Humidity indoors

[Burton]

I am interested to hear from people with indoor systems.

 

My parental figures who think I will always be their "baby" were worried about my AP project because some far off acquaintance of the family destroyed their house with something "similar." My first though was, I am not a pot head so I am not that stupid, as this individual most likely was in my book.

Anyway they claimed they had to redo all the drywall because of mold and replace the ducting ...

 

Now I already thought about getting a dehumidifier anyway but really wanted to hear from others with indoor systems to see just how big of a problem it is for you and what you are doing to combat it.

 

My system will use a 300gal tank with LED lights and the HID's will only be on 4 hours a day (should be a huge factor in having less humidity via evaporation)

 

Thoughts?

[TCLynx]

Just leave a bit of a gap or some translucent cover and light will get to them, most don't need much light unless you are trying to get them to breed.  they just want to be able to tell the difference between night and day.

[Burton]

with my "supplemental" 400/600w HID's coming on for an hour every 4 hours I wonder if this would confuse them even with a translucent filter ... I imagine some of my LED light will make its way down into the tank but not much ... However most fish see far into UV - orange which are pronounced in the LED's ...

Should be an interesting experiment...

 

Going to work out a solution today on how to drain beds which are NOT above the fish tank as the beds are 20" deep and the FT is 26" high, 46" too high for a bed without a platform ... But I would still have just over 5' of grow room even if I did go this route.

However if I keep the GB's under 36" (still a manageable height since I am 6') then I only have about 14" of room under the beds for "gravity" to work its magic ... meaning the sump has to be 16" high or I need to invent a new siphon ... which by the way I have but have not had a chance to test it and it would work in this situation very well now that I think about it >./p>

 

 

[TCLynx]

Well now is when the real challenge starts.  With deep beds you don't necessarily have to drain them all the way down.  As long as the water mixes each cycle and you are cycling regularly some water in the bottom several inches of grow bed is not a problem.  Actually I know a guy with meter deep grow beds and he only drains them half way.

 

Here is a drawing that I posted/edited to another member here who will likely use timed flood and drain but it shows a deep grow bed and a fish tank that is too tall to put the grow bed over it.  Hopefully this will help you get some ideas.

 

 

[Burton]

yeah I remember that picture :) ... does the bacteria still do a bang up job if they don't get the same oxygen they would get with a full drain? Maybe I could put some aerator stones in the GB lol ... or just make a couple floating bed filters for the main FT

[TCLynx]

So long as the water is well aerated and you are flooding the beds regularly, seems to work fine.  I'm some constant flood beds and as long as the flow rate is high enough, the bio-filter actually keeps up far better than in a flood and drain system.