I’m trying some small mushroom kits with the kids for fun .
(i.e. These are just mushroom fruiting blocks - however, I’ve been told I should do the inoculation kits, to learn more about mushrooms/mycellium lifecycle - but maybe later, I guess).
However, on many of the kits, they state those species either require or prefer fairly low temperatures (e.g. 10-15 C / 50-59F).
I’m hoping to use a similar setup to what I use for my carnivorous tissue culture plants:
LED lights (Ionbeam S16) - they’re not very powerful lights, only 42W - but should be enough here?
However, even though I’m using LEDs for lighting, they still generate heat. Further, the tent itself is in an air-conditioned apartment, which is usually around 20 C.
How would you efficiently cool a grow tent like this, to say 10 C to keep the mushrooms happy?
(I assume maybe getting a separate air-conditioning unit for the tent is possible, but very costly in terms of equipment and running costs, right?)
Also - does anybody know where you can find the ideal parameters for lighting, and air-exchange for the different mushroom species/lifecycle stages?
For such a small tent, you really don’t need the AC Infinity gear… it’s totally overkill. The in-line fan would work fine as one big extractor fan for venting your tent outside your house, but you wouldn’t want to have it running all the time because it would over-power your humidifier and a/c unit and you’d have no control over the tent climate… so you need to be able to control it… on/off/ and PWM speed?
I’m using 2 6-inch Noctua computer fans (4-wire 12v fans) which are speed-controlled directly from the Pi’s PWM channel and they offer more than enough air exchange for a 3x3 tent.
Either way you’ll definitely want to vent any exhaust from the mushroom tent directly to the outside of the house to prevent humidity buildup and mold issues in your house (and also so you’re not breathing spores from the mushrooms when they fruit).
Also, you really don’t need an LED grow light for mushrooms… mushrooms need indirect low light, so just a couple of clip-lights with regular light bulbs would be plenty for a small tent, and eliminate the extra heat factor.
You’ll probably be refilling that 4.5L humidifier at least once a day, if not more. Not sure what your target RH is, but most mushrooms like it between 80%-90% RH while fruiting. This will depend largely on how often you cycle the air in the tent.
As far as keeping the tent cooler than the surrounding room… the only real option is a portable A/C unit that can be externally controlled by using a wired external temperature sensor that you can install inside the tent. And yes, this increases expense as those portable AC units are not cheap… and since most grow tents are not insulated, the AC unit would be cycling on and off a lot.
Another option might be to use one of those “as-seen-on-tv” “mini personal cooling fan”… which is basically nothing more than a mini evaporative cooler… running a small evaporative cooler can drop tempeatures as much as 10F or more depending on the ambient temp and relative humidity of the supply-side air in the room… only drawback is you have to keep filling it with distilled water only, or else the cooling pads become caked with mineral residue and can no longer cool efficiently and need to be replaced much more often.
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