So I've been noticing that my lights on temps have been climbing over the last couple of weeks. The intake to the room is 15"x15" & is covered with a mid grade furnace filter. Well this morning I checked the plants plants before heading out to work and it was 95 fucking deg. in the grow room. I sliced open the flex duct near the srubber & it became clear that the srubber was clogged as soon opened up the duct. with the carbon filter clogged you would think the pre-filter would be clogged as well but it wasn't. Granted it was a cheap scrubber (only $50) http://www.amazon.com/LED-Wholesalers-GYO2306-Hydroponic-Scrubber/dp/B0050HSL4U but I figured it would last a bit longer that 3 months. Are the genuin CAN filters worth the extra money? Opinions please Thanks Duc
you can't grow without scrubbers unless you like going to prison. I turned my off due to a huge leak today and had to clean up, I think you can smell it half mile away. Seems like it anyways, I know that my neighbors can smell it that's for sure They get sized by the fan, you need to pair them up correctly so that it works. Don't go to big on the fan or you won't scrub the air, it will just pull it through without removing the stink Fan size should be cubic area of your room scrubbed every 5 minutes minimal, shoot for 3 minutes Also, buy one that you can flip over as they only pull through the upper half of the can. Some have this feature for a few more bucks but it's cheaper than buying a new scrubber in 18 mnths
Thanks nip, No doubt it I had plants flowering I'd have to take action to clean things up. . I'm vegging them for another 3 weeks before the flip so I'm good to go. Dude, I thought I had a large enough scrubber. The fan is a 6" Panasonic whisperline 240 cfm & the srubber was rated for 310 cfm. I believe the vendor also combo'd that srubber with some sort of 240 cfm fan. Fuck it man, I'm just gong to try another brand. Cheers Duc
my scrubber is rated to change the air about every 3.5 minutes and 1 week a month every things reeks royally look ganja in my nieghborhood. You HAVE to control the smell during flowering or you will get popped. I use a combo of ONA auto sprayer (every 5 minutes) and carbon scrubbers. PM if you are having trouble, look at spending about 250 with fan and can to do the job correctly depending on grow area
I've got it under control but thanks. The fan it perfect, I just need a new scrubber which I'll have in a few days:jj: duc
I popped for a CAN-LITE 600cfm scrubber instead of trying another one of the el'Cheapo $50 amazon deals. Once it's up and runnng I plan to cut open the old one to see just what clogged that fucker up. Like I said, the passive intake to the room is filters and the scrubber had is't pre-filter installed. Googling lead me to a nice hydro shop in GA with reasonable shipping rates. They're selling the Can-Lite srubbers for close to $150 shipped which is about average for what I found on the webz. Should have it in a couple days if all goes well. The new setup will be my existing 240cfm Whisperline inline fan pulling though a 600cfm scrubber. That should do the job and last for quite a few runs. Duc
Pardon the piggy-back hijack You seem like you're all set Duc, so please excuse the hijack. I think I'm having a problem with my scrubbing system as well. I can smell dank air now, halfway through week six of flower. I cannot smell it the hall outside my bedroom, in the bathroom located on the other side of my grow room, or in the attic (to where my grow room fan exhausts air through my scrubber). But I can smell it in my bedroom. My grow room is only 256 cubic feet. I exhaust the room with a non-stop running 6" 450cfm Vortex (more than likely running at closer to 300cfm), pulling through a 6" scrubber. It wasn't a cheap scrubber, it's a Hydrofarm product I bought at a local hydro shop. Running it non-stop shouldn't cut down on the scrubber's life span right? I thought their life spans were more rated by the amount of smell they have removed. I wonder if I don't have a scrubber issue... My vented reflector runs a circuit from my bedroom, through the light and back into the bedroom. Could leaks in this circulation line be causing the smell probs? Maybe it's drawing in MJ air and blowing it into my room?
I am a luck man as I exhaust into my sewer drain so no need for a scrubber. my active intake and exhaust run 24/7 and the room is sealed.
Even a closed loop running your lights will draw in some garden air as it passes through your fixture. That's most likely where your odor is coming from. Why are you running a isolated lamp loop in a non-CO2 garden? The simplest fix is to draw air through your filter then reflector then exhaust out. No need for two systems.
I would second RR opinions for sure. Carbon scrubbers really aren't rated for anything except air volume. I would suggest buying a can that you can "flip" at the one year mark to get a longer lasting scrubber. They only pull air through the top half of the can so when you flip it you get a new life out of the can. They do cost a little more maybe $20, but it saves you from buying a new can every 1.5 years. Almost all hydro stores carry these now, basically it's the same scrubber, but the ends are removable so you can make the switch Could your problem be to big of a fan?? If fan is over sized, you'll not get rid of the stink. Also full flower, its just hard to get rid of the stink sometimes..that's why I use auto ONA also but I would not suggest using ONA on it's on except for a VERY VERY small garden
Some scrubbers are a pita to setup like you described. With mine the bottom of the filter is closed and is made that way. You could mount the filter to one end of the light and the fan (the black part of the scrubber in this pic) to the other end but again, pita!
I don't think that's my issue. As previously stated, the area to which my fan directly exhausts doesn't smell like weed. In other words, I'm dumb: my scrubber has nothing to do with this issue, it's working as intended. It must be my light vent loop leaking.
Didn't really know there was another way to do it. I think that might take me from the frying pan into the fire. Won't that setup still draw dankity air outa my grow space since it pulls through the filter first, then through leaky air line, and then the leaky hood? Then it just pushes the still dank air into the attic, at which point some goes outside and some goes back down into other living areas of the house (old house, no silboards). I dunno. I'm very unsatisfied with my ventilation setup. It keeps the temp proper, but I had to sacrifice the electric heater in my bedroom, the grow room fan never shuts off, the humidity never goes above 25% in the grow room, and my room smells like weed. Gotta be another way to do this shit.
Less systems = less leaks to find. The idea is to lessen the complexity thereby lessening possible problems. Get used to the fan noise to some degree. It's part and parcel with growing.
Nippie, What's ONA? OG, I don't think you should really need to vent the hood considering the size of your room if you're really pulling 300cfm through the scrubber. My grow space is a bit smaller than yours & I running 600w with a simple bat wing deflector. My exhaust layout is as followes. 600cfm Can lite carbon srubber connected using 18" of flex duct to a 6" 240 cfm Whisperline fan, the fan exhausts though 18 feet of insulated duct. The exhaust is damn near silent, really it's that quiet. Right now I have to restrict the intake a bit to keep the temps in the mid to upper 70s. I'll let you know how it works in five or six weeks :jj: Duc
if you attach the fan proper you can get a great seal (use some foil tape) and if you pull air though the filter then push through you hood it is not a problem you never want to use negative pressure to pull air because then leaks let stink in, if you setup the fans to push the clean air leaks just let a little clean air out but the smell is still contained
I have to disagree. I have yet to take the filter out of the box. My 6" CAN exhausts thru the ceiling, under the attic floor boards and there's no smell. Ask Headcase. That's the first thing he was looking for and the fan wasn't even running (lights out)
Won't that create positive pressure in my grow room? If I were to set things up so that one fan was pulling through the scrubber, and pushing through my reflector, won't that will still result in dank air going into adjacent air spaces? Or would the negative pressure in the room still cancel out positive?
Noise is fine, hardly even noticeable. While I do value simplicity, it's not my utmost priority. The goal is a grow room in which I have as close as possible to 100% control over temperature, humidity, and smell, while keeping my bedroom hospitable. Course I want to achieve that as simply as possible. But the truth is I couldn't care less about the exact details of the system. I'm not wedded to the idea of any one setup over another. Is this not a recommendable goal? I had a close look at the attic today. I think I can safely push up to 1000cfm into the attic and it will make its way outside instead of back down into the house. With my 600w as close to the canopy as it currently is (18" or so), ~100CFM being moved through the hood, and a box fan set to low blowing over the top of the canopy, the canopy temp stays at around 72. Considering that, I'm not sure I'd be comfortable doing away with the vented reflector. Especially not with summer heat right around the corner. I think I can temporarily solve my smell issue by rerouting the reflector loop. Instead of pulling from my bedroom, and exhausting back into the bedroom, I'm going to pull from the bedroom and exhaust to the attic. Hell if I wanted I could even exhaust directly to one of the exterior vents up there.
