Home made Co2

h20xygen

h20xygen

Well-Known Member
Hi there, was checking out a few of your grow rooms and it seems you use Co2 in there, i guess this is good for photosynthesis but I was speaking to skunk and he has his own home made Co2, was just wondering how you guys make this because I was thinking of doing it myself, much love :)

Paul
 
m420

m420

Well-Known Member
Paul, I found the online and used copied and pasted it so I don't know where i got it from. I've been doing it this way for a few weeks and it rocks.

Fermentation​


Acquire some brewer's yeast if you can. The types of yeast you can use (in order of what is best) are:
-Champagne, Wine, Ale, Beer, Baker's

Rig up a simple fermentation chamber with airlock. The airlock is designed to keep the atmosphere anaerobic while releasing your good CO2. Fermentation chamber should be any airtight container with top. It could be a 2 liter Coke bottle, for example. Drill a hole in its top and glue in some plastic tubing, making sure to create a good seal. An epoxy is probably what you'll need to do it. Run that tube into a smaller, halved bottle: a water bottle works well. Place the tube at the exact bottom and glue it there such that the outlet of the tube faces the wall (not the bottom) and is not blocked (by glue, the wall, and your mouse, whatever). Fill that up with water, about an inch and a half above the bottom.

The mechanism is all set up, now set up the fermentation. Fill the bottle with about a 20% solution of glucose (dextrose) by mass and place a few tsp. of yeast in that jaunt. Placing the yeast in some warm water for half an hour prior with some sugar is a good way to jump-start the process. Using those six-carboned sugars, you get optimum results, but other sugars can be used. In general, you'll likely find the 5-carbon variety (fructose: corn syrup, eg.) or the polysaccharide (sucrose: cane sugar). In these cases, it’s ok to add a little more sugar, no more than 25%. Champagne yeast can tolerate more. Brewers yeast, you may want to shoot for less. Cap that jaunt with the tubing/cap system you rigged up.

Here's the principal, its pretty simple: The yeast use the sugar to make their energy (ATP). However, in absence of oxygen, the metabolic pathways can't be completed, and alcohol is excreted as waste. This is disadvantageous to the yeast, but hey, who cares? They also release carbon dioxide. For every equivalent of glucose or dextrose, the yeast produces two equivalents of carbon dioxide and alcohol. If other sugars are used, the process is slightly less efficient due to the early metabolics that get done to prepare it, or the inefficiency of metabolic/synthetic shunts. The carbon dioxide is good for your plants: its the objective. The alcohol is bad. It increases in concentration in the fermentation vessel and DOES NOT leave in any way. Over time, the yeast poisons itself with its own waste. Better yeasts (as per the above sheet) survive longer and make more carbon dioxide. Hence the reason for increasing the sugar, if you'd like (the difference is probably just about marginal if at all).

So what does this mean for you? A mole of glucose is around 180 grams. Thus, a 20% mass solution will produce slightly more than TWO MOLES (2.2 to be exact) of gas per liter. At standard temperature and pressure, and if you are growing, that's what you want, you will get around 50 liters of pure carbon dioxide from this method, over the time period of about 2-4 weeks.

Problems: You can tell the yeast is dying when the bubbling through the airlock subsides. No way around it, you need to whip up another fermentation mixture. Optimally you would do this every week and a half, while the yeast is at their maximum productivity. Using cane sugar and baker's yeast this is a crazy inexpensive endeavor.

Can you kill the plants with too much CO2? Most likely not. They breathe it as air, and they really only need oxygen (the only other thing they really take from the air) to run their ETC and some other minor metabolic processes. They get this from the water, believe it or not. Also they respirate as much 02 as they take in CO2. No problem, really. On the other hand, your plants would optimally have about 3 times as much carbon dioxide as would be in the atmosphere. That rings in at around 6%, so not that much, and in all likelihood, its going to be difficult to bring it up to these levels.

-also, I bought my champagne yeast on ebay for pretty cheap
 
skunkushybrid

skunkushybrid

New Member
Or you could...

Any active yeast. Sugar and water. Mix it up, shake it up. Put hole in top of bottle, only half fill bottle with mixture then shake it up. Shake regularly for next 48 hours. This is about how long it takes for ingredients to react together. Now every time you shake the bottles a gust of Co2 is released. The bubbles in the bottle are a good indication that Co2 is continuing to be released into the atmosphere. When bubbles run out shake again. The bubbles should last a couple of hours.

The more you shake the more you make.
 
Bigbud

Bigbud

Well-Known Member
skunkushybrid said:
Or you could...

Any active yeast. Sugar and water. Mix it up, shake it up. Put hole in top of bottle, only half fill bottle with mixture then shake it up. Shake regularly for next 48 hours. This is about how long it takes for ingredients to react together. Now every time you shake the bottles a gust of Co2 is released. The bubbles in the bottle are a good indication that Co2 is continuing to be released into the atmosphere. When bubbles run out shake again. The bubbles should last a couple of hours.

The more you shake the more you make.
Click to expand...
Simple enough... When would be the best time to start? Can you use it right from the off? And would there be a limit to how many bottles you could use?
 
bigballin007

bigballin007

New Member
1 to 2 tsp of yeast and 1 or 2 cups of sugar will get it started. Be sure to replace half of the water every other day to keep em alive.
 
bigballin007

bigballin007

New Member
yep thats all that is to it. co2 is heavier than o2 so be sure to place the outlet above your plants as the co2 will settle to the bottom of your grow room.
 
S

Scarecrow(sXs)

Active Member
This may sound stupid...but can't you just get Co2 from shaking a bottle of club soda? Or does it only make carbon monoxide? or only carbon?

It seems to me that the most efficient way to allow the plant to consume all of the Co2, would be to have your plants in a "chamber" Ex: fish tank

That way no Co2 could be released.
 
F

FallenHero

Guest
shaking the bottle gives you a burst of co2 comming from the water. the yeast+sugar+water creates a slow flow of it constantly. the yeast slowly eats the sugar giving off co2. having more co2 in your room at all times is what your shooting for, not just a burst
 
skunkushybrid

skunkushybrid

New Member
With the bottles you will get an initial burst. The mixture will then froth up. The froth contains Co2 and they slowly release the Co2 into your grow space. When the bubbles are gone, it's time to shake again. Also, bear in mind that the mixture could take up to 48 hours before reacting. Also too, only fill your bottles half way.
 
P

PlutonicChronic

Well-Known Member
skunkushybrid said:
Or you could...

Any active yeast. Sugar and water. Mix it up, shake it up. Put hole in top of bottle, only half fill bottle with mixture then shake it up. Shake regularly for next 48 hours. This is about how long it takes for ingredients to react together. Now every time you shake the bottles a gust of Co2 is released. The bubbles in the bottle are a good indication that Co2 is continuing to be released into the atmosphere. When bubbles run out shake again. The bubbles should last a couple of hours.

The more you shake the more you make.
Click to expand...
So I have to shake the bottle every couple of hours for the next two months??!!?? BTW what are the measurements of yeast/sugar/& water for a 2 liter bottle?
 
skunkushybrid

skunkushybrid

New Member
PlutonicChronic said:
So I have to shake the bottle every couple of hours for the next two months??!!?? BTW what are the measurements of yeast/sugar/& water for a 2 liter bottle?
Click to expand...
The more you shake the more you make. It's up to you, if it feels like too much of a hardship to do it for 2 months then don't bother. The more Co2 your plants get the bigger your yield will be, also with enough concentrations of Co2 in your grow space your plants will thrive even in temp's of 96f, and it is believed that they could take it even hotter.

This really is only for the beginner, just to get used to using the stuff. After a couple of crops you'll be able to afford the proper gear. You don't even need to sell your crop, the money you save on not buying it will more than compensate.
 
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