Candles for CO2?

[Lemmongrass]

you are going to need thousands of watts more light, and EXACTLY 90F temps all day and night to even be able to consider using co2 man. closed loop AC and environmental controls.

 

[HazeMe]

Water your plants with mineral water. Mineral water is direct CO2 to the roots. Your plants will thrive!

 

[HazeMe]

Water with mineral water. It will give direct CO2 to the plants roots.

 

[Hick]

,,"roots & c02"?????? I'm pretty sure c02 is not beneficial in the root zone.
now this is from "Ask ED"... so it can be taken w/ a grain of salt

Adding CO2 to the water will not help the roots and in fact will hurt them. Plants use CO2 when they photosynthesize, the process which results in the production of sugar. Photosynthesis occurs only in areas of the plant that receive light and contain chlorophyll, the source of plants' green color. It is absorbed through pores called stomata. Roots have no chlorophyll and don't ordinarily come in contact with light so they have no use for CO2.

Plants use the sugars they have manufactured as a source of fuel. Their metabolism is similar to the method used by animals. Sugars, which are hydrocarbons, are chemically "burned" in a controlled reaction that occurs when they are combined with oxygen. Energy is released and the waste product CO2 is created.

Both CO2 and oxygen dissolve in water. When water is saturated with CO2 it cannot absorb oxygen so the roots have no source of the element oxygen, which is needed for their metabolism. This weakens the roots and promotes the growth of anaerobic bacteria, which thrive in oxygen-free environments and attack roots.

When water in a reservoir is circulated, it releases the dissolved CO2 to the air and dissolves oxygen. That's why circulating water in a reservoir using a pump is beneficial to roots: It removes the CO2 and supplies the water with oxygen.

 

[HazeMe]

Hick, I don't want to clash heads with ya, but KC Brains breeders swear by mineral water for feeding CO2 to the roots. After I learned about using mineral water, I have never looked back. I'm not talking about feeding straight CO2 from a canister. I'm saying the CO2 in mineral water is great for the plants. Works for me!

 

[Hick]

..and all "I" am saying is.. co2 is not beneficial "at root level".. from what I understand. ..and in fact could be harmfull, as explained by "Ed"...

I "did" find something about a study done in Russia some years back, as it 'possibly' ..being beneficial in "root crops".. sugar beets, I believe was the subject involved. But.. we aren't growing 'root' crop, rather flowering plants.

....maaaaybe... it's the minerals benefitting your plants???..

 

[HazeMe]

Ok, I understand. And all I'm saying is that it has never done me wrong. You have your opinion and I have mine.

 

[Hick]

http://www.marijuanapassion.com/forum/showpost.php?p=482484&postcount=16

 

[NorCalHal]

The ole CO2 convo.

I have used CO2 very succesfully. No, it wasn't candles, aquafiz or dryice.

In the "outside" most CO2 levels are around 300-500 ppm. This is normal out side air. Obviously, this is more then efficiant for plants, as plants do great outside!

So, if you have a growroom, and exchange your air in your room properly, then the CO2 levels in your room should match the CO2 levels outside.
This is sufficiant to grow a healthy crop, and MANY folks have acheived great results and yeild doing nothing but this.

Now, if you wish to have a boosted CO2 level in your growroom, then, to do it PROPERLY, there are a few things you MUST do and buy in order to make it worth while.

Your grow room MUST be sealed. This means that no air leaks in the room, and your light ventilation. If you air cool your lights (which usually MUST be done running CO2), then it must be a closed loop system, meaning you pull air from out side the grow area, thru your lights, then exhaust it out side the grow area. There is the light requirements.

Next, you must have a good exhaust blower that is controlled by a humidistat.
That way, the exhaust will only run when the humidity goes above the setpoint you set.
For your intake (usually passive) you should have a "flapper" type intake hole that auto closes when air is not being drawn in. I forget the true name of these....

Now, you need all the CO2 equipment. Burners or Bottles. The only 2 real choices. You will also need a CO2 controller. I perfer C.A.P. controllers. You can buy one that controls all aspects of the room ventilation, along with CO2 dispersment, all in one. Look for one with "fuzy logic" for best results.

Another fun fact is to properly use your boosted CO2 levels, your grow room temps must be between 85-90 degrees, a bit higher then u would normally run without it.

There are a few other details, but that is the jist of it. Anything less then that, you are wasting your time and $$.

 

[Head_Down_Under]

Thanks Haze_Me for sharing your experience with CO2. I can do the maths no problem and there's no end of literature describing general hydroponic growing techniques, but I've come to this forum looking for ideas that people have actually tried, so I can either learn from or avoid same. Having said that, immersing the roots in carbonated water wasn't quite what I had in mind but I can see the logic to it, and I value hearing it works for you.
Cheers

 

[UKgirl420]

http://www.marijuanapassion.com/forum/showthread.php?t=42897

haha seems i had the same idea as purple hazes

 

[CoolAsAFan]

wheres the logic when the roots breath o2? enlighten me

 

[Head_Down_Under]

Whilst awaiting replies from those growers who have experience with CO2 generators and any other DIY CO2 generation, there are some ripper articles online about the benefits of supplementing CO2 to the air in commercial greenhouses. The gist is that normal levels in air are around 300ppm (parts per million), and that if the levels in a greenhouse are raised another 1200ppm, up to a total of 1500ppm, then providing all other plant needs are met (correct nutrient mix, temperature, light quality and level) then the plants will experience an increase in growth rate of between 20%-100%. This phenomenal improvement makes it common for commercial growers to add CO2 to their greenhouses. It also means huge potential benefits for the small-scale Hydroponics grower whose solved CO2 delivery problems. Although there are plenty of commercial CO2 generators available for the grower (mostly burning propane to make CO2 and H2O) they do cost quite a bit. I'm interested in alternative, cheaper, homemade solutions; hence my starting this thread for using candles for boosting CO2.
Googling "CO2" with "Hydroponics" will dig-up oodles of stuff. Here's another fascinating article about CO2 hxxp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide

Whilst I'm confident in my ability to keep a lit candle in my growbox without causing a housefire, my housemates are less sure. I'd hoped to find feedback here from experienced growers who'd done same with no problems, that I could use to appease them (housemates). No such luck, means I must consider other ideas: If I were growing in a glasshouse outside then I'd just place the compost heap in the greenhouse. Fermenting beer in the growbox (I've plenty of hands-on experience with fermenting beverages). Fermenting sugars, not for beverage, just for CO2 etc.
The maths to calculate how much/how fast is no harder than I did for using candles. To keep the pace of fermentation down to a sufficiently slow speed means this time I'd probably put the fermenter outside the growbox and pipe the gas in. With fermentation I could use broth-temperature control to regulate CO2 production but it would be difficult to stop it altogether for dark, no-grow time.
Has anyone on this forum added CO2 in anyway? Has anyone tried fermenting to produce CO2, if not candle-burning?

 

[Head_Down_Under]

BTW adding CO2 to the growbox removes a major reason for ventilation (the other main one being for temperature control). Less ventilation means less fumes - surely this sounds tempting to some discreet growers?!!

Also, putting CO2 above 10,000 ppm (1%) or higher for several hours will eliminate pests such as whiteflies and spider mites in a greenhouse

 

[HazeMe]

CoolAsAFan, I don't know the exact science of CO2 to the roots. As I stated before, I got the tip from KC Brains. Since then I have used mineral water for my plants and have never had any problems. I don't know why the CO2 in the mineral water is better than regular tap, distilled etc... I don't know about feeding CO2 into the roots any other way. I just know that there is CO2 in the mineral water, which helps my plants. KC has 20+ years of breeding under his belt, so I think he is a very reliable source.

Why don't you get some mineral water and try it out? You might be surprised at the results.

HazeMe

 

[Lemmongrass]

im not too sure id take my growing pointers from kcbrains..... disclaimer: just by what the collective conclusion is, i haven't used him before. seedstock seems to be trash so it may just be bad banks.

Since roots are in dirt they can not photosynthesize, thus, root cells work like animal cells. they utilize oxygen from the voids in the dirt plus energy in the form of ATP to metabolize and breakdown sugars produced in the vegetation of the plant that have been transported to the roots via the stem.

also, chemical equations are good an all, but they never apply very well to a real world application. i wouldn't doubt that a candle only burns at 20-40% efficiency. you cant even get propane gas to burn off efficiently on open air.

ALSO. there is no co2 in mineral water... mineral water is relabeled municipal tap water with the exception of 2 or 3 companies in the US. even still, there is not co2 in their water either. what you speak of is soda water or club soda. an aqueous solution of carbonic acid. i dont see how watering with water at like pH 3.4 or whatever soda is would be good. if you add ph up to it you are just reacting the phosphoric acid or whichevver with your co2 and making some other compound.

real mineral water, and not bottle dinking mineral water, is nothing but hard water. i bet 80% of us get this for $~ from the tap. its water,with dissolved minerals, or rock silica and metal compounds. these can help a bit, like growing with stream water, but it also raises your TDS. Ive been told to go out of my way not to even use hot tap water cause you water heater adds dissolved metals and such to the water.

HDU, you cannot not vent a proper grow box. if it involves HID, which it should, then it will eventually get too hot. good point about pest control, tho sulfer would be cheaper, and if you grow in your house like many of us do, safer.

And the bucket o' booze method has been tried MANY MANY times. many good growers still use it even, but it is pretty much conclusively a failed tek. I used to brew sugar wine with super yeast. it grew so fast it actually carbonated my wine(i shook them alot to much was dissolved that way too) but it still took like 4-7 days to blow up a soda bottle. or 2-3 days to pop a balloon if you didn't poke holes in it.

 

[Lemmongrass]

What am i saying. ive already posted a link 3 times or so this month linking to a massive study about co2 and all kinds of plants that showed you needed VERY specific conditions for it to have ANY effect. pot's specific niche is 90F, near bleaching light, and really really high humidity(like upwards of 50% or something).

as per the study, you could have the conditions 80% of the way to perfect, and you plants wouldn't benefit from the added co2 in any independantly observable way.

 

[The Hemp Goddess]

Has anyone ever seen any kind of study on more light versus CO2 for improved yield? CO2 enhancement is so problematic that it is hard for me to believe that you would not benefit more (for your time money and energy) with enhanced lighting rather than dealing with enhanced CO2...

 

[umbra]

THG thats a very good point. I've seen some increase lumen grows(using 2 600w over 3x3 table) and they were amazing. 9 plants 3 lbs.

 

[dirtyolsouth]

BTW adding CO2 to the growbox removes a major reason for ventilation (the other main one being for temperature control). Less ventilation means less fumes - surely this sounds tempting to some discreet growers?!!

Also, putting CO2 above 10,000 ppm (1%) or higher for several hours will eliminate pests such as whiteflies and spider mites in a greenhouse

Sounds like you're reading all the same stuff I did back when I gave CO2 a collective whirl... And those fumes gotta go somewhere if you're referring to odor when you say 'fumes.' Less ventilation will let the fumes build up and your whole house will wreak to high heaven! Either you scrub the fumes with a charcoal filter or exhaust them outdoors. Ventilation is a must with or without CO2. With CO2 you need to have environmental controllers that help regulate the CO2 injections so you're not always exhausting it all away. I used CO2 for several years as an attempt to make a grow room that was too hot workable. My partner who was the home owner didn't want to put a window A/C in at first as he was paranoid about power bills and the possible attention to an empty bedroom that could be created by the noise of running an A/C unit. Temps were in the mid to upper 80's and I did CO2 injections from a cylinder using a controller with a thermostat and humidistat to trigger exhaust cycles and a built in photocell to keep it from doing injections in the dark cycles.

Veg growth with CO2 is almost too much for me as it makes the growth rates very hard to control and I think that's very important in indoor gardening. When flowering at optimum temps for CO2 I grew some very pretty buds but it just never had the trich production and consequently the buzz or flavor I was after. It wasn't until my partner finally gave in and we bought a window A/C unit and also increased ventilation cycles that our bud became sticky-icky... Once my temps were down in the 70's the trichs came pouring on... And I was doing everything else the same with my setup but this time no CO2 in ideal temps... And to think of all the cylinders I lugged around for those years... geez.

IME I've never grown anywhere near as good of bud in a warm to hot indoor environment even with CO2. I can sure grow a jungle of veg growth but the buds never did it for me. Good luck...