Hey Bub.
2 separate beasts to tackle with that first question:
The aquarium chiller is situated outside of the tent. There is a secondary, smaller, pump that pumps water out of the reservoir, through the chiller, and back in to the reservoir. The aquarium chiller does put off a bit of heat, but it's negligible since it's outside of the tent. Probably about as much as 2 tower PCs.
I do run an A/C unit piped straight in to this tent, and that air conditioned air is filtered out of the tent through a 6" fan/filter in to my "lung room". Pumping cold air straight in to the tent gives me the ability to really control the temperature in that environment. The lung room, by effect, is also cooled down which in turn keeps the other 2 tents and my cut rack happy. The air conditioner JUST got turned on this morning for the first time since October 2022. In the winter months I'm able to manipulate my 'on' time to run during the cooler hours (nights) and the 'off' time to run during the warmer hours (days). The temperature stays where I want it. The exception to that is during the last few weeks of flower, if I want to bring out some color I will manipulate the day/night temperatures lower than what I'd get without using the air conditioner.
The submersible pumps do put out a bit of heat. The chiller lets me not even give it a second thought. The model I have (JBJ Aquatica 1/15HP) can keep the 27g reservoir within a 1/2 degree F of where I set it consistently. I have found that 66f is my happy reservoir temperature.
I've experimented with different numbers of plants in this setup. 4 is perfect (for me). The limitation of this system is that the plants need to be all one strain, or have similar growing/feeding traits. You can't feed individual plants, you're feeding the reservoir as a whole. Keep that in mind!
You're correct, the FCE8000 BARELY fits in the 4x4 tent. It's stake-stake full. It wasn't troublesome to fit, but it was close! I run a 6" AC Infinity Fan and Filter and they are at the very top of the interior of the tent. If I were gonna run anything Sativa dominant I would consider moving the fan/filter to outside the tent. Otherwise, I have the perfect amount of space in a tent with an 80" height.
I think that covers everything. If I missed anything, or you'd like me to elaborate, please just say the word.
G
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