Co2 question please help, need advice

[THCforus]

O.K.
My current flowering space is 6' long 4' wide and 7' tall. According to the equasion, I need to pump .168 cu ft. of co2 into my area. I have the regulator hooked up to my climate controler which starts up my vent fan and intake fan when either the temp or humidity goes out of range. I am running 2, 400 wt. hps lights, one is air cooled, the other has a batwing refl. when the lights are on, the temps avarage aroung 79-80 deg. when the c02 turns on the intake and vent fans turn off.
so here's my question- the average time that either the fans are on or the co2 is on is about 15 to 20 min. maybe a little longer at times. Is this enough time for the plants to benifit from the co2, before it gets to hot and the exhaust fans activate and clear the space of hot stagnant air "and all the built up co2" along with it. It was very hard for me to set the "exact" ambient temp on the climate controller, so the fans are set to exhaust at around 80 to 81 deg.
I wanna make sure im not wasting my time and money on co2 so if you guys, or girls can set me straight i would hugely appreciate it. I have about 15 books on cannabis cult. and none can answer my question
THC

 

[Dr Dog]

I have not used Co2 but I have read quite a bit about it, for the size of your room, I say why bother. I run a 7x7x7 room and have yet to see the need. Any documented grow I have seen has not really benefitted from C02 that was on the smaller side.

I believe that human breathing releases about 4000 ppm into a room, so I say save your money and just visit your plants more. I cannot tell you what it does for my plants on teh C02 side of things, but I can tell you , that I raise my temps about 5 degrees just by being in there.

Check out this site, this dude talks in great detail about C02 http://www.urbangrower.com/

 

[THCforus]

Dr. Dog
thanks for taking the time to answer my wicked exciting question. lol
no, i know it's kinda boring subject and everything but thats why we spend so much time on this forum, isn't it?, to gift each other with knowledge so we can all benifit from it and produce amazing plants. I don't know thats how i see it anyways.

I definately hear ya on spending quality time with your plants. I just can't get enough of them. Here's the thing, my intake is blown in from the room where the flower tent is, and is exhausted into another room. The only co2 the plants are gettin' is from whats in the house, and the breathing from my wife and i and the three dogs. i was hoping that would be enough but it proved not to be. I don't know what the difference would be if i was pulling air in from outside, but everything i have read talks about a 30% + increase in bud size w/ co2 suppl. (as long as all other needs are met)
Iv'e never read or heard anything about size limits of weather or not co2 would be productive, so i'll look into that.
good lookin' out on the urban grower site. "good stuff".
thanks again

 

[THCforus]

If I could get views from a couple more of you guys I'd really appreciate it. Knowing weather or not my system is right would bail me out of some stressin.

 

[stke_fingas]

sup man! hey i'm no expert but i have been using Co2 for the past 6-7 grows. love the stuff, and to be honest i'm not dialed in at all but i'll still use it. i don't understand the concept on not using it to your advantage till you have your room dialed in. it for sure increases yields and will cut veg time in half IME. now it doesn't matter if i'm using Co2 or not, i'm still going to take time to learn how to improve every harvest. i think the misconception is that it's harder to learn after co2? the "no co2 till dialed in" theory has got to be the stinkiest BS i have every heard. someone fill me in...

i see nothing wrong for running the Co2 15-20 minutes at a time, i just finished a crop in my cab that i supplemented for 15 min every hour, due to humidity so i had to vent 45 min. in the 15 min the humidity would go from ~20% to 100% in the cab. i ran out earlier than i had expected cause the valve on my solenoid stuck a few times, i knew it was empty before i even looked at the bottle. i seen it in growth. this was all in a cab, and the ambient temps were ~70*F with less than 20% humidity(my meter only reads down to 20%). it was nice to open the cab and get hit in the face with a wave of humidity and the smell of her oh so mighty dankness.

i would let the temps get at least 90*F before i even thought of turning a vent fan on. between 90~95 is the range where they fuckin go nuts. if you can get your timing around 30 min with enrichment to every hour that will add up to 6 hours a day, easily worth doing. since you already have the equipment there is no reason to not run it.
my .02

good luck!

 

[THCforus]

sound advise stke F.
thanks allot man, i couldnt agree more.

 

[ripOG]

Hey THC... keep in mind that in theory the fans should be turned off only to top off the level of co2 in the room, then turned back on again. So the level of co2 should be more or less constant in any sized room when using a monitor. If the fan is removing the room's co2 too quickly I would try to either turn up the flow on the co2 reg or dial down the fan using a speed controller. If there is still too much fan "off time" in the cycle you may need to just unplug the fan from the controller and run the co2 independently.

 

[THCforus]

Hey THC... keep in mind that in theory the fans should be turned off only to top off the level of co2 in the room, then turned back on again. So the level of co2 should be more or less constant in any sized room when using a monitor. If the fan is removing the room's co2 too quickly I would try to either turn up the flow on the co2 reg or dial down the fan using a speed controller. If there is still too much fan "off time" in the cycle you may need to just unplug the fan from the controller and run the co2 independently.

hey rip thanks for the reply man. If you could, definately get back to me on this one, i'd like to talk to you more about this.
Do you think thats what the controler is doing? toppin' the co2 off, cause that would be great man. I have a control wizard climate controler, and it seems like an awsome pice of equipment but it didnt come with discriptive instructions on how it works. I have a circlating fan in there that constantly moves the air around the plants, so i figured it would be fine for the fans to be off while the co2 is filling because thats what the controller is doing. This s#%t confuses the hell out of me.I did do a test for co2 level after about 7 min. after it kicked on and the fans were off(except for the circulation fan) and it read 1500 ppm so now i know its filling fast enough, but the question remains, if your right, is the co2 being vented out to fast? I hope your right , it makes sence.I always thought of it as needing to turn on and vent because of heat build up.
As far as i know the climate controller doesnt have a monitor. or does it? I really wish i had a better understanding of how it works

 

[TGT]

A little off topic, but someone above mentioned that the temps raise 5 degrees by just being in the room. I read some where a while back that a human body in the grow room puts out as much heat as a 1000 watt HPS and ballst. Kind of a little cool piece of info I thought I would share.

TGT

 

[Rainman]

TH - I run my co2 similar to yours. I run it for 15 minutes before my fan turns on and again in the last 15 min. of light cycle. There are all kinds of equations and opinions about how much and when. I just went with it and will never go back to not having it around. I noticed increased yields and supposedly it will give your plants protection against temps into the mid 90s. I have never had a prob like that so couldnt speak on it. I run a 6 buckt room that is 6x4 as well. It is air proofed to capture all the air pushed in by my tank. Your choice really but i feel it would benefit every grower. Also KC the breeder recommends feeding your plants mineral water for an altern to straight co2. That could be an option. Good luck in whatever you choose.

 

[THCforus]

A little off topic, but someone above mentioned that the temps raise 5 degrees by just being in the room. I read some where a while back that a human body in the grow room puts out as much heat as a 1000 watt HPS and ballst. Kind of a little cool piece of info I thought I would share.

TGT

I tell you what then, my plants better get used to bein' nice and toasty, cause nothing keeps me from visiting my ladies. Frequently..
off topic or not , interesting info

Rainman
thanks for the reply. I hear ya, after using Co2 for under 6 wks I can already see the benifits of using it, I'm just trying to make sure the equipment is running properly so I can get the most out of it, ya know?