Cheap C02 Solutions?

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projectmayham

Active Member
Hey everyone. I'm new to the forum's. I need help finding cheap c02 ?? I don't have the money for a burner or tank.... I have checked out the c02 boost, but i keep reading its crap.... what else is their out their? I wanted to get your opinions before i head to the hydro store???

I got a 10x10 and i can easily seal off ventilation....
 
Little Tommy

Little Tommy

Well-Known Member
You can use a large jug and add warm water, yeast & sugar to create CO2 in the same way as most fermentation processes work. The CO2 is a by product of the fermentation.
 
hoagtech

hoagtech

Well-Known Member
You could..
Sell your car and buy a co2 burner and a controller
Or
You could sell all your furniture and buy a co2 burner and a controller.
Or

don't use co2 until you have until you have the money. Your plants will be healthy without it and if your not big enough to afford it, you really don't need it. It's like putting rims on a go cart
 
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budleydoright

Well-Known Member
It is way cheaper to just get a tank. You'll go through lots of sugar and yeast, the flow won't be consistent, it's messy and can smell. You can buy a regulator on ebay of 80 bucks shipped, find a 20# tank on craigslist or rent one. 20 dollar refill lasts me an average of 30 days.

If you don't commit to a sealed room, your probably better off fine tuning your air exchange.
 
Little Tommy

Little Tommy

Well-Known Member
BustedParaphernalia said:
How effective would that actually be?
Click to expand...
I found it to be effective. It was making plenty of CO2 that was disbursed above the canopy. I also brew beer so I had an extra fermentation vessel hanging around. There are up and downsides to it. I just couldn't see the benefit as sealing my room caused other problems. Every situation is different. I eventually got a regulator and 20# tank and it lasted about 1/2 of the flowering cycle. Hauling the tanks up and down stairs also became problematic. For my small med grow, it wasn't worth the trouble. Lessons learned.
 
legallyflying

legallyflying

Well-Known Member
Siggh, here it is again folks... THERE IS NO WAY TO PROPERLY USE CO2 ON THE CHEAP. There just isn't. You can half ass it and jerry-rig all kind of shit all day long. Bags of rotting shit, jogging in place, trying to siphon off gas from your water heater. you name it, people have tried it. Will a bag of yeast generate co2? Yes. Will it help? Maybe. Is it worth the money? Not likely. Maybe if you had a tiny tent or something.

I wrote a thread about this very thing. It has some good info it..I think at least..

https://www.rollitup.org/grow-room-design-setup/427575-real-scoop-co2.html

Save money and do Co2 right. That means a tank or burner (burner far superior and costs the same as a damn tank set up) and a PPM CONTROLLER. The controller is critical. having run co2 with a controller in all kinds of rooms from tiny to really damn big, I can tell you that most of you that have a tank last a month or so are WAY WAY WAY under the recommended 1500 PPM level. I ran 20lb tanks in my 588 cubic foot (not sq. ft.) room and at 1500 ppm for 12 hours..completely sealed, the tank lasted 6 days.

I installed a NG tankless water heater to generate co2. Its water cooled, works great, and costs me about $1 a month to run. I seriously could not see the difference on my natural gas bill. You need to have a little skills to set it up and what not but I will never ever fuck with those damn tanks again. Pretty fucking stupid really. Weekly trips to the welding shop or grow store and me hauling tanks in and out of my house. Ummm, yeah..I drink A LOT of soda pop and beer.
 
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budleydoright

Well-Known Member
My room is about 250 cubic ft and a 20# lasts me 3-4 weeks depending on the load. I have zero air in and out, no air cooling anywhere. I would venture to guess you had some leaks. I run at 1500 and calibrate my sensor with 0 ppm nitrogen. I do totally agree, if you don't go all the way, you might as well focus your effort on proper ventillation and temps. All the way meaning sealed, controlled all the way.
 
legallyflying

legallyflying

Well-Known Member
really? That long? The biggest equation is really the plants. I have 18 LARGE plants in there. Not christmas trees but they are vegged, pruned, and trained for about 6-7 weeks before going into the flower room. At around 80 degrees I have to keep two 50 pint dehu's running to keep humidity levels in the 40's. They simply just crank. I could have some tiny tiny leaks around the door but everything else is pretty ship shape. Maybe I'll check my duct connections and check for leaks with incense.
 
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budleydoright

Well-Known Member
Air cooled hoods? A small leak with a big fan means big loss for a tank setup. Less noticable when your burning. I kind of liked my box a little leaky when I burned gas. I usually go through 3 tanks per 9-10 week cycle. The first lasting the longest. right now I have 20 in there about 3 weeks into 12/12. I have a 60pnt dehuey but my AC runs so much it handles most of the load. I'm going to build my own ductable dehuey out of a window AC. Be able to hang it in the corner of the room or duct it in and out. Should be easy enough.
 
dgroman

dgroman

Member
I have a 5 by 7 room (8ft ceiling) completely sealed. I control humidity with a humidifier and using LEDs, have no heat issues (range is from 74 to 84 degrees). I have a CO2 data logger for continuous CO2 monitoring. I am using the fermentation method with 2 small carboys and a standard stopper that allows the CO2 to vent thru a water chamber - all standard wine store equipment. Each is filled with 10 litres of pure water, 2 dry litres of sugar, one multi-vitamin tablet, 2 tsp of yeast booster and 2 tablespoons of regular bakers yeast. The specific gravity starts a 1.08. The theory is that bakers yeast promotes more vigorous fermentation but is killed off a lower alcohol concentrations (I've yet to prove this, but it is cheaper than wine yeast). Prior to logging the CO2 data. I generally replaced the carboy when I saw no more signs of bubbles thru the stopper and found the specific gravity was about 1.02, so there's still sugar in the mix but the alcohol is killing off the yeast. Using a wine yeast, you could get the sp gravity down to 1.00 but it's expensive and releases more slowly.

The data logger records CO2 levels of between 2,000 ppm and 3,500 ppm depending on the time of day and how recently the carboy was refreshed. I've only had the data logger for 1 week so I'm still trying to work out the best combination of carboys and fermentation materials. Both carboys were refreshed the day I started using the data logger and are still cranking out good amounts of CO2. I'll refresh them when my morning CO2 levels are down to 1200ppm.

What's interesting is that my portable closet nursery is in the furnace where there's a pilot light for the natural gas hot water tank and one for the natural gas boiler and the CO2 readings are 850ppm - which I figure is enough for veg. That room is not sealed but neither is there any effort to vent it. I can see advantages to a CO2 tank in a sealed room but will hold off buying one until I see if I can control the fermentation process. Carboys do take up room that could be filled with plants.
 
Little Tommy

Little Tommy

Well-Known Member
True enough - are you using a fermentation lock to keep bacteria out of you carboys? They are just a few bucks at the wine/beer supply house. I used a similar system before, but am just doing a small med grow now and have no need really. I bring enough fresh air into the space. Very often, when the PpM goes down, adding sugar brings the yeast back to steady production. I was surprised how long I could keep them going. I used baker's yeast also.
 
mccumcumber

mccumcumber

Well-Known Member
1 lb of dry ice melting at 80 F in a 10x10 room is equivalent to 1000 ppm of CO2 for a day. If you want to buy dry ice for 60 days then you can get away with that. Ed Rosenthal said he has done it in the past.
 
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