I have a desire to introduce carbon dioxide to my grow room to increase growth rate and yield.
In an attempt to maximize the usage efficiency of the CO2 I am considering minimizing the amount of ventilation to almost none.
Being a relatively new to growing, these are my reasons:
Ventilation provides the following benefits:
1. Cooling
2. Controling humidity
3. Air Movement
4. Replacement of Carbon Dioxide and Oxygen
It seems that those elements can be controlled without ventilation in the following manner:
1. Air ventilated hoods and air conditioning
2. Dehumidifier
3. Fans placed in key locations throughout the room to create air circulation
4. CO2 provided by tank or burner. Plant produces more oxygen than it uses during the day.
At night, CO2 will be turned off and ventilation provided to bring in oxygen.
I have several observations:
1. It seems that during a hot day outside, the use of ventilation for cooling will be ineffective. It will still need to be supplemented by air conditioning.
2. If the indoor day cycle is happening at night (when dark outside), there may be security risks from thermal imaging.
3. Heat will be less of an issue with air vented hoods.
Here are my questions:
1. First of all, did I miss something in terms of the function of ventilation (would I need to account for other factors that ventilating a room provides that I have not considered)?
2. Does the cost of running air conditioning and dehumidifier offset the cost of the amount of CO2 lost through constant ventilation? (even though this will vary with room size and equipment, the proportions should remain the same [e.i. amount of CO2 and air conditioning energy used are proportional whether in small or large room])
3. I heard that a powerful ventilation system voids the requirement of supplemental CO2. This is because all CO2 is replaced and is present for plant to use. I have not researched this, but believe that this is erroneous. Even though this is purely speculative, it seems that a higher concentration of CO2 in the air works smilarly to an oxidized nutrient solution (for example... nutrient solution is highly oxidized with 30% oxygen - plant will get more oxygen. This is opposed to constantly circulating a 10% oxygen nutrient solution where the roots do not get as much oxygen - this is a bad example... but hopefully it illustrates what I mean), whereby a plant is able to uptake more CO2 at the same time. Please inform me if this assumption is accurate.
4. And finally, assuming that everything I assumed is correct, the most important question: is the $CostOfOperation/$Yield of my non ventilated system smaller than that of a ventilated one?
Thank you for taking the time to read my question thoroughly and understand my problem completely.
In an attempt to maximize the usage efficiency of the CO2 I am considering minimizing the amount of ventilation to almost none.
Being a relatively new to growing, these are my reasons:
Ventilation provides the following benefits:
1. Cooling
2. Controling humidity
3. Air Movement
4. Replacement of Carbon Dioxide and Oxygen
It seems that those elements can be controlled without ventilation in the following manner:
1. Air ventilated hoods and air conditioning
2. Dehumidifier
3. Fans placed in key locations throughout the room to create air circulation
4. CO2 provided by tank or burner. Plant produces more oxygen than it uses during the day.
At night, CO2 will be turned off and ventilation provided to bring in oxygen.
I have several observations:
1. It seems that during a hot day outside, the use of ventilation for cooling will be ineffective. It will still need to be supplemented by air conditioning.
2. If the indoor day cycle is happening at night (when dark outside), there may be security risks from thermal imaging.
3. Heat will be less of an issue with air vented hoods.
Here are my questions:
1. First of all, did I miss something in terms of the function of ventilation (would I need to account for other factors that ventilating a room provides that I have not considered)?
2. Does the cost of running air conditioning and dehumidifier offset the cost of the amount of CO2 lost through constant ventilation? (even though this will vary with room size and equipment, the proportions should remain the same [e.i. amount of CO2 and air conditioning energy used are proportional whether in small or large room])
3. I heard that a powerful ventilation system voids the requirement of supplemental CO2. This is because all CO2 is replaced and is present for plant to use. I have not researched this, but believe that this is erroneous. Even though this is purely speculative, it seems that a higher concentration of CO2 in the air works smilarly to an oxidized nutrient solution (for example... nutrient solution is highly oxidized with 30% oxygen - plant will get more oxygen. This is opposed to constantly circulating a 10% oxygen nutrient solution where the roots do not get as much oxygen - this is a bad example... but hopefully it illustrates what I mean), whereby a plant is able to uptake more CO2 at the same time. Please inform me if this assumption is accurate.
4. And finally, assuming that everything I assumed is correct, the most important question: is the $CostOfOperation/$Yield of my non ventilated system smaller than that of a ventilated one?
Thank you for taking the time to read my question thoroughly and understand my problem completely.