FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

This is cross posted from another forum. Apologies if that's not allowed, I'll delete the post in that case. Just looking to get all the advice I can.

Hey all!

I'm recently (trying to) upgrade to a larger grow tent(10'x10) that I can walk inside of instead of my current 2'x4' setup as I'm quickly running out of space.

The problem: I want to keep the tent 90-95% humidity or worst case, at least 80%. During the day, this puts the dew point at around 22-24C. This is an issue because the room (and the rest of my house) is generally at 20C or lower so I get a large amount of condensation on the walls of the tent. This drips down into the bottom of the tent (bypassing the watertight inner liner) and will eventually leak out the bottom of the tent. To combat this in my current setup, I have my entire 2'x4' tent inside of a flood table and I run a sump pump the periodically remove the built up water. This obviously isn't feasible with a 10'x10' flood table because I'm pretty sure they don't exist and even if they did exist, would be ridiculously expensive and also wouldn't even fit through my front door.

My current solutions:
#1 Create an elevated floor using plywood to place the tent on top of and then run strong fans to continuously blow air under the elevated floor to rapidly evaporate any condensation that drips out of the tent.
#2 Place plastic tarp under the tent so the water that drips out doesn't damage the floors. (Issue: water will still build up)
#3 Create some kind of watertight outside reservoir (like those DIY ice rinks) and place the tent inside and I guess some kind of sump pump to pump the water out. (Issue: the entire tent(including the inside) will now be sitting in some amount of water, probably something like 1/4" that the sump pump can't pump out)
#4 Insulate the entire tent. (I guess this works? But would be quite expensive and then I'm not even sure if would be enough to prevent condensation and would offer no solution if water does eventually build up at the bottom of the tent)
#5 Put plastic tarp on the inside of the tent along the walls. Theoretically the condensation would now occur on the tarp instead of the walls and I could place the bottom of the tarp on the inside of the inner liner and then just mop up the water periodically.

Some other info, not sure if it'll be relevant:
- I'm planning on cooling the tent by bringing in outside air and supplementing with an AC unit during the summer months.
- I'll have 2'x4' bakers racks sitting inside 2'x4' flood tables to actually put the plants on

Any suggestion's or feedback would be greatly appreciated. I'd love to see other people's indoor tent builds.

ChefDean wrote:My questions would be what and why? What are you growing that needs those conditions? And why do you need something that big?
Toronto gets warm enough and is humid enough that elevating the conditions are unnecessary for virtually all carnivorous plants. There are definitely some that would be more comfortable in the higher temp and humidity, but can also adapt to closer to ambient.
Next, visualizing the setup to make something that big work without damaging my house would give me pause. I would instead look at spending more on a small greenhouse outside that I could hook up to power (likely just an extension cord) to use when it's really hot or to keep it just above freezing for winter if using it for dormancy.

Pretty much all highland neps plus a few cephs and helis. I'm planning on converting my current 2'x4' into more of an ultra highland tent. I suppose nothing needs those conditions but it is what I'm currently providing in my small tent and I believe it's what they grow best in. The neps definitely need a temperature drop that (indoors) I can't get outside of a fully enclosed space. I suppose of course my last resort is always to simply provide less than ideal conditions but if I can at all give them the best conditions, I want to do so.
I don't want to set up a greenhouse because I'm likely going to be moving into the city in a year or two and may not have a yard to put it in. If I get a good system going with a tent, I'll be able to bring it with me as long as I have the space to put it. I do definitely want a nice outdoor greenhouse for my plants but I'm probably a decade away from settling down and owning a house haha.
The size is simply because I got an insanely good deal for this tent. I only really needed maybe a second 2'x4' or a single 4'x8' but a 4'x8' tent new would've cost close to the price I got two of these 10'x10' tents for plus I got a set of fans for free too.

andynorth wrote:I have an indoor greenhouse that does the same thing. I have a rubber mat, (The kind used for underneath sinks) that has about one inch walls all the way around it. The greenhouse is tilted forward just enough so as to allow me to keep a rolled up towel in the front. I have to swap out the towel every few days but this seems to work pretty well. I have 2 of the 2x2x4 grow tents. No issue with condensation in them since the fans are always going.

Would they happen to sell those rubber mat's in 10'x10' size haha I think I could achieve something similar with my idea #3. I'm envisioning something like this (obviously without the ice) to place the tent inside. How do you have your greenhouse tilted?

The rolled up towels is a good idea -- thank you! I think a simple (but manual) solution could be lining the edges of the tent (between the tent wall and inner liner) with rolled up towels and swapping them out when they get soaked. Although, this is pretty labor intensive for a 10'x10' tent and I'm not sure how easy it will be with racks in the way.

Panman wrote:

KingLouis_CLXXII wrote:I'm planning on converting my current 2'x4' into more of an ultra highland tent.

Do you mean lowland? I thought highland environs were cold and humid, not hot and humid. Just asking.

Only cold at night! Temps in 20-25C during the day. Rn my tent is peaks at 28C during the day and around 11-12C (target is 10C) at night.
If I'm successful in setting up this big tent, I'll make it ~22C day and ~5C nights