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DIY CO2 production for marijuana plants?

Artificial Emotion

Artificial Emotion

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For someone when I go to the last page of the mega basic cultivation thread I am unable to make a new post, even though it appears to me that it has not been closed. Very odd.

I wanted to ask, a question on behalf of my friend who is considering growing cannabis. He intends to grow in quite a small covert cultivation cabinet constructed using MDF. To increase yield, he would like to increase atmospheric carbon dioxide levels artificially. Unfortunately the tanks of this gas and the valves etc. seem to be generally very expensive, so he is wondering about alternatives to use. One way he was thinking of achieving a continuous, steady production of CO2, is through the fermentation of yeast, as done by brewers who produce alcohol. Would this be possible? I assume this would be okay, given the fact that his grow cabinet will be small - much smaller than a growing operation out in the open in a normal sized room. If this is possible can someone give me some tips and advice about how he would go about doing this? I know it is not 100% necessary but I think if he does do this he could potentially get bigger better buds, or so I have heard (and this does make sense as AFAIK plants do thrive when CO2 levels are high).

Edit: Oh yes, there's one my question I would like to ask. Is this light shown below, which is an energy saving light tube device containing two 36W tubes and is used to treat people with seasonal affective disorder, able to be used to grow perhaps two marijuana plants? I don't mean grow really well, I mean just to grow, period? My friend would like to use it to grow males just for their pollen to pollinate the females. He needs to keep them separate from his females which are growing under a 600W HPS light in another room.
 
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Artificial Emotion said:
For someone when I go to the last page of the mega basic cultivation thread I am unable to make a new post, even though it appears to me that it has not been closed. Very odd.

I wanted to ask, a question on behalf of my friend who is considering growing cannabis. He intends to grow in quite a small covert cultivation cabinet constructed using MDF. To increase yield, he would like to increase atmospheric carbon dioxide levels artificially. Unfortunately the tanks of this gas and the valves etc. seem to be generally very expensive, so he is wondering about alternatives to use. One way he was thinking of achieving a continuous, steady production of CO2, is through the fermentation of yeast, as done by brewers who produce alcohol. Would this be possible? I assume this would be okay, given the fact that his grow cabinet will be small - much smaller than a growing operation out in the open in a normal sized room. If this is possible can someone give me some tips and advice about how he would go about doing this? I know it is not 100% necessary but I think if he does do this he could potentially get bigger better buds, or so I have heard (and this does make sense as AFAIK plants do thrive when CO2 levels are high).
Click to expand...

"honestly.. your best bet would probably be to look online.. you can find just about anything online and it would probably be the cheapest as well.. idk any stores that sell tanks and stuff like that.. i know you can get little ones at Wal-Mart for paintball guns.. and you can get the bigger tanks too that you can get refilled.. but as far as hoses or regulators to release i have no idea where youd find that stuff.. im gonna keep checing on here cuz i wanna get one too...

right now i have a home made CO2 generator... if you want.. you could do that until you get a real one.. its easy too.. all you do is get a bottle of soda ( 2 liter size ) then you add 3/4 cup of sugar.. and a teaspoon of active yeast ( you can find it at shaws/stop and shop etc... its like 45 cents for a pack ) and then add about 6 cups of water... and shake it up.. cut a small hole in the cap.. and shove a tube through it.. (like one from a fish tank) and wallah.. theres your home made co2 tank.. im using it.. it works pretty good.. or at least it seems to.. and its supposed to be good for about 2 weeks.. i think its more like a week and 1/2... and it takes about an hour for the Co2 to start up.... but yeaa thats about it.. and after the 2 weeks... just do it again... its a HELL of alot cheaper than real Co2... if you got any question on how to do it just ask me.. or look online.. thats how i found out how to do it... sorry i couldnt help you out more... good luck!!"

~from somewhere's elses
 
yeah i heard about that yeast one, it's the easiest way but the least efficient way, because ventilation (which i would hope the grow has) would quickly lower the CO2 concentration in the grow room atmosphere, and also because plants aren't simply absorbing CO2 at all hours of the day. along that same line of thought, raising CO2 concentrations when the plants are more in need of oxygen would have a detrimental effect rather than a positive one (that is, providing the ventilation is poor enough to allow a high enough concentration of CO2 to actually gather in the grow room atmosphere.)

a more ideal solution, imho, would be to gather a bunch of CO2 cartridges and some of those balloon nozzles nitrous abusers use for decompressing it, then turning off the ventilation halfway through the light cycle each day during 12/12, spraying the CO2 in, give the plants a half hour or more to absorb the boost then turn the ventilation back on and repeat the process daily.

but even if that's the ideal situation, i can't imagine it being too effective given that we humans only use pure oxygen as a temporary means for energy and plants do "breathe" at a slower pace. in layman's terms, normal atmospheric conditions are already ideal and mucking around with gas concentrations could be a zero-sum game since the plant needs oxygen more than it does CO2 half of the time. keep in mind that hydroponics is the art of delivering more oxygen to the plant, NOT more co2.

if your friend wants bigger buds, the best way to accomplish that is to add a carbo loader to the nutrient dose. advanced nutrients makes an easy-to-add liquid version
 
a small block of dry ice and a fan might suit your needs....

keep the dry ice itself away from the plants, its cold.... just have a fan on the floor to circulate it about the room....

kept in a sealed insulated cooler, a decent amount of dry ice will last a long time.... We have like 300lbs of it at work that we play with every now and then.....

it is kind of pointless to have CO2 while the lights are off..... In lack of light, a plant will cease photosynthesis and start relying on cellular respiration to survive. This produces CO2.

So ventilate when the lights are on, or don't ventilate and add CO2 by whatever means, and stop ventilation when the lights are off, CO2 will accumulate....

Oxygen would probably be better for night cycles...
CO2 for times when lights are on.

A 125lb tank of CO2 couldn't be that difficult to obtain.... There is a pretty decent amount of uses for it.... Hell, they have 300lb tanks of the stuff that we use at work.... turn release valve a tiny amount, have a fan to circulate.... for a cabinet grow a 30lb tank on a low flow would work, or hell just find a way to rig a large paintball CO2 tank to it, find an appropriate female adapter, attach a valve, run hose to grow room. Set to low flow. buy a few, most paintball fields will supply as much as you need for like $10

I still think a couple thumb sized chunks of dry ice thrown in would significantly up CO2 levels.... seriously, take a gallon sized zip lock bag and throw in a couple chunks of the stuff.... When you convert a gas into a solid, it takes a lot of gas to have that sort of density.....
 
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I've read about one guy that bumped up his grow space atmosphere CO2 levels to 1000ppm just using a double paraffin lamp. I bet a couple of those would work and would increase the temp as well (the ambient temp in my friend's flat is about 14.7 degrees Celsius, which is too low).
 
i've always wondered...

would just putting some dry ice into your grow room function at bring the temp down and provide CO2, or would the amount of co2 be negligible?
 
yeah dry ice works. a little 2x2x2 chunk works just fine. also right before harvest we broke up the last dry ice block and scattered it around the base of the main stem. this burned the lower branches and turned the upper colas slightly purple. i dont recommend that last bit though.
 
Artificial Emotion said:
Dry ice is expensive and hard to obtain (for an ordinary member of the public in the UK) and does not last long. Is this not correct?
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oh, bummer. pretty easy to get in the USA. you get a relatively large chunk and keep it in the freezer so it doesn't evaporate very quickly. then break off pieces as you need them.
 
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No offence, but that seems like a terrible idea. I might be wrong but I would've assumed it would fizzle out pretty quickly - much faster than a yeast setup.
 
yeah the vinegar and baking soda may be a terrible idea...no offense taken...once the CO2 is released in the room..I would think it would linger...but perhaps not. I'm not expert.

Yeast is a great idea! One could homebrew in their grow room. I like that idea better.
 
Add 0,5 kg of sugar, and a handful of yeast, into 2 liter luke-warm water. Mix it up well and put it in a plastic bottle. Then, every 2-3 days, pour out ½ of the bottle, add another 1 liter water and another 0,25 kg of sugar.
 
Artificial Emotion said:
Dry ice is expensive and hard to obtain (for an ordinary member of the public in the UK) and does not last long. Is this not correct?
Click to expand...

Shame, here in the US its pretty easy to find at some grocery stores and relatively inexpensive... It can just be kept in a well insulated foam cooler for a fairly long amount of time, in a freezer a decent block will last quite a while.....

It should be pretty obtainable.... At my job we get shipped temperature sensitive stuff down to about -80C, which is about the temp of dry ice iirc, and its good for shipping frozen stuff.... I don't buy it because if i needed any i could get it freely from work.... When someone ships us something in dry ice it will generally have been about 7-20kg of dry ice in it.... if you can ship something with 20kg of dry ice and still be able to not have to be charged out the ass, it cant be very expensive.

A few chunks the size of a chapstick tube will be around for a couple hours at room temp..... depending on how long you wanted to have it subliming in the grow room you could insulate it to prolong however long you wanted it do release CO2 for....

Get small Styrofoam cooler, tape lid shut, stab pencil through somewhere nearer the bottom but still a little above the dry ice.... have a fan to circulate.

It would be able to provide the room with CO2 over the course of days.....
 
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