An indoor hydroponic grow room can be set up just about anywhere, from a spare room to a garage or shed. There are just a few things that you need to take into consideration when picking out the perfect place for your hydroponic grow room.
To get an idea of just what your plants will require, picture a sunny spot of an outside garden on a warm summer's day. Just about any plant will grow well in these conditions. And this is the same exact conditions that we need to recreate in an indoor hydroponic grow room. There are three major categories that we need to focus on in creating a grow room: temperature, humidity, light.
Hydroponic Grow Room Temperatures
Temperature is one of the most important design considerations you must consider when setting up your hydroponic grow room. Most plants do well in a temperature range of 20-28°C, with the mid twenties being optimal.
It is not that difficult to achieve this temperature range in your grow room, especially when the lights are on. In your warmer climates if your temps become too high, inlet & extractor fans pumping the hot air out of the room will control temps well.
You can set up a thermostat to your fan to automate things. When the lights are off you need to make sure that your temperatures do not become too low. Most of all you will want to avoid huge temperature fluctuations between the day and night cycles because this will make your plants poorly formed.
Hydroponic Grow Room Humidity
Another aspect of controlling the conditions in your hydroponic grow room is maintaining a healthy humidity level. Excessive humidity for long periods will create undesirable conditions that are perfect for grey mould. Grey mould, once started, will quickly spread and affect your entire crop.
Using a device called a hygrometer mounted on the wall inside your hydroponic grow room will let you know at a quick glance what your humidity levels are. Humidity levels of just above 50%, is perfect and should not go above this. It is important to keep nutrient reservoirs covered at all times so that they do not contribute to higher humidity levels.
Humidity levels can be easily controlled as with temperature by using inlet & extractor fans to rid the room of heat or humidity. As a general rule it is good to keep your grow rooms dry. This will prevent any mould problems.
Hydroponic Grow Room Lights
If you had to choose one thing that was the most important in maintaining your hydroponic grow room it would be lighting. Now this will not matter much if you are in a greenhouse located outside, but if you are in a cellar or in a structure with a normal roof you will have to provide the light yourself and recreate light that is similar to the suns rays.
The good news is that with modern day horticulture, technology has created sun light that operates in an efficient and cost effective manner. In fact if you are choosing to set up a hydroponic grow room indoors it is best that you use only artificial lighting and do not bring light in through windows or skylights. Artificial lighting is easily controlled and provides the growers the ability to set the lights on timers to turn them on and off as needed.
By using artificial lighting the grower can simulate the long days of summer for high growth levels, and slowly start reducing the light to simulate fall and induce the plants to start flowering. A hydroponic grow room designed well will produce great results in almost any type of plant that you decide to grow.
