Grow tent light leaks vs full moon outside grow?!?

What flange did you pick up. May be some benefit for me that I didnt know about.

I am actually going to see if I can engage with the AC/I engineers to talk about a redesign of the tent to get those vent openings up higher. However, I am not to confident they really care.....

There is an 8" on the top, then an 8" on opposite sides of the wall, 14" down from the top. Two more 8" the bottom, plus some 4" on the bottom and two rectangle screened vents. For my application I cannot go out the top vent. I may actually go out one of the bottom vents, just have to add a couple 90's to get down and out.

You said there's an outlet on the roof of the tent? @CES

OK, the AC Infinity CloudLab 844 finally arrived. AC/I support was helpful with the delays and provided a little discount for the troubles. Very nice. Putting the tent up took about 3 minutes tops. Very simple, sturdy, zippers zip smoothly. I haven't had a chance yet to test light penetration. Off the bat, I can say I don't like the 8" vent ingress/egress placement. If you are not going to vent out the top, then the side vents are pretty low. Top of the tent to the top of the 8" vent is 14". I want to keep the fan/filter as high as possible to allow the LED light as much vertical adjustment. I will need to 90 degree the ductwork a couple times to get it down and out. I think the ingress/egress vent should be much higher allowing a straight run out as high as possible. The front plate is nice since I also got the AC/I fan/filter/silencer with the digital display. Not sure yet how I will get all three (fan/filter/silencer) inline since the egress point is so low. The three in total add up to about 46" of product, tight fit.... I hate to drop everything that low to get a straight run out. May have to have the filter vertical somehow, then 90 elbow into the fan. Will still have to 90 out of the silencer to get down to the vent egress point. Next will be the light test, but it may take me a week or so before I can work on it again.

Oh, and a comment on the AC/I fan and Spider Farmer SF-4000 LED. WHY do they not provide about 15ft of power cord. Geez, these cords are so short. WHY.... I would happily pay another couple bucks to have a much longer power cord. I may be going to buy some raw core (same gauge) and rewiring with longer cord depending on how it is connected. I like that better than extension cords even if it voids the warranty. But again, will have to see how it is connected. I don't want to modify to heavily.

First impression... thick material, easy setup, slightly disappointed with side upper vent placement.

Well, unfortunately my delivery just got damaged according to UPS and now has to be returned to sender. Guess i will have to wait another two weeks for a new one to be shipped......

I ordered the Ac last night. Fingers crossed.

ya, both the 4x4 and 5x5 in spider and mars have those half circle side panels that can unzip. The AC does not have those side panels. I guess the tent is a disposable component in the whole setup. At <200 bucks you just chuck if for something better if the first doesn't work. Or if you have space, use it for a drying tent or something.

Mars 5' has side panels, I mean.

4x4 and 5x5 from AC look identical.

@SinnerSpread Would the 5 X 5 be an option?

Absolutely. Heck the Mars and Spider 4x4 look identical. The only think I keep looking at the AC for is I will have an AC fan and the tent has that panel you can mount it to. Sure, probably marketing BS, but it looks cool :-)

It all really comes down to personal preference, I'm sure there are many that love both tents. I just know for me, that IF I don't have enough room to peel that tent all the way back, I'm going to be crawling around in the trenches, underneath the trellis lol.. looking like GI Joe... nope, not going to do it 😅

Looking at the drawing, it depends on which port you use for vent egress. There is a port on a static panel. There is a port on a zipper door. However, even with the zipper door, you would just fold it up to get to the back.

Yeah I don't know, I have a 3x3 and one thing I did take notice, is that I didn't want to attempt a balancing act on a tent any bigger than that. Watering also becomes kind of a chore, once the scrog is in place.

I'd have to look at the diagram. Does the 3 sided cut-out interfere with any of the outlet vents?

I was just going to grab the Mars Hydro 1680D 4x4, I'm not sure if I have enough room, in my room to be peeling a tent off it's frame everytime I need to water @CES

I just pulled the install doc for the 4x4. Looks like there are no sub-panels within each side wall (which actually I liked for less light leak potential through more zippers) but you can unzip all full three sides. I didn't think about the crawling around. I am just shy of 50 so I guess I should think about that. Maybe a lazy susan with an integrated trellis support so the scrog/sog can spin with the platform.

that is an interesting idea. I am looking to get the AC Infinity 4x4. Looks like it has an 8" round port at the bottom to accommodate that idea.

Matala filter media. That is the actual product name for what I described as black meshy plastic stuff. Haha. Put the super dense stuff on the outside of an air ingress port, those ports on the bottom of a tent, with a some Velcro. Keep a lot of light out and some particles maybe. Soon as I can prove I can actually buy seeds I will be buying my setup and will try this approach.

@CES Try and run your lights starting at about 7 am. Hopefully this will stop natural light (from windows ect) from leaking into the tent via the intake vents. I would like to be clear that I am not the smartest individual 😅 but I have yet to hermie tf out of my plants, so I'm guessing I'm on the right track.

I was thinking about that. Open the vent by the wall. maybe even put some of that black meshy plastic stuff over the vent opening to allow air ingress but block some of the light. "meshy plastic stuff" is a very technical, scientific term .....lol

Yeah my setup isn't any better. I did however put the tent in the corner (using the two intake vents nearest to the wall), and typically run my lights during the daytime hours.

Agreed. However, understanding why we do what we do and the science behind it is beneficial so we are not solely spreading tribal knowledge, which has its own merit.

in my case I have a finished 3rd floor for my tent which has its own thermostat to control the heat/ac. This room is about 1400 sqft of finished open space and has some windows. They have shutters but are not 100% blacked out. So understanding the exact reasoning helps me with doing what is needed but not going overboard for a space that also has my wife’s sewing/crafting setup (crap...haha) and also a home theater setup.

@CES most folks try to place the tent in a spare bedroom, closet, or basement (where they can control the environment around the tent, and the light source).

I am so glad you asked this. I was just searching for the same thing. We read about pinhole lights coming through zippers in reviews, but there is a ~15x35cm (or several, and whatever size, depending on the tent) opening for air ingress. Kind of defeats the purpose of talking about pinholes when there is a huge ingress vent. Maybe the conversation should be about how to allow appropriate air ingress AND limiting SPECIFIC types of light to come in....

Great response from @Creager ... Someone asked this is a YouTube video comment and I was thinking about answering it in a video.

Yeah the wolf moon we had what 2 weeks ago? That was wicked bright. I'm a trashman @ work usually around 4am and I could see everything perfectly. I don't know if that accounts for those special occurences or not. Was def an interesting read to go deep into the Reddit's and find out

OK...well. I guess that explains it! From the naked, human eye, the moon doesn't seem that "dim" (Full moon last night here in Palm Springs..."seemed" almost like daylight out!) but it does seem to explain the diff. THX!

The gist of it - Photosynthesis uses the energy from photons of light to produce chemical energy in the form of carbohydrates. The plant doesn't know if a photon bounced off the moon before it came to Earth.

But, plants require a certain number of photons (a certain amount of energy from light) to undergo photosynthesis. The light intensity that we get reflected off the moon is an order of 100-1000 times too little to support photosynthesis in most terrestrial plants/trees.

Moonlight from full moon can support a small amount of photosynthesis in certain plant life - maybe algae, plankton.

The light intensity from say, growing indoors is much brighter from human created light bulbs which do give off enough energy for the plant to photosythensize even if only a small amount. This is why light leaks on indoor grow tents is a huge deal

Source - Reddit