include it. It would be the right way to do it though, I agree.

 

[dunkydunk]

Then I'm guessing you'll get more out of your plants, per watt, from the lights you have now and low humidity, then more light and NO humidity. Plants in flower in a room, really like 50-70% moisture.

Per Watt, is the key phrase here. You may get more overall yield by adding 400 watts, but from less fruitful plants. A lot of it depends on how well you have everything else dialed in.

Part of dialing it in is having the humidity correct for the strain you're growing.

 

[Rootball]

Then I'm guessing you'll get more out of your plants, per watt, from the lights you have now and low humidity, then more light and NO humidity. Plants in flower in a room, really like 50-70% moisture.

Per Watt, is the key phrase here. You may get more overall yield by adding 400 watts, but from less fruitful plants. A lot of it depends on how well you have everything else dialed in.

Part of dialing it in is having the humidity correct for the strain you're growing.

I think that's been my gut feeling so far. I did a bit of searching just to find out what folk thought about extreme low humidity in flowering and couldn't find a straight answer as to whether it was an issue or not. Some folk said as you do, that 50+% was around ideal and some folk seemed to believe that the lower the better in flowering as it stimulates resin production.

I tend to side along with your opinion though but still feel that it's not completely black and white going by the forum posts I've seen.

I guess I might drop the 400 watt light and go back to better humidity. Less risk.