CO2 (carbon dioxide) at Lowes

born2killspam said:

Ironically established trees use more O2 than they produce.. If they aren't growing then they have very little reason to take up CO2..
Yep, and the biggest irony is because of that, many rainforests would produce more oxygen if they were pretty much clear-cut..
I am a fan of boost buckets though.. There is a ton of fermentation happening in nature.. CO2 isn't the only helpful thing produced..
I take that back.. Boost buckets suck.. Its a waste of good ETOH.. Make some beer, build a still.. Fermentation and horticulture have a symbiotic relationship in more ways than one..

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That statement has a lot of grey area.... Types of trees, time of year, size. All these thing need to be taken into account as well as their environment.
A pine tree isn't going to produce as much oxygen as a broadleaf tree because its the rate of photosynthesis which determines the amount of Co2 consumed and o2 created. A tree with a leaf instead of a needle has more surface area to photosynthesize therefore resulting in faster growth. So your saying a 100' Elm tree with 10,000 leaves all producing o2 is going to produce less o2 than a 10' elm tree with 250 leaves? Also, because established trees are not "growing" persay their still building up energy all the time. To rebuild broken limbs, seal off dead branches, and creating nutrients for the tree to stay healthy.So in a sense, if it's not physically growing, its still working on creating sugars, which in fact does require exhorbanant amounts of co2.

Ironically Size DOES NOT matter in photosynthesis per say as much as surface area. Marine Algae is the #1 producer of Oxygen on Earth, yet its one of the smallest plant species in the world. Sorry to be off topic, just wanted to throw my two cents in...

All processes being equal sure it boils down to surface area, but plants don't necessarily work at full capacity when growth isn't critical.. I realize algae is the big one.. It never slows down if environment allows it to go full speed.. Think about the carbon involved, old trees don't continually pack on size, so what happens to all the carbon in the respiration if it keeps getting faster?
A 10' elm tree may not output as much O2 as an older tree, but if thats the case it won't use as much O2 either.. And if you look at it from an area basis, an acre of 10' elm trees will grossly out produce an acre of mature trees..

Something none of you have mentioned that I think the noobies would like to know before they set up a fermentor is the SMELL. Be prepared for a god awfull odor. Fermenting STINKS! And it's also a good bit of work.

On the positive side, if you're willing to put up with the odor, you can start distilling the fermented water and recover the alcohol and get drunk on it! There is a brand of yeast out called Turbo yeast that advertises a 25% yield in 48 hours. Might be wrong on the time, but I also ferment wine, and the 25% is the highest yield I've ever heard of.

BUT

If the house U grow in has gas running to it, run a blackpipe into your grow space and run an open burner. It's WAYY cheaper than bottled gas, and you can get controllers that will monitor the PPM's and keep them at 1500, which is the recommended PPM's for maximum growth. I bought a commercial CO2 generator, and all it is is a 5 inch burner like you'd see in a gas furnace. The only advantage to buying the Commercial unit is the controller that comes with it.

Oh, and I agree that it's beneficial to the grow. CO2 will boost bud production by at LEAST 20%.


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Fermenting can smell not too bad if everything is kept nice and sanitary.. I love the smell of a clean rum or beer fermentation.. Fermenting rum smells like cookie dough for quite a while.. Besides, theres already plant odour in the room, and as nice as that is, anything that helps mask it is a good thing IMO..
Regarding the turbo yeast, I HATE THEM!!! I wouldn't touch the piss they produce.. Those numbers are misleading too.. No yeast can hit anything close to 25%abv, they mean 25% conversion of the sugar in the batch within 48 hours.. Actually, a good fermenter can get 75% conversion or more in 2 days with any yeast, but they quote 25% in hopes that naive ppl assume they mean abv, since nobody in their right mind could think 75% is possible for abv..
Baker's yeast can survive up to 14-15%abv (roughly 25% by weight initial sugar)
EC-1118 can survive about 16% and produces good product (~27% initial sugar)
Turbos can survive 16-17% but the flavor SUCKS.. (~28% initial sugar)
Champagne yeast is actually the big boy.. It can survive over 18%, and probably isn't as bad for flavour as turbos are (~30.5% initial sugar)

Adding more than that is a waste, and adding more than ~35% initial sugar will actually kill the yeast..
Baker's yeast is my personal favorite, and I don't even push it to its limit.. Best flavor, and all around fastest production happens when you aim for about 10% abv (~17% initial sugar).. Fermentation slows waay down when the yeast have to fight high amounts of ETOH.. If you were to compare perpetual yield from limited space/time, like we do with growing, then less concentrated buckets would win..
Oh, and btw the average grow room temp is pretty ideal for fermentation too..

I bought my 20lb CO2 tank and hydrofarm regulator and timer today! thanks for the info in this thread, I'm looking forward to seeing what it can do for me

I always wanted to grow weed. I have , and have learned many great ways to increase yield . (thnx to riu). now I always wanted to brew my own mead, and have realized one will help the other.(co2 fermentation) . I recently started brewing my own mead and i am venting the co2 into my grow closet, it's my first brew so fingers crossed , but its also my third harvest and everything I have learned here has helped increase my yield by 10%. by brewing your own hooch you are killing two birds with one stone. fatter weed and home made hooch

OK so I have some inquiries, I have some DADY turbo moonshine yeast from my brief yet fun times making my own hooch, I know about the Co2 biproduct but how much is produced compared to mixing vinegar and baking soda? or even using tanks, how comparable is yeast in gms released from a tank or reaction, I know it is slower and more constant but how much is it really producing?

For every molecule of alcohol produced, you get one of CO2.. And they weigh close to the same thing, so the math is easy..
Simplest way to look at it ishowever much sugar you start with, in the end ~50% of the mass can be accounted for in the alcohol, and the other 50% in CO2.. 1lb of CO2 will dilute to roughly 5000cuft of ideal air..

lol, somebody needs to send snapshots of this conversation to TIME magazine man. WE have just wintnessed irrefuteable proof that Stoners and Growers shouldn't be pigeonholed as idiots and burnouts.....

K1Ng5p4d3 said:

lol, somebody needs to send snapshots of this conversation to TIME magazine man. WE have just wintnessed irrefuteable proof that Stoners and Growers shouldn't be pigeonholed as idiots and burnouts.....

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Hey....
The best way to avoid getting shot is to NOT be a target!

Let'em keep their dilusions!


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born2killspam said:

Yea, buy a 2kg (4ish lb) bag of sugar, top up to 10 litres total with sugar (2.5-3.0USGallons with sugar).. Get it dissolved, cool it to 70-100°F and add yeast (atleast a few teaspoons for faster results).. And keep the temp fairly stable.. Doing it properly though isn't much harder than making kool-aid..

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will doing this make the mixture foam up and over the top of the container if its not tall enough?

Not much at all if any.. Sugar washes don't have much protien so they tend not to foam.. If you look at the surface in the right light it just looks like cola pitter-pattering away its CO2 long after the initial pouring..
Word of warning though, if you disturb it too much in mid action by stirring/jolting it, it will react like cola would and expell dissolved CO2 quickly like beer.. If you're near the top of a jug it will overflow, but doubtfully in a wide mouthed container like a bucket..

COGOGROW said:

I bought my 20lb CO2 tank and hydrofarm regulator and timer today! thanks for the info in this thread, I'm looking forward to seeing what it can do for me

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Be sure to let us know how you're regulating it and how long that 20 lb tank lasts you!
I did try bottled gas in the beginning. I bought a couple of 50 LB tanks and had them filled. Might have been a screwup on my part as, at that time, I did'nt have a PPM meter for CO2, and so I may have had the output way too high, but one full 50 LB tank only lasted me a week! I still have that whole setup, but it sits in a corner, helpin to collect dust since I got the gas burner. If I ever get up enough ambition to have one refilled maybe I'll do a test, since I now have a controller with a meter.

No promises though.... I'm a firm beliver in not touching any system that works fine!

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smoke and coke said:

will doing this make the mixture foam up and over the top of the container if its not tall enough?

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It depends on the TYPE of yeast you use. In winemaking I've had carboys foam over with one type, and not foam at all with another. I've never used Baker's yeast though... but at a guess, I'd think it would foam a lot, so use a tall pail for your attempt... just in case.


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Having used Baker's Yeast (doing so right now) Expect a 2-2.5x 'rise' when the yeast is activated. Say you have a quart jar, filled with 16oz of water/sugar. Add a teaspoon or so of yeast to that, and the yeast will start creating CO2 at a fair rate. First time I did this many years back, I had a mess all over the floor within the first hourr, because I thought it wouldn't head up so much. I was WRONG! Now I take whatever container I use, and only fill it about 1/3 of the way, then add the proper yeast amount and cover. No messes since with baker's yeast. Add a little sugar and swirl around now and then, and you're good for a couple of weeks. If you're good enough to get an active culture reproducing, you can almost perpetually sustain it with proper changes of solution.

born2killspam said:

For every molecule of alcohol produced, you get one of CO2.. And they weigh close to the same thing, so the math is easy..
Simplest way to look at it ishowever much sugar you start with, in the end ~50% of the mass can be accounted for in the alcohol, and the other 50% in CO2.. 1lb of CO2 will dilute to roughly 5000cuft of ideal air..

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1gm sugar in 1 gallon of water makes 1% alcohol
so that makes since..

now im trying to find out how much you get from 1 gm of baking soda to 1 gm of vinegar...im wondering because that reaction releases A LOT of gas and it is only Co2 coming off. We used that method in AG class to enrich flowers and stuff and if yeast was more efficient im sure someone in farmland here would know and use it since its set it and forget it...

Ive just never seen any wort or beer or wine I made fill a balloon instantly, but the reaction will fill several ballons instantly...
Im dubious?

From what I found here below it seems most or all the ions in the reaction get used up too, tit for tat, just like with yeast. But im still looking for actual amounts released...

The reaction between baking soda and vinegar is actually two reactions, an acid base reaction followed by a decomposition reaction.

When the two ingredients are mixed, hydrogen ions ( H+) from the vinegar react with the bicarbonate ions (HCO3- ) from the baking soda to form a new chemical called carbonic acid (H2CO3).


H+ + HCO3- ---> H2CO3
The carbonic acid thus formed then immediately decomposes into carbon dioxide gas (CO2)and water (H2O).


H2CO3 ---> H2O + CO2
It's this carbon dioxide gas that you see bubbling and foaming as soon as you mix baking soda and vinegar together.

Using the molecular structures of only the components involved, the chemical reaction can be written:




The overall reaction however, is often written as follows:


NaHCO3 (aq) + CH3COOH (aq) ----> CO2 (g) + H2O (l) + CH3COONa (aq)

Busmike said:

Be sure to let us know how you're regulating it and how long that 20 lb tank lasts you!
I did try bottled gas in the beginning. I bought a couple of 50 LB tanks and had them filled. Might have been a screwup on my part as, at that time, I did'nt have a PPM meter for CO2, and so I may have had the output way too high, but one full 50 LB tank only lasted me a week! I still have that whole setup, but it sits in a corner, helpin to collect dust since I got the gas burner. If I ever get up enough ambition to have one refilled maybe I'll do a test, since I now have a controller with a meter.

No promises though.... I'm a firm beliver in not touching any system that works fine!

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My 20lb co2 tank has a volume of at least 150cf. So I'm releasing 2cf/day so it lasts me the next 70 days of my grow. My flowrate is high for a 130 cubic foot tent because I have to continuously exhaust the air to keep the smell under control. At $17 a refill it's hard to beat if you have the start-up funds.

So have you figured out the expected masses? You have more than enough info on the reaction.. If you haven't its as easy as this:
Simplifying the rxn to calculate only what we care about, 1 mole of baking soda makes 1 mole of CO2.. (A mole is like a chemistry dozen.. It works out such that one mole of hydrogen 'atoms' weighs 1g, [and 1 mole of H2 weighs 2g]).. One mole of baking soda weighs 83g, 1mole of CO2 weighs 44 grams, so you'll end up with ~53% of the initial mass of BS in CO2..
1mole of any gas will occupy roughly 23L of space at standard temp/pressure (just under 1cuft).. Plants need that diluted by about 666x though to hit 1500ppm..

born2killspam said:

So have you figured out the expected masses? You have more than enough info on the reaction.. If you haven't its as easy as this:
Simplifying the rxn to calculate only what we care about, 1 mole of baking soda makes 1 mole of CO2.. (A mole is like a chemistry dozen.. It works out such that one mole of hydrogen 'atoms' weighs 1g, [and 1 mole of H2 weighs 2g]).. One mole of baking soda weighs 83g, 1mole of CO2 weighs 44 grams, so you'll end up with ~53% of the initial mass of BS in CO2..
1mole of any gas will occupy roughly 23L of space at standard temp/pressure (just under 1cuft).. Plants need that diluted by about 666x though to hit 1500ppm..

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Wow your fast and more efficient, I actually got tired of the math and went to bed, but I was on the same path.
So basically what I deduce from this is yeast can produce 50% of the original mass of sugar as C02...
If the math you provided is correct(which I obviously see it is)... and the reaction of vinegar and baking soda can produce 53% of its mass as C02 then I guess it must be an effective method but faster, yeast is a longer method for slow release, but the reaction is instant and 3% more efficient from what I understand...
I can see it being more dangerous and easier to overdo though because of how much you produce instantly. Much harder to overdo in a yeast bucket that slow releases. But still an interesting method for quick release C02 for your babies...
Thanks for doing and posting my math for me, you rock!

born2killspam said:

I drink everything I ferment, and for the sake of flavour I never push my yeast up to their limit..

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will i be able to produce good CO2 for my plants and get some alcohol then?!