How many of you...

[Indigo]

halo guys, i have one easy question i want to ask you guys. u see i have 2 timers and 1 for the light and one for the fan. but i don't have one for my fogger.. so i was planning to leave the fan on for 24/7 is this ok? take the timer from the fan to the fogger. and the fan is water proof too don't. so the 100% humidity when the fogger is on won't do a thing on it but i just worry that it will burn out. how many of you guys leave the fan on for 24 hours? fan + fogger = rain !!!! so hopefully this will prevent the algae growing on the pot

 

[SirKristoff]

well i had my fan on 24/7 for awhile but i realized this didnt provide a nightly drop in humidity that i wanted to get. its really up to you though.

 

[JMurphy97]

Don't you want the humidity to rise at night? I had my fan but it killed my humidity and dried everything out. That's when I had it on for an hour or so. I just stopped using it and have to mold or algae.

 

[Indigo]

i m confused. do plants require higher humidity at night or lower humidity at night?

 

[cmm889]

why dont you just take a surge protector and plug that into your "lights" timer plug your lights and fan onto that, so they shut off at the same time...

keep the seperate timer for the fogger since it needs a different set of time to be on/off

typically your plants will appreciate a higher RH at night... thats how it works outside.. and you know plants do love the outdoors

 

[Indigo]

why dont you just take a surge protector and plug that into your "lights" timer plug your lights and fan onto that, so they shut off at the same time...

keep the seperate timer for the fogger since it needs a different set of time to be on/off

typically your plants will appreciate a higher RH at night... thats how it works outside.. and you know plants do love the outdoors

haha excellent idea =] well their only tiny nepenthes like 1 to 3 inch diameter and their HL nepenthes so i don't think they will like it outside in MD. and thanks for ur brilliant idea.

 

[SirKristoff]

i meant nightly rise in humidity XP i get it mixed up with drop in Temp. sorry about that LOL

 

[dravenxavier]

I keep both of my fans on 24/7, though I was also toying with the idea of having them go off after lights-out. But so far everything's going well, so I'm hesitant to mess with it.

 

[technoracer]

i have two 4" pc fans mounted inside my 55gal grow tank that run 24/7/365. i just have them hooked up to a small power inverter to supply the required voltage.

my tank is 90% covered btw.

peace,
tech...

 

[Jefforever]

What kind of fogger you using? If it's ultrasonic it could dry up if forgotten and then it would not be good. Also, it would wear out faster if you left it on all the time.

You might want to keep it on a timer.

 

[swords]

I bought 4" PC fans at Radio Shack, and just cut the receptacle end off an $0.89 extension cord and wired them together. Works nice but $20 for a fan sucks! They do last practically forever and are silent which is nice!

One thing that was great for my Neps was a greenhouse humidistat that had a power cord that the ultrasonic humidifier plugged into (a "piggy back cord"). Place the sensor in the grow chamber and set it at 100%, dial it back until the air is well saturated with fog but not raining and you're done messing around as the temps change at night the humidistat adjusts accordingly.

You can build your own greenhouse humidistat with a standard wall humidistat from Home Depot, and something called a "piggy back extension cord" which allows one item to be plugged into another's power cord and the one controls the other. Just ask for a piggy back power cord at Home Depot or similar shop - get one with a nice long cord. Cut off the extension receptacle - not the piggy back power plug / receptacle! Wire the loose end to the humidistat (on an unmarked power cord of two plastic coated wires the one with a lined pattern is the live (+) wire) and place the setup in the driest part of your terrarium.

A standard household humidistat's only go to 60% RH and for Neps you want 80%+ so find a dry spot, my "sweet spot" was up by the lights as far away from the air input as possible to override the sensor and keep pumping in the wet air from the ultrasonic humidifier (just fill it every day or two, easy as pie, you'll be misting/looking at the plants anyway). Once you get the initial placement plug in the humidifiers cord into the "piggy back" plug and plug the humidistat plug in turn it on and wait an hour or so to see what temp / humidity readings come up as, adjust accordingly til you get the readings you want. Once you get the humidistat placement, mark it and remove it from the grow chamber and cover the wire connections in silicone to secure and water proof it. Once the silicone cures place it back in the grow chamber at the marked spot and send in the fog!

Forget those terrarium/table top fountain foggers, they're fragile and tend to not last very long nor make much fog other than for effect. Get an ultrasonic one from the pharmacy that has a 1-2 gallon water tank on it for $30 and cover the output hole with a hose of a similar diameter (1"-2") and run the hose to your grow area. I have a reef wave timer /power strip thing that I plugged a humidifier into and it keeps an on/off schedule of 30 secs to 2 mins you can get something like that for $20 at the pet shop to play around with if you don't wanna buy a household humidistat and wire it yourself or pay $80 for a prebuilt one from a greenhouse supplier.

Here's the plug I'm talking about: