Do you add CO2 to your grow room?

[kdt15]

Wondering how common this is for indoor LED and how many people do it and if there is noticeable benefit based on how much light you are giving it. From what I researched, adding CO2 only works if you are giving the plants a TON of light, otherwise the plants wont use the CO2

 

[Achalemoipas]

Wondering how common this is for indoor LED and how many people do it and if there is noticeable benefit based on how much light you are giving it. From what I researched, adding CO2 only works if you are giving the plants a TON of light, otherwise the plants wont use the CO2

CO2 always works, it's what plants breathe. It's adding more than 400 ppm that requires more light and more heat to get a benefit. But even then, that's debatable. LED or HID doesn't change anything. Intense light is intense light. Many LED lamps are more intense than a 400W HPS. Many are much less.

Sometimes, running CO2 at 400 ppm is very beneficial. I'm in Canada, my friend runs at 400 ppm in a sealed room with only a 600w HPS. The lamp heats the room in the middle of winter, he's not exhausting all the heat from his house, no smell can escape, he only needs to fill his tank twice per grow. It's extremely beneficial to him. His heating bills have gone drastically down since because on top of not letting all the heat escape, he uses the heat of his lamp to heat the room. Not a single watt is wasted. His grow is separated from his house, in a separate garage.

My advice to you is to check your CO2 levels before buying anything. Most houses contain more than enough CO2 levels, and because of bad advice, people are building all kinds of complex systems to throw out all that CO2 out of their house and replace with even more complex and expensive systems. If you're growing in your home, you most likely would benefit more from closing your windows than a CO2 enrichment system. I actually have to purposely exhaust the air inside my house to keep CO2 under 1600 ppm. I exhaust the air of my grow room in my bedroom, I breathe out CO2, it goes in the grow room, plants breathe, the air comes back out scrubbed and clean. People would pay thousands for air filter of that quality. This is enough to keep a 10 x 12 room at 1500 ppm.

My other advice to you is to stop looking at marijuana specific info. It's 99% wrong. Look for advice about growing peppers or tomatoes. All of a sudden, everything is simple, clear and evidence backed.

 

[Empdude420]

I have a 9'x5' Shed built. This is outside.

Inside the shed, I have a 3'x3' Gorilla Grow Tent with 4 3gal plants.

This tent is venting to the outside (in and out) bypassing the shed.

Since it's "outside", then I would assume I need to add CO2? (California Bay area - temps around 60-80)

I was told that I can just take baking soda + vinegar, pour it in a bowl and sit it under the plant for an hour - maybe three times a week.

Is this sufficient or would I benefit from poking a nail hole into a soda bottle and dripping vinegar into a bowl of baking soda, sitting inside this very small 3'x3' Grow tent. (and if so, is this during the END of flower only?)

Thank you!

 

[Achalemoipas]

I have a 9'x5' Shed built. This is outside.

Inside the shed, I have a 3'x3' Gorilla Grow Tent with 4 3gal plants.

This tent is venting to the outside (in and out) bypassing the shed.

Since it's "outside", then I would assume I need to add CO2? (California Bay area - temps around 60-80)

I was told that I can just take baking soda + vinegar, pour it in a bowl and sit it under the plant for an hour - maybe three times a week.

Is this sufficient or would I benefit from poking a nail hole into a soda bottle and dripping vinegar into a bowl of baking soda, sitting inside this very small 3'x3' Grow tent. (and if so, is this during the END of flower only?)

Thank you!

The only CO2 injection methods that work are CO2 tanks and CO2 generators. Bags, cans and DIY methods are completely useless. You would just attract bugs.

If the air comes from outside, goes where the plants are and is then exhausted outside, and if you exchange the air inside the tent completely at least once every minute, you don't need CO2. That would be the equivalent of growing outside. You live in marijuana paradise. You basically have nothing to do except exhange air and give them light.

Also, CO2 augmentation doesn't help anything in flowering except make the plants handle heat better. It only makes the veg stage go faster. For flowering, you don't need more CO2 than what is in ambient air.

 

[Michael Huntherz]

I have a 9'x5' Shed built. This is outside.

Inside the shed, I have a 3'x3' Gorilla Grow Tent with 4 3gal plants.

This tent is venting to the outside (in and out) bypassing the shed.

Since it's "outside", then I would assume I need to add CO2? (California Bay area - temps around 60-80)

I was told that I can just take baking soda + vinegar, pour it in a bowl and sit it under the plant for an hour - maybe three times a week.

Is this sufficient or would I benefit from poking a nail hole into a soda bottle and dripping vinegar into a bowl of baking soda, sitting inside this very small 3'x3' Grow tent. (and if so, is this during the END of flower only?)

Thank you!

Don’t mess with CO2 until you know precisely, through experience, what you are doing. In the software business they would call using CO2 “premature optimization.”

Make sure there is plenty of air exchange and the plants will have plenty of co2.
I never use co2. When you game plateaus, 6 months to five years from now, then consider co2.

Keep it simple, keep it suitable. Think of it like software, don’t build new features until you get feedback from the MVP. In this case the feedback will be your harvest. Ship it! Then measure the response.

Cannabis is just a plant.

Are you doing soil, hydro, or what?

What lights are you running?
Those are nice tents, good size for a hobbyist grow.

 

[since1991]

CO2 always works, it's what plants breathe. It's adding more than 400 ppm that requires more light and more heat to get a benefit. But even then, that's debatable. LED or HID doesn't change anything. Intense light is intense light. Many LED lamps are more intense than a 400W HPS. Many are much less.

Sometimes, running CO2 at 400 ppm is very beneficial. I'm in Canada, my friend runs at 400 ppm in a sealed room with only a 600w HPS. The lamp heats the room in the middle of winter, he's not exhausting all the heat from his house, no smell can escape, he only needs to fill his tank twice per grow. It's extremely beneficial to him. His heating bills have gone drastically down since because on top of not letting all the heat escape, he uses the heat of his lamp to heat the room. Not a single watt is wasted. His grow is separated from his house, in a separate garage.

My advice to you is to check your CO2 levels before buying anything. Most houses contain more than enough CO2 levels, and because of bad advice, people are building all kinds of complex systems to throw out all that CO2 out of their house and replace with even more complex and expensive systems. If you're growing in your home, you most likely would benefit more from closing your windows than a CO2 enrichment system. I actually have to purposely exhaust the air inside my house to keep CO2 under 1600 ppm. I exhaust the air of my grow room in my bedroom, I breathe out CO2, it goes in the grow room, plants breathe, the air comes back out scrubbed and clean. People would pay thousands for air filter of that quality. This is enough to keep a 10 x 12 room at 1500 ppm.

My other advice to you is to stop looking at marijuana specific info. It's 99% wrong. Look for advice about growing peppers or tomatoes. All of a sudden, everything is simple, clear and evidence backed.

I've used co2 for years. A large part of those years...I was pretty much wasting it. Back in the days before co2 ppm controllers/monitors we used timers and a funky chart to try and get co2 in the ballpark. A guessing game at best and even with the (old school now) controller boxes from CAP and Green Air that coordinated your vent fans with co2, temperature, & humidity...we still wasted the gas when the vent fans kicked on. Many many years and tank upon expensive refill tank I and many other growers wasted back in the day. We were told you HAD to vent the room. This was WAY before we knew of mini split air conditioners and commercial grade dehumidifiers and sealing the room up so when you injected co2 gas (whether from a tank or a burner) it didn't get sucked out from a vent/exhaust fan kicking on. Now with what we know most that are running sealed room setups and grow rooms are actually seeing the much touted 20% to 30% gains from co2 supplementation. Back in those olden days and vented rooms we told ourselves we saw gains from using co2 but it was marginal at best. We used it anyway. I wouldn't think of using co2 now without a sealed room (non vented growroom)... an actual co2 ppm controller and a mini split a.c.& dehumidifier.

 

[Roger A. Shrubber]

on top of pretty much being useless in a non-sealed tent, setting a bowl on the floor of your tent would be further uselessness. CO2 is heavier than air, it falls. you want to have a strong enough generator or tank to just fill the whole area, and a bowl of vinegar and baking soda isn't even close.
i have seen people run their tanks into a manifold and put something like a drip ring on each plant close to the top so the co2 "drips" down the plant, but that seems like wasted effort to me.

 

[since1991]

Once you use co2 gas the right way (and you will know it)....EVERYTHING gets amped up. The growth rates (despite what some say - co2 most definitely kicks ass in veg)..the plant structure/morphology..the transpiration rates...the plants metabolism...everything is amped up. You will get a shorter bushier stockier plant with robust roots..growth nodes. Thicker stems and leaves as well. Be prepared to up the feedings and watering too because the plants metabolism is charging full bore. That is if everything else is on point and the plant isn't sick or has bugs. You can blast them with slightly higher temps and a slightly more humid room as well. Especially in veg and early flowering.

 

[since1991]

on top of pretty much being useless in a non-sealed tent, setting a bowl on the floor of your tent would be further uselessness. CO2 is heavier than air, it falls. you want to have a strong enough generator or tank to just fill the whole area, and a bowl of vinegar and baking soda isn't even close.
i have seen people run their tanks into a manifold and put something like a drip ring on each plant close to the top so the co2 "drips" down the plant, but that seems like wasted effort to me.

I remember back in the olden day when I tried the baking soda/vinegar bullshit in my early grow rooms. Actually more of a closet setup than real deal rooms. High Times even had articles on setting up a fancy baking soda/vinegar co2 method using valves and tubing. A waste of time and a stinky mess was what we got. I thought those early High Times articles were gospel back in the day but little did I know... High Times was winging it for the most part with the grow related articles as well. We've come a long way since those days. I am talking late eighties early nineties.

 

[Michael Huntherz]

Once you use co2 gas the right way (and you will know it)....EVERYTHING gets amped up. The growth rates (despite what some say - co2 most definitely kicks ass in veg)..the plant structure/morphology..the transpiration rates...the plants metabolism...everything is amped up. You will get a shorter bushier stockier plant with robust roots..growth nodes. Thicker stems and leaves as well. Be prepared to up the feedings and watering too because the plants metabolism is charging full bore. That is if everything else is on point and the plant isn't sick or has bugs. You can blast them with slightly higher temps and a slightly more humid room as well. Especially in veg and early flowering.

Which is exactly why it is probably, usually, a waste for new growers.

 

[Empdude420]

To clarify (above), it is a CLOSED tent, not an open tent. The reason it is in a shed is simply Security, Wind, Rain, Convenience of storing all the nutrients and equipment, as well as the fans/electrical sit on top of the tent. It is a Gorilla Grow Tent 3x3.

The light system is: Sun System 315 Watt LEC Fixture with 4,200K Lamp, 120 Volt and I am using a Phresh Filter 4" x 12", 200 CFM. I have two inline vents using a bug filter and I have one Gale Force 4" outbound vent Fan, 189 CFM which connects directly outside the shed through flex ducting, going into a dryer vent (which I put high/ceiling level)

I am using 4 plants in soil (Fox Farm) with 3.6gallon buckets.

I am using the Apple Sensor Push (two of them) to monitor the Temp and Humidity in both the shed and the tent --- pushing notifications to my phone for monitoring.

I will skip the CO2 for now ... it is my first grow.

 

[since1991]

To clarify (above), it is a CLOSED tent, not an open tent. The reason it is in a shed is simply Security, Wind, Rain, Convenience of storing all the nutrients and equipment, as well as the fans/electrical sit on top of the tent. It is a Gorilla Grow Tent 3x3.

The light system is: Sun System 315 Watt LEC Fixture with 4,200K Lamp, 120 Volt and I am using a Phresh Filter 4" x 12", 200 CFM. I have two inline vents using a bug filter and I have one Gale Force 4" outbound vent Fan, 189 CFM which connects directly outside the shed through flex ducting, going into a dryer vent (which I put high/ceiling level)

I am using 4 plants in soil (Fox Farm) with 3.6gallon buckets.

I am using the Apple Sensor Push (two of them) to monitor the Temp and Humidity in both the shed and the tent --- pushing notifications to my phone for monitoring.

I will skip the CO2 for now ... it is my first grow.

Yeah...if your using a fan to displace the air in any grow room...your not running a sealed room. No biggie. I would run with what you got. After a few grows..start thinking about employing an air conditioner that doesn't use grow room air to cool the condenser (a mini split) to battle heat and zipping that tent up tight and use co2 with a ppm monitor. But this is later. I would run with what you got and not even worry about gassing co2 for now. You will get buds and fatness just the same. Especially with that little 315 watt lec (cmh) fixture. Ive seen those little lamps in multiple arrays and they are damn near like the sun. Plants grow healthy as all get out under some cmh lamps. Good luck.

 

[Michael Huntherz]

To clarify (above), it is a CLOSED tent, not an open tent. The reason it is in a shed is simply Security, Wind, Rain, Convenience of storing all the nutrients and equipment, as well as the fans/electrical sit on top of the tent. It is a Gorilla Grow Tent 3x3.

The light system is: Sun System 315 Watt LEC Fixture with 4,200K Lamp, 120 Volt and I am using a Phresh Filter 4" x 12", 200 CFM. I have two inline vents using a bug filter and I have one Gale Force 4" outbound vent Fan, 189 CFM which connects directly outside the shed through flex ducting, going into a dryer vent (which I put high/ceiling level)

I am using 4 plants in soil (Fox Farm) with 3.6gallon buckets.

I am using the Apple Sensor Push (two of them) to monitor the Temp and Humidity in both the shed and the tent --- pushing notifications to my phone for monitoring.

I will skip the CO2 for now ... it is my first grow.

Sounds pretty dialed in, I think you will do fine. Good light choice!

Test your water source, your tap is probably fine depending on your neighborhood, but my guess is you already bought an RO machine, right?

My RO machine is the best purchase I ever made. My discus fish love it, mixed with dechlorinated tapwater, the plants love it, also mixed with the tap, I love it to drink, would never be without one again.

Apple Sensor Push, cool! Are you logging that data to an external web service as well? I am working on building a grow tracker API (and js front-end for starters) currently.

 

[Empdude420]

Sounds pretty dialed in, I think you will do fine. Good light choice!

Test your water source,.

Our water is piped in from Yosemitee (Hetch Hetchy) - my brother drives 90 minutes every three weeks to grab 15-20 gallons of it, because he said it's so great - especially during flushing. He's been doing that for years. (I have a well / well water too, but I am not going to be using that)

Yes, the sensor is logged, and it's going to my friends house as well as mine - so we both monitor it. When I go on vacation in a few months, he will be able to monitor the shed and tent temps from his house 5 miles away - and then come up and take care of issues. I can set LOW and HIGH warnings, so it will push alerts to me. The sensors talk to a Wifi Access point, which then goes into the cloud. I can be away and see temp issues remotely.

I am using Home Access points as well so I can monitor/change fans to be on/off remotely as well.

 

[Empdude420]

For my very first grow, I am going to be doing clones. I've decided on:

Blue Dream, Do Sa Do, Cookies, Blackberry Fire

All seemed to be flowering around the same time, did not have an advanced/hard difficulty level and seemed to be easy.

 

[Achalemoipas]

False.

No, it's true."When the cultures with fruit-bodies larger than 10 mm were exposed, length and yield were insensitive and pileus expansion was greatly inhibited inF. velutipes, while inP. ostreatus length was insensitive, but pileus expansion was heavily damaged by trumpet-like deformation and yield decreased."

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF02268504


You won't find a study claiming otherwise. Just random people spouting nonsense. Don't look for info in marijuana related sites. They're all shit. The sheer instinct and common sense of anyone with an IQ above 85 are more reliable.

 

[Indacouch]

CO2 always works, it's what plants breathe. It's adding more than 400 ppm that requires more light and more heat to get a benefit. But even then, that's debatable. LED or HID doesn't change anything. Intense light is intense light. Many LED lamps are more intense than a 400W HPS. Many are much less.

Sometimes, running CO2 at 400 ppm is very beneficial. I'm in Canada, my friend runs at 400 ppm in a sealed room with only a 600w HPS. The lamp heats the room in the middle of winter, he's not exhausting all the heat from his house, no smell can escape, he only needs to fill his tank twice per grow. It's extremely beneficial to him. His heating bills have gone drastically down since because on top of not letting all the heat escape, he uses the heat of his lamp to heat the room. Not a single watt is wasted. His grow is separated from his house, in a separate garage.

My advice to you is to check your CO2 levels before buying anything. Most houses contain more than enough CO2 levels, and because of bad advice, people are building all kinds of complex systems to throw out all that CO2 out of their house and replace with even more complex and expensive systems. If you're growing in your home, you most likely would benefit more from closing your windows than a CO2 enrichment system. I actually have to purposely exhaust the air inside my house to keep CO2 under 1600 ppm. I exhaust the air of my grow room in my bedroom, I breathe out CO2, it goes in the grow room, plants breathe, the air comes back out scrubbed and clean. People would pay thousands for air filter of that quality. This is enough to keep a 10 x 12 room at 1500 ppm.

My other advice to you is to stop looking at marijuana specific info. It's 99% wrong. Look for advice about growing peppers or tomatoes. All of a sudden, everything is simple, clear and evidence backed.

Isn't this site about growing tomatoes?

 

[since1991]

No, it's true."When the cultures with fruit-bodies larger than 10 mm were exposed, length and yield were insensitive and pileus expansion was greatly inhibited inF. velutipes, while inP. ostreatus length was insensitive, but pileus expansion was heavily damaged by trumpet-like deformation and yield decreased."

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF02268504


You won't find a study claiming otherwise. Just random people spouting nonsense. Don't look for info in marijuana related sites. They're all shit. The sheer instinct and common sense of anyone with an IQ above 85 are more reliable.

Huh? Whadafuk? Increase co2 in a grow room to 2 or 3x ambient and you will harvest...more..better..faster. Bottom line. Either that or my equipment is magic.

 

[Achalemoipas]

For my very first grow, I am going to be doing clones. I've decided on:

Blue Dream, Do Sa Do, Cookies, Blackberry Fire

All seemed to be flowering around the same time, did not have an advanced/hard difficulty level and seemed to be easy.

I highly recommend doing just one strain on your first grow if you want easy. Those four plants could drink at different times and have different nute requirements. Instead of mixing one batch and watering four plants at the same time, you could find yourself having to make one batch for each plant and a watering for each plant.

In fact, in your space, I'd do a single plant. Just one big pot, top it and tie the branches in the corners. Like a SCROG without a net. A bluedream clone should fill that space with only 30-40 days of veg.

 

[Achalemoipas]

Huh? Whadafuk?

This means CO2 either does nothing or hurts yield in flowering.