co2, is it really worth it, and how much does it help?

Im just getting everything ready for my first grow in a completely sealed 6x6x6 room. What are the calculations to figure your flow rates. Will aslo be using a 50lb tank?



Dave



Sorry did not mean to hijack...

jackdirty said:

co2 boost are worthless maybe sufficent for a grow tent thats it and thats a maybe

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Im acctually using a 4x4 tent with a 1kHPS. But ARE they really worthless? Could you elaborate?

what do you guys think about this. I bought a green air products CD-3 and CD-6 off craigslist for $175 for BOTH OF THEM. HELL of a steal eh? Im going to wire it to a sentinel chhc-1 controller. I personally like the controlelrs that have a built in ppm meter in them, or else you have to get a controller that can turn on and off co2 but then you need another one to monitor the PPM levels, an ALL IN ONE controller such as the sentinel CHHC-1 eliminates the need for a seperate CO2 ppm meter.

anhedonia said:

Im acctually using a 4x4 tent with a 1kHPS. But ARE they really worthless? Could you elaborate?

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Ive never used it or use co2 at all, but from my reading they're 'useless' because you cannot accurately monitor and control the level of co2 PPM in the room. Too much CO2 and you can kill the plants. Or atleast that is what my research suggests, i dont know at what level too much co2 is though

Well theres a low setting and a high setting on the pump. Mine is always on high. Dont know the PPM's but I honestly see very little difference. But Im cursed to always get small yields no matter what.

fo co2 i use a homemade alcohol mixture that releases co2 throughout a week for each gallon of alcohol....13 cups of luke warm water ontop on 3 cups of sugar....after this add it but you put 1 cup of liuke warm water into a big sauce pan and add 1 packet of baking yeast into it...wait until it dissolves or "activates" and then pour it into a gallon jug with the rest of the 13 cups and 3 cups of sugar....then it steadily releases co2 for about a week-2 weeks (if done correctly...look on google for homemade sugarwine recipe...it puts out co2 not sure how much but i know it does)and at the end you get a gallon of sugarwine which will get you drunk but you gotta add another once its done producing co2.....sorry if this doesnt make sence i just drank a gallon of this junk and its ar 9% alcohol so yea im feelinb pretty dam good hope i helped if not p,m me if you dont undersdtand

I have never heard of someone killing plants with too much CO2. Other than lowering the nutrient pH level due to forming carbonic acids the CO2 would have to displace all the CO2 to really cause harm. That would mean opening the flow and leaving o it i open and even then the room would have to be close enough to leak free that CO2 was being input at a higher enough rate to saturate the air from the floor up and therefore expel all the O2 and other lighter gases normally associated with air. Co2 is about 6.5 times denser than air. High levels of CO2 inhibit insect development and it can be used to kill insect pests by raising the level to over 20000 ppm and holding it at that level for several hours. Usually no one routinely runs CO2 at ppm readings above 2000 ppm. Workplace safety standards in most states that regulate the levels in areas outside the work space typically use the figures of 10,000 ppm for an 8-hour period and 30,000 ppm for a 15 minute period. Most schools allow up to 1200 in there recirculated air before taking in fresh air to lower the Co2. Typical fresh air levels of CO2 are only 350 to 400 ppm. In a well winterised home with all windows closed by morning the CO2 ppm often rises to as high as 1000 ppm.

OSHA states:

[FONT=Georgia, Times, serif]Standards: 1000 ppmv.[/FONT]
[FONT=Georgia, Times, serif]Stupor: 1000 - 2500 ppm.[/FONT]
[FONT=Georgia, Times, serif]Maximum allowed concentration in an 8 hour working period: 5,000 ppmv[/FONT]

I found a tutorial online about CO2 and they say that high times reports that CO2 decreases potency if used in the last 2 weeks. I cant see how that would be true.

anhedonia said:

I found a tutorial online about CO2 and they say that high times reports that CO2 decreases potency if used in the last 2 weeks. I cant see how that would be true.

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I use CO2 during curing as I do not flush. I have noticed no decrease in potency either through use of CO2 until harvest or by using CO2 during the cure. O2 is a much stronger oxidant than CO2 and as well. The story about a decreased potency would only be the case if photo respiration is some how s significantly reduced during that last two weeks. So unless there is a change is some parameter to decrease the photo respiration then that opinion seems out of line.

The only way their opinions/beliefs would seem to carry any weight is if photo repiration is dimished due to limited nutrients, as without photorespiration O2 would build up due to stoma closure. The accumulation of O2 is a major adverse consequence because, as a powerful oxidant, O2 reacts with other molecules and generates harmful free radicals (e.g., superoxide, hydroxyl ion) which may initiate uncontrolled adverse reactions on DNA, proteins, and lipids. Without the normal photorespiration there would also be carbon loss.

Myself I just don't flush and I am assured photorespiration is normal right up to harvest. I then cure with an air higher in CO2 then regular air as O2 is an oxidant. I have no one complaining about a chemical taste or a chlorophyl taste and have never noticed or been informed of low potency. However I have never used CO2 and flushed at the same time as that makes no sense.

IMHO If you decrease nutrients then you also should reduce light, temperature and CO2 proportionally. Actually if you decrease anything then you should decrease everthing. You should want the plant to use up some nutrients possiblybut only if you are hoping to effect a positive taste change in doing so. However, you should not cause not cause stress while doing that. High temps, CO2 and intense lights without nutrients is obviously stress, but blaming a supposed lowering of potency on just the presence of high levels of CO2 is sorta ludicrous. In the last two weeks of a common growers budding typically the CO2 levels are in proportion to the lighting intensity and the temperature. If anything is often out of line it is the lack of adequate nutrients for optimal photorespiration that is the issue.

Now the long version non-laymen version of why everything should be balanced even the CO2 until harvest.

The Cannabis plant has two biological needs: 1) It must provide itself with enough ATP to stay alive and 2) it must provide enough nutrition in its seeds to nourish its offspring which will allow them to sprout, and in turn harvest energy on their own. In the process of harvesting energy and storing energy, marijuana leaves also happen to produce oxygen as a waste product, which animals gratefully inhale (we’re referring to the oxygen, OK?!).

With the help of photosynthesis, CO2 and H2O are converted to sugars (e.g. glucose = C6H12O6), lipids, amino acids (with the addition of nitrogen), and nucleotides (with the addition of nitrogen and phosphorus). Lipid, amino acid, and nucleotide synthesis processes are HIGHLY ENDERGONIC and the energy to power these non-spontaneous process is provided by the sun.

Lets use the example of the synthesis of glucose from CO2 and H2O. Remember that plants can make all the nutrient classes, not just glucose, via photosynthesis. The overall balanced reaction for glucose synthesis, then, is:

6 CO2 + 12 H2O + light energy ----> C6H12O6 + 6O2 + 6 H2O

This overall reaction is actually a redox reaction. The light reaction component is as follows:

12 H2O + light energy --------> 6 O2 + 24 e- + 24 H+

At this point, we need to stop and talk a bit more about hydrogen and its propensity to fall apart into an electron and proton. Hydrogen is extremely electropositive, meaning that the nucleus of hydrogen (composed of only one proton and zero neutrons) does not have very much affinity for electrons -- it does not pull very hard (or attract very tightly) on the electron in orbit around it. Thus, electronegative molecules (that have high affinity for electrons and attract them very strongly) can readily take hydrogen's electron away from the hydrogen nucleus, rather than sharing the hydrogenelectron in a covalent bond. Thus, in the presence of electronegative molecules (such as NADP+, NAD+, and the cytochromes), hydrogen's electrons are more attracted to electronegative molecules than to their hydrogen nucleus – hydrogen electrons leave orbit and are added to the electronegative molecules (e.g. converting NADP+ into NADP, etc.). The "naked" hydrogen nucleus, having lost its electron, becomes a proton, or hydrogen ion (H+). These protons simply float around in the cytoplasm.

During the light reactions of photosynthesis, the 24 hydrogens on the 12 water molecules are removed, leaving six molecules of O2, which the plant releases into the environment. The 24 hydrogens are split into 24 protons (H+) and 24 electrons (e-). The 24 electrons are added to "carrier" molecules called NADP+. 12 carrier molecules pick up the 24 electrons (two electrons per NADP+----> NADP -) and 12 protons (one proton each, NADP- ----> NADPH). [To form reduced NADPH, NADP+ (the oxidized form) picks up two electrons and one proton. One electron neutralizes the NADP+ to NADP. The second electron plus the proton forms a hydrogen atom and is added to the molecule to form NADPH. The other 12 protons simply float free in the thylakoid space of the chloroplast, lowering its pH.]

By causing chlorophyll to lose an electron, solar energy converts chlorophyll into a powerful oxidizing agent (chlorophyll will get reduced).Because chlorophyll "wants" to replace that electron very badly, it is able to take the hydrogens away from oxygen in molecular water. By taking water's hydrogens, chlorophyll gains back the electrons it loses by photooxidation. Again, hydrogens are split into electrons, that enter the chlorophyll molecule, and protons that float freely in the thylakoid of the chloroplast. Water is a very stable molecule, so removing its hydrogens is not easy -- oxidized chlorophyll is one of the most electronegative molecules known -- far more electronegative than oxygen. That's how chlorophyll is able to take oxygen's hydrogens away in a water molecule.


Synthesizing Food: The Calvin-Benson Cycle

The light reactions of photosynthesis generate O2, ATP, and NADPH. Oxygen is a waste product to the plant, but ATP and NADPH are required by the plant to make nutrients from CO2. For the synthesis of nutrients, the plant requires an energy source (provided by the ATP generated during the light reactions), a source of carbon (CO2 from the atmosphere), and a source of "reducing power." Look at the second half of the photosynthesis equation -- the part that synthesizes sugar:

24e- + 24H+ + 6CO2 + energy (ATP) -------> glucose (C6H12O6) + 6H2O

In this reaction, CO2 is reduced to glucose; the carbon atoms have 12 hydrogens added and six oxygens removed. This reduction requires a reducing agent and that reducing agent is NADPH, itself reduced in the light reactions with electrons and hydrogens from water. Ultimately, the hydrogens used to reduce CO2 to glucose come from water.

Despite the fact that glucose was used in this example of photosynthesis, the molecule we should focus on is glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate (often abbreviated as G3P).G3P is a three-carbon sugar and it is the starting molecule (precursor) for the synthesis of several sugars, not just glucose, and lipids. Amino acids used for protein synthesis can also be made using PGAL as a precursor, in addition to a source of reduced nitrogen.

The overall reaction of the Calvin-Benson cycle is:

3CO2 (from the air or water) + 1 G3P
+ 9 ATP (from the light reactions) ----------> + 9 ADP + 8 Pi
+ 6 NADPH (from the light reactions) + 6 NADP+


Now the marijuana leaf has harvested sunlight energy and stored it in the nutrient G3P. As the first law of thermodynamics tells us, energy cannot be destroyed or consumed, it can only be converted to another form of energy. As a summary of the process of photosynthesis, let's briefly describe the harvesting of energy through the light reactions. Remember, you measure energy by the effect it has on matter, so to follow energy, we describe what gets "energized" during this process.

1. The electrons in chlorophyll get energized and jump to a higher orbital

2. These electrons pass across an electron transport system (ETS) and transfer their energy to the proton pumps, which use the energy to move protons up their concentration gradient. The energy of sunlight is now contained in the high concentration of protons in the thylakoid space.

3. The protons fall down their concentration gradient and transfer their energy to the ATP synthase, which energizes ADP by phosphorylating it to become ATP.

4. The high-energy electrons tumbling down the ETS in Photosystem I don't transfer all their energy to the proton pumps. Much of the energy remains in the electrons and is transferred to the NADP+ as it becomes NADPH.

5. NADPH and ATP both contain much of the energy originally reaching the plant in sunlight. During the Calvin cycle, this energy is transferred to CO2 (in the form of high-energy electrons and hydrogen ions) as it becomes G3P.

At every step in any process that involves the transfer of energy, energy transfer is not 100% efficient; a percentage of the energy is not transferred to the next step but is given off as heat to the environment. Energy transfers are never 100% efficient. However, the energy transfers of photosynthesis are among the most efficient.

G3P has been synthesized and the marijuana plant uses G3P in the following ways:

1. The leaves send G3P to the mitochondria inside the mesophyll cells. G3P is oxidized in the mitochondria to CO2 and H2O. The energy released by this process is stored in ATP, which powers the living processes of these leaves.

2. Plants synthesize glucose, fructose, sucrose (a fructose-glucose disaccharide), and starch (polyglucose) in the chloroplast. The starch is a storage form of sugars that the plant can live on in times of darkness when photosynthesis cannot occur. The mono- and disaccharides are stored in the mesophyll as well, but are also transported to all the cells that do not photosynthesize (roots, stems, and flowers). These sugars are used:

A. As an energy source - the sugars are burned for energy by these cells.

B. As a source of glucose for the production of cellulose, the major structural component of cell walls.

C. As a source of glucose for producing starch in non-photosynthetic plant cells.

D. As a precursor for amino acids and nucleic acids made in the cells of the root.


i.e. In brief you can't have one without another.

CO2 IS WORTH IT.

YOU CAN SEE A 1/3 INCREASE

You can use a slew of methods, from the 5$ pucks, to the 150$ boost bucket, to a tank and regulator to a CO2 generator. All of them work.

If you have a small area, use pucks or buckets. If you have a medium to large area the tanks work great. If you have a huge area, use the generator.

You get more, better tasting, fuller buds! No way to argue it, it is a fact, CO2 is air for your plants. Only use during the light cycle. Keep exausting to a minimum while using, other wise you will not get the ppm you want.

Chears!

garensbro said:

Good question. I was wondering the same thing, as I am wanting to start a room with 20+ plants in the near future. I wont get into what im going to use because this isnt my thread. But I do want to ask where you can purchase a co2 setup and whats the best way to set it up?

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Here is a cheap and easy way to do it...

http://www.plantedtank.net/articles/DIY-Yeast-CO2/7/

If you dont want to use a tank, add a airstone to the other end of the hose and use another 2L bottle with the bottle cut near the top where it is the same circumference. Fill this bottle up with water and stick the other end of the hose in there. When it is bubbling, you know it is working. Make sure you use less yeast to know it is working.

I added CO2 with a tank from work.
I filled a large garbage bag with CO2 from the tank like a balloon.
I then poke a pin hole in the bag and hang it over my homemade light tent to trickle out into the room. I am growing in a small bathroom w/ a 60CFM exhaust fan replenishing the room air. I fill the bag 3-4 times a day when I turn my lady.

Because I heard about people adding hydrogen peroxide to the water I decided to use an air stone and inject O2 into the water just before watering to give my girl a real Oxygen enriched root watering.
I have no idea if the O2 thing is good or bad but the pics are here https://www.rollitup.org/cfl-growing/252925-bathtub-grow-w-cfl-log.html.
What do you think??

I have mixed opinions on H2O2. Hydrogen peroxide cleans roots and leaves, but you need to really watch how much you use, I have seen several good friends burn entire crops this way!

As far as homemade contraptions for CO2, they generally only work with small rooms 4x4 etc. If you use exaust while you are using CO2, the CO2 will have no effect. It will simply be pulled out of the room.

The Good Doctor said:

I have mixed opinions on H2O2. Hydrogen peroxide cleans roots and leaves, but you need to really watch how much you use, I have seen several good friends burn entire crops this way!

As far as homemade contraptions for CO2, they generally only work with small rooms 4x4 etc. If you use exaust while you are using CO2, the CO2 will have no effect. It will simply be pulled out of the room.

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can u tell me when im adding co2 in my room can i run the valve for 30 second /thats how long it takes to fill it/ then have the fans off for that time about 5 minutes,after that get the vetilation back to normal and the temperature couse its gonna rise when the fans go off and repeat the cicle like that for 12 hours,is that ok or am i mising something

I rigged up an orange juice container with some airstone hose for CO2(used yeast/ sugar) I ended up getting 1.5 oz's off of the plant. On my recent grow i was too lazy to set up the CO2 early and got jack for yield. I do have to say that the 1.5 yeilder was my mother plant and going on abt 8 mnths old. So I tend to think that my yield was a result of the plants age and size. Overall I have bought a tank + reg and believe CO2 makes a difference when used correctly.

so many variables i have solatel co2 gen and control, trade off more heat and humidity to control low maintanance higher utility cost, bottle systems are more economical for most growers but more maint and cost for gas were some of my concerns at time of desighn. Im just a newbi stoner and i know that my literairy skills are low so ill shut up and grow

Im glad this thread has gotten so many responses guys! Keep them coming. I got a nother question for you guys. When you run co2 you want the room sealed as much as possible correct, and you also want the temps a bit higher right? So if you wanna seal the room what do you do about your exhaust and intake fan? Do you not run any intake/exhaust fans at all? Or do you only run them when co2 reachs too high of a PPM and or whenthe humidity is too high/temp is too high? Also can you run a carbon filter or any type of filter with a fan that just recycles the ambient air in the room so you dont waste co2 running a filter through the exhaust fan?

Basically what I do is hour cycles, my exhaust is about 6 min, CO2 is roughly 4mins it fill the room right after my exhaust finishes the room gets about 50 mins of CO2 at the desired lvl, the tank I have lasts me 2 months before refill. My heat gets up which forces me to exhaust, but the cycle works very well, and with CO2 you can let the temps get a little higher, the plants can handle it with the CO2 added. If you think of it CO2 is to plants what Oxygen is to us, you will be wondering why you haven't spent the extra $$ on a CO2 system.

several good ways to do it for me its the multi chamber air mixing tech and i run can 100 full time 24/7 365 if it stops room of doom very bad. this is one of the mac daddy way to do it but not practical for most im medicated and stupid now

the hour cycles seem like a good idea. But say your room temp is very good and you only need to exhaust once per light period, but you still want to nuetralize the odors, the only way to do that without lowering the temp, lower than ideal(because it always stays at a good temperature for 90% of the time), would be to run the carbon/charcoal filter with a fan the sucks in and spits out air that is already in the room