Question on CO2

Hey Guys

I am growing inside of a grow tent that is 6 foot by 4 foot by 7feet tall I am in week 3 of flower and I have interduce CO2, I am using 4 fans one for each plant to push it over the plants. and I have an exhaust fan just running to control the smell and keep the air moving for heat and humidity as well. Nothing leaves the tent, I run though a 20lb bottle in about a week. Running it at 1500ppm
Is this normal or am I losing CO2 somewhere
I have included a picture of my plants currently

any help would be great thanks

techs21 said:

Hey Guys

I am growing inside of a grow tent that is 6 foot by 4 foot by 7feet tall I am in week 3 of flower and I have interduce CO2, I am using 4 fans one for each plant to push it over the plants. and I have an exhaust fan just running to control the smell and keep the air moving for heat and humidity as well. Nothing leaves the tent, I run though a 20lb bottle in about a week. Running it at 1500ppm
Is this normal or am I losing CO2 somewhere
I have included a picture of my plants currently

any help would be great thanks

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Not normal
You're definitely exhausting most of your precious CO2. You need a sealed room to effectively use CO2

so a grow tent is not good with CO2. that is sealed as far as I can tell
If I turn the exhaust fan off my temp and humidity will climb. I am also running a DWC system not sure if that matters

The room in which the tent is located needs to be sealed to effectively use CO2 without excessive waste.
The trick is to obtain reasonable temps and humidity within the sealed room without exchanging air; not a trivial task in many environments

Ok I didn't think it mattered it the tent was sealed so that is my fault, first time using CO2

agree with what billy said...if you're going to do co2 in a tent (without a sealed room) you're going to spend $$$ to keep it at 1500 during day time. for how much it cost me, it just wasn't worth it. with what i know now, i'd rather spend that money obtaining a consistent vpd instead

yeah co2 suplimentation assumes you have at least 1200ppfd at canopy level, perfect vpd perfect temps and perfect nutes...

first light then co2 then nutes but when i say then co2 i mean perfect temperature and with that air exchange and vpd all of that if you dont have vpd or temp dialed in co2 is useless

You're probably losing CO2, and you might not have optimal environmental conditions. Would your grow be better if you didn't run it at all? Maybe you could just dial in when would be the best times of light cycle you give CO2, to mitigate costs.

also co2 like that needs high leaf temps and with led thats a problem so you have to up the temperature in general

I have a small grow tent and thinking of adding CO2. My thoughts were along the lines of introducing the CO2 into the air intake using dry ice it comes in disk form. My thought is to introduce it early in the air intake so traveling through the duct it will warm a bit. My thinking is a little addition of CO2 will be helpful to plant growth.

formularacer said:

I have a small grow tent and thinking of adding CO2. My thoughts were along the lines of introducing the CO2 into the air intake using dry ice it comes in disk form. My thought is to introduce it early in the air intake so traveling through the duct it will warm a bit. My thinking is a little addition of CO2 will be helpful to plant growth.

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if you spend money on co2 you must have everything dialed in... so that money could be better used in lights or ambient control temps or vpd

m1100 said:

if you spend money on co2 you must have everything dialed in... so that money could be better used in lights or ambient control temps or vpd

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I like to experiment....

m1100 said:

if you spend money on co2 you must have everything dialed in... so that money could be better used in lights or ambient control temps or vpd

Click to expand...

Do you have any idea what setup I have? I find it funny that your focusing on cost.

A better response might be why it would be bad. Or how you could hurt the plant.
I fail to see why the addition of extra CO2 would not help the plant, thinking of ways of raising the temp during the injection of CO2

formularacer said:

Do you have any idea what setup I have? I find it funny that your focusing on cost.

A better response might be why it would be bad. Or how you could hurt the plant.
I fail to see why the addition of extra CO2 would not help the plant, thinking of ways of raising the temp during the injection of CO2

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thats what im saying? in not knowing your set up i only said that if you have the other more important things dialed in go for it lol

rise the temps with ir your leaf will be happy

formularacer said:

I like to experiment....

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CO2 is certainly can be helpful, but tossing in a chunk of dry ice is not gonna be very effective, nor economical.
You'd still need a co2 sensor to measure, and a means to regulate the co2 which seems improbable using dry ice.

If you're averse to co2 tanks, you could make something with sugar water and yeast, or vinegar and baking soda.
There's a number of DIY solutions using both.

I've tinkered with CO2 for a few years. A tank with a regulator and a co2 sensor is by far the best method.

also you having a intake im assuming your room/tent is not sealed and tiny ammounts like that dry ice disk would be not noticeable

i think the way to add co2 is by cannisters

other ways are just waste of money space time etc

BTW, When running RDWC in a sealed room, its probably best to pull fresh air in from another room for your air pumps/stones, instead of recycling the same air through your pump the whole time. I can see that being a problem in a small sealed tent. From what I understand, co2 is way more soluble than o2, and can saturate the solution in your res just like the o2. Possibly even leading to PH issues? So in other words, the fresh air you need for the best DO levels being pumped in will constantly be displacing the c02 you are using at the same rate the air pump is working at. It's like you can't win! Suppose you could seal up the DWC system and around the plant stalks, so it runs on its own closed air loop, and vents outside of the room, lol.

formularacer said:

I like to experiment....

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If you like to experiment, you should try rigging up a portable propane powered on demand water heater and hang it inside the tent somewhere. Regular co2 burners of course give off a lot of heat, but those cheap portable water heaters would be like having a water cooled version of the same propane burners everyone else is using.

You could plumb it into an external insulated res, and keep it full of hot water most the day. Every time your c02 controller turns it on, it heats it up throughout the day. Then, run another pump to pump that water back into a raidant floor heating coil down under the tent for winter, or out through a radiator when its hot out.

Seal the tent good so you barely need to run the burner, being in such a small space, instead of filling the whole room around it.

man if you seal a tent it for sure would need ac cooling or sit in a very low temp room