- Easy to use - Improves grow tent environment for healthier growth - Ideal for propagation areas and mother tents - Perfect for small to medium grow tents - Easily replaceable parts Ultra-sonic misters raise the humidity in a hydroponic grow tent environment. Particularly important for seedlings/cuttings and younger plants being established throughout the vegetative period, getting your humidity right can significantly improve your overall plant health, vigour and overall yield as a result. Overlook your environment no more, these mist makers are the perfect humidity solution. How Do Ultra-Sonic Mist Makers Work? Born from the sort of technology usually seen in decorative ponds, these units usually served the purpose of creating a decorative fog over eye catching water features. It didn’t take the modern-day grower long to realise how effectively these could be used in an indoor hydroponic grow room (or grow tent)! One of the easiest solutions to raise humidity, these units are now the go-to purchase of many an indoor gardener for raising humidity levels. The unit consists of a small metal puck, that itself houses 3 or 5 small ceramic discs. The puck sits within a small plastic float, which keeps it floating at the correct water level during operation. The puck and float are placed in a container of water (ideally connected to an auto-top up valve) and the power then supplied. Once activated, the 3(or 5) ceramic discs vibrate at an ultra-sonic rate, producing a mist of extremely fine water particles. The units can be connected to a humidistat or timer for a more controlled release, to fine tune your conditions. The fine particle mist is arguably more efficient at raising the humidity levels than centrifugal based humidifiers. The ‘mist’ produced from the humidifiers must first evaporate into the environment before the relative humidity rises. A mist with a smaller particle size requires less energy to do this, as the total surface area of water is a lot greater. So, while these units may not offer the overall coverage of products like the HR units, they do offer a much greater efficacy. Typically the Mist Maker 3 will handle grow rooms/tents with up to 4x 600w grow lights in and the Mist Maker 5 will handle around 7-8x 600w grow lights. How Does Humidity Work? In an indoor grow tent, humidity is possibly the most important aspect of the environment and at the same time, the most overlooked one. It is responsible for controlling the amount of transpiration in a plant and without adequate transpiration levels your plant will suffer! Particularly important for young plants with small root zones, a low humidity will result in your plants transpiring excessively, resulting in limp, droopy and floppy plants. Eventually leading to wilting, leaf tip burn and all round poorly/possibly dead plants. Too high a high humidity will result in very low transpiration rates, causing issues with positive root pressure (leading to stretching) and leading to nutrient issues with elements such as calcium. Having the relative humidity at the right levels throughout all stages of your grow will ensure a healthy balance between root pressure and transpiration, which will in turn result in optimal photosynthesis rates, nutrient uptake and an optimal cooling capacity. 99% of all the water your plant takes up goes into keeping itself cool. Typically, less than 1% is used for photosynthesis. The relative humidity levels you need throughout an entire grow vary considerably, and without adequate controls in place, your plants are in for a rough ride. In a nut shell, you want to have a nice high relative humidity in your hydroponics grow room when your plants are young. Then lower it down as your plants get larger, before they start creating dense flowers. A high humidity level for younger, establishing plants is ideal to stop excessive transpiration levels. A lower humidity for older flowering plants is necessary to prevent the onset of diseases like Botrytis (grey mould) destroying your entire crop. Throughout the growing cycle, you need to harden your plants off to a lower humidity as quickly as possible, but at the same time gradually enough to not place excessive water stress on them. As each new leaf set is produced in a growing plant, it creates a definite number of stomata. This number of stomata depends on the conditions at the time and will not change as the leaf becomes larger. So, as each new leaf set is created, you need to gradually change the environment conditions to tell the plant to create more stomata on each successive set of leaves. More stomata per leaf means they will perform better in the demanding environment they will find themselves in towards the end of the flowering cycle. TIPS ON USING We recommended to use these in conjunction with Reverse Osmosis, or de-ionised water. Not only will it improve the longevity of the units themselves, but it will also avoid any potential residues left on other equipment like carbon filters, or grow light reflectors. Ensure you have a decent container of water for the puck (tub-trugs are great for this), and ideally a reasonably large reservoir that is connected via an auto top-up valve. This way your unit will be highly unlikely to ever run in dry conditions, potentially damaging the ceramic discs. While timers can be used with this unit to control humidity levels, it is recommended to use a suitable humidistat to ensure your humidity is at exactly the right level, all the time. Check your humidity levels at a few points throughout your grow tent or grow room. Take an average of these readings so you get a good view of exactly what is happening in your room. Make sure the probe/unit is out of direct light, around canopy level when taking readings. Always make sure you have a few of the replacement ceramic discs spare, so when they do expire, you can get it back up and running in no time.
