Secret Jardin - Dark Propagator 60

Propagation tent of 60 × 40 × 60 cm with M210D mylar canvas, a Ø 16 mm chrome-plated steel frame and a removable water tray. Built for a plant's first weeks, not for a whole cycle.

Why you ventilate far more slowly here than in a grow tent

Anyone arriving from a grow tent tends to fit a fan that is too strong. It is an understandable move and it works against you, and Secret Jardin's own figures show exactly why.

For a grow tent Secret Jardin works to an air change of one to two minutes. For the Dark Propagator the sheet says two to four minutes. The air in this tent is replaced up to four times more slowly than in a flowering tent of comparable quality.

That difference follows from what extraction is actually for. In a flowering tent you are mostly removing heat: a lamp of several hundred watts warms the space and that energy has to go somewhere. In a propagation tent you are running 20 to 40 watts. There is almost no heat to remove, so the only reasons to move air are replenishing CO2 and preventing stale, still air.

And there is something you actively want to keep. Cuttings have no roots yet and so cannot take up water, while their leaves carry on transpiring. They survive those first days on humid air. Extract hard and you pull exactly that moisture out, and they wilt even though your temperature is fine.

In practice: reckon on 10 to 50 m³/h and set your fan to the lowest speed that still moves air. A small inline fan running at 20 percent belongs here more than a large one at full power.

Sixty centimetres, and what fits in it

The tent is 60 cm tall in total. After a propagator tray and a small lamp you have room for plants of roughly a hand's span or three, and that is precisely the intention: this is where seed germinates and cuttings root, after which everything moves out. Secret Jardin advises 40 watts of LED for ordinary raising and 20 watts for germinating seed.

Mind the load rating: 10 kg per pole and 10 kg for the whole tent. This is the only size in the range where those two numbers are the same, so very little can hang in here.

Technical Specifications:

• Assembled dimensions: 60 × 40 × 60 cm
• Floor area: 0.24 m²
• Volume: 0.1 m³
• Weight: 3.3 kg
• Advised extraction: 10 to 50 m³/h, air change of 2 to 4 minutes
• Advised lighting: 40 W LED at Level II, 20 W at Level I
• Load capacity: 10 kg per pole, 10 kg per tent
• Frame: Ø 16 mm Q195 steel, chrome plated
• Canvas: M210D mylar
• Bottom and bag: PE600D and PE210D
• Ducting flanges: 2 × DF16 with a Ø 100 mm ring
• Included: WTL6040 water tray, light baffle, CF7 cable flange, 15 × CableIT
• Revision: R4.00

Frequently asked questions

Can I flower a plant in here?
Not usefully. At 60 cm of total height there is room to germinate and root, after which the plant has to move on.

Do I need a carbon filter?
For the raising stage, rarely. The advised extraction figures already assume a filter fitted, so you need very little capacity either way.

Why should I not extract hard in here?
Because rootless cuttings live on humid air. Too much air change dries them out before they have made roots.