I have a home made humidifier that is actually outside of my grow room (the grow room is not big enough to put a humidifier it in) and the humidity is sent through PVC pipe into the grow room. It works great and I clean the tub every 2 weeks but I noticed mold starting to grow in the pipes. I am starting to notice mold in the PVC pipes and I am wondering about an additive I can put in the water to prevent that. The PVC pipe you see actually goes forward to the grow room about 6' away then tees off so that both the veg and flower side get humidity. The pipe isn't glued so I could disassemble the pipes to clean but that would be a real pain. I know I can clean the pipes with some speaker wire to pull a cleaning rag through but again, that's a lot of work. About 25' of pipe total. BTW, this humidifier I built works great so if anyone is interested in some instructions, I can provide those. TIA
Ditch the humidifer u dont need it. ive vegged at 20% rh all the way to flower no problem. might have been closer to 30% at this point cuz they started keeping humidity up in the whole house.
I'm using Foxfarms dirt and nutes and 3 300W Viparspectra lights per side, same as I have been using for the last couple of years. When I added the humidifier before this latest grow that is so lush, I also added a portable A/C unit ducted into the grow area (you can see the black flex tubing in the picture) because the room was running about 90+ degrees. Maybe that's why it's growing so much better than previous grows?
I don't think you can stop the growth inside of the pipes if it's a warm mist humidifier because as the water evaporates it leaves behind nothing in it meaning no ingrediant will be delivered in order to treat mold or bacteria growth. A cool mist on the other hand will send everything into the air including calcium. I tried the same thing you did but the water condensation in the pipes caused me to stop. Now I just control the humidity of the room I get air from. Works much better. Lower temperatures will help your plant thrive in lower humidity for sure.
Well damn. I thought I was so brilliant with the humidifier! I'll just use the A/C unit and see what that does. Thanks so much for the feedback guys!