Bigger, better, stronger plants by adding CO2

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Plants inhale carbon dioxide and exhale oxygen during the day, and then the opposite at night. By providing plants with more C02 claims are made that you can increase growth and yield by a staggering 25%

The plants use C02 to multiply plant cells faster, encouraging lots of growth. It also has other benefits such as a higher heat tolerance (around 95F compared to 85F without C02) and it traps humidity much better meaning I do not need to refill my humidifiers as much. So adding this greenhouse gas can really change the dynamics of a grow tent.

bubbly goodness

A few ways to get C02:

Pressurized tanks
Mushrooms
Yeast and sugar

So I am trying the later using sugar, active dry yeast and some baking soda I can make a batch of carbon dioxide producing goodness. Its a sticky job, but works easily without needing to buy tanks containing pressurized carbon dioxide. Which honestly makes me a little nervous working with, so doing this is fine by me.

and it really smells like beer.. hah!

When I mix sugar, yield, baking soda and warm water I get the byproduct of carbon dioxide. Having to refresh it every so often.

How do I know its working? I bought a meter that reads C02 along with others things such as PM2.5 and PM10.. and a few other things

A level of 1437ppm is quite nice, though it does not stay that high for long and gets down to around 1000 for a few days before petering out. Its not dangerous for humans until its in the 5000s and you would have to breathe that air for hours. So I am in no danger working in these elevated levels, but I have a sensor to keep an eye on it just in case it went up higher for some reason.

Putting the monitor in my tent I turn it on every so often to check the levels. Without the C02 my higher tent temps could hurt the plants. So I need to refresh it often.

Ambient levels are around 700ppm, quite high but maybe its the basement. The gas sinks and will stay in the lowest part of the house.

This is all temporary, as I cannot just buy bags and sugar and yeast all the time... well I just don't want to. So I have plans on cultivating mushrooms, as mentioned above they produce C02 as well. Hope I can capture it and vent it into my grow tent, minus the spores... lol So will write some updates about that as they come up and would like to share on StemGeeks while doing mycology projects.

But just with my use of yeast and sugar over the last few weeks, my newer batch plants have completely caught up and are as big as the one a month older than them. So I think its working. They are up against an older sativa, so having two younger indicas be the same height is pretty impressive to me.

Even though I am showing Cannabis here, this method can be applied to any plant with an enclosure. Just happens to be the only plants I grow in tents, so works well. Maybe this could be done in a greenhouse, something to test in the future.

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Thank you for this step-by-step guide, I will follow this tutorial, it's a simple guide.
You have done amazing content here, thank you

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No problem, best of luck with it and thank you.

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Excellent dear @solominer the use of sugar, active dry yeast and a little bicarbonate of soda, for the CO2 in your plantations, I am going to recommend it, it seems to me a brilliant idea. successes

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Yeah it is pretty cool you can generate gas with just that. Hope others you tell about it benefit from it too.

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That’s awesome! One thing I would do is perhaps give that plant in the back nothing but water the next few watering. It may be getting locked out. Those 2 in front look amazing!

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Oh okay, I will keep an eye on it. Just topped it so we shall see how it does by the next fert watering cycle.

thanks bud

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It's quite interesting. But it makes sense. Because the plant produces glucose, sugar, by consuming CO2, and it's like it has to grow to store this sugar. Its growth increases as leaves or roots. If the soil is fertile, then it's just trying to grow leaves. Because the leaf is everything in the plant.

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Oh cool, I was not aware of exactly how it worked. But yeah I have seen big gains already. Looking forward to using through cycle and seeing how it does.

I indeed the nutrients needed, feeding them every few day with it.

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The plants need careful handling. I'm trying to grow an orchid and I hope I'll be successful.

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Oh man Orchids are delicate, luckily Cannabis is pretty hardy once they get bigger.

best of luck with yours.

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Thank you for sharing, that is awesome info on how it works for the plant itself! that is really interesting!

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No problem, yeah will do more updates as I have stuff come up on it.

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This thing is fantastic! I'm not yet at the level of checking the atmospheric values of the box, but I would like to get there in the future. I didn't know that such simple and natural remedies could be used, thanks for the tips. But one question, can mushrooms and their spores cause mold problems to plants?

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Yeah this is new for me too, but I think its going to be an interesting experience. Always finding ways to improve my grow.

As for the mushroom spores and mold, I will be setting up a separate area for the mushrooms. Their gases will pass through to my plants but not the spores. I will block the spores with a HEPA filter but will allow the co2 to pass through.

For mold, any high humidity environment I will need to be vigilant and keep an eye out for it. Hopefully the humidity generated in the mushroom area wont be too much when it passes through to the cannabis tent. Probably more of a problem during flowering when the RH should be much lower.. As right now I keep my tents between 60-70%

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Great, you've already thought of everything. But I think from what you've described you shouldn't have any problems. We need to see for the humidity afterwards, when the plants begin stretching in flowering, where there are many vegetation.

This world is also beautiful because there is always something to learn and experience even if you are already an expert as in your case. I have a universe yet to be discovered :D. But slowly also thanks to you I will learn. Thanks for the detailed explanation @solominer, you made me understand many things.

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This is awesome. I can’t wait to see how well your grows become once you get everything dialed in.

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Thanks bud, it sure is. Got to weigh it all out and see how it compared to your mainline. Though I think yours was pruned better so I think you will for sure have more than me.

Maybe next mainline I will cut them at the right node height.. lol

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That's a great idea, man! I never thought of using carbon dioxide like that. I guess it could be used in greenhouses or something like that.

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Yeah it will be interesting to see how it all plays out. I think it can too, but my grow tent is better sealed than a green house. So not sure if it will escape easily. I will test that eventually too as I have a green house on order for my new property :-)

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I enjoyed this post. We have to take care of our plants.

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(Edited)

This is some awesome information, and something I've never thought about before! I've been considering cultivating my own shrooms as well, so that's definitely something to consider and try to get set up! Maybe a micron or carbon filter of some sort? But you'd have to figure out a way to get the air to draw from one to the other without containing either the cannabis or the mushrooms..hmmm..something that would need to be pondered on for a while lol

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(Edited)

From what I have read spores are 1 micron in size and standard HEPA filters capture down to 0.3 microns.

My plan is to run the air in a loop, through the mushroom chamber and cannabis tent. But putting that 0.3 micron Hepa filter between the mushroom exhaust and intake to the grow tents.

A filter like this:

https://www.amazon.com/GrowBright-8-Inch-FreshFlow-HEPA-Filter/dp/B06X16L5GV

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That's a really good plan actually..do you have a ventilation system you are currently using for the tent or do you plan on adding one for this specific project?

Using that style of filter should essentially allow you to just use the ventilation setup inside the tent (I would assume) in order to form a vacuum of sorts. As long as you are drawing the air from one side of the tent, and allowing it to pump out the other side, right?

Then, you have a constant supply of freshly produced Oxygen, and the ability to supply the plants themselves with the Carbon Dioxide Bi-product, allowing the cycle to continue!

One thing I do know is that however you go about doing it, I'm sure it will turn out awesome, and I can't wait to see what you come up with!!

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Yeah I run my 1000w MH fan exhaust out of the tent and then back in around the bottom. The intake of the light is wide open in the tent. Bringing my temps up into the 90s. Keeps the tent nice and toasty. Also have a clip on fan moving air around in the tent.

The mushrooms tents need fresh air, so I would have an intake on the other side so every 15 minutes or so it sucks out the stale co2 filled air and pushes in new fresh air. If the mushrooms stay in high co2 for too long they stop fruiting from what I understand... so its really beneficial for both mushroom and cannabis.

Thanks bud, will make some update posts as I have them.

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Solominer

Nomnomnom Spam is fun you fucking retard

Make hive a better place with curation and bully new users by @solominer. Every investor in hive should downvote all your shit and counter vote the downvotes on new users.

I am happy you waste your downvote mana on me, you idiot!!!

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