Grow Bubble for your babies

Discussion in 'Do It Yourself' started by MTgreenbud, Jul 30, 2012.

  1. I dug around in my parts bx and found my old co2 tester. Syringe with hose attached and you buy those one use only tester tubes. gets expensive. I will experiment in my aquarium that i converted into a mini clon e islation chmbr yrs ago. I bought a .5 gal jug that will fit in it with a old co2 drip ring attached. It has a fan and 2 cfl's and can do dirt or hydro ebbnflow and easily made air tight with duct tape. The problem is the monitoring. That co2 monitor in the link you posted is perfect but its expensive...$150.I'm going to experiment first figure out the ratios for yeast,sugar,water....it takes to make 1300 ,then how long it'll last in my tank. I can do that cheaply with my old school tester for now but with test subjects i'll need something better. Had to chop a plnt in the first week of flwr today it was a male. Immediately put another plnt from veg chmbr in its place and i'm hoping its female. Thats the problem with bag seed.
     
  2. Good news, the plant is recovering well from the heat damage. pics coming soon
     
  3. Pics of the recovery, plus an early topping, third set of leaves was coming in so i gave them a snip, before and after pics attached, also a current pic from yesterday when she finally stood back up after the heat damage. hope she keeps growing, no new nodes after the topping but she shot up 3 inches in less than 6 hours when i cut her.
     

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  4. What is it in now? A PC case?

    1 lb harvest, I still say pics or it didnt happen.
     
  5. PC case is way to small. it is a wood box. wrapped in air tight plastic to contain the co2 and control the air flow. the veg state will take a little longer with this one because of the recovery from the heat damage, but pretty sure i'm still getting a pound. have no fear, although not frequent because of work. there will be pics from start to finish including the harvest on a scale for all you non believers.
     
  6. Well for any of you who are still following. i finally got a day off and got to take some pics for you all. given the hell she went through when the fans died and temp peaked at over 120 with over 10,000 ppm of co2.

    After the topping at a very early stage, (right after first full set of 5 leaf fan leaves) flushing her out with ph balanced nutral water for 5 days. trimming the dead spots then now to a balanced fert mix high in nitrogen. and back in the co2 "bag" at 1,300 ppm steady she is turning into a very bushy lil girl, she even kicked off her little seedling leafs and sprouted a set of fan leaves just above the dirt level. Not a big fan of LST but i think i am going to have to with this girl, shes sprouting leaves everywhere and not growing vertical much past a half inch a day.

    The plastic large scale co2 bag is working very well, got me thinking a bit. just ordered a 4X8 sheet of quarter inch thick lexan, thinking about making a full air tight (with controlled venting of course) lexan grow box with computer controlled venting and light control. got an old HP desktop laying around and have programmed many CCC's (computer controlled circuits) before. hope to start the build in the next few weeks. i will be sure and document everything from start to finish, i just got some fruitylicious fem seeds i think i want to try out in it when its done.

    As always questions are welcome, comments are too. (even from you haters and doubters)
     

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  7. Looking good MT, I have been trying to make a co2 mixture. With the sugar, water and yeast. Although it was bubbling something out the top. I'm sure that I had it set up wrong and it would be awesome. If you could tell us how to do it properly please.
     

  8. Sure.... Directions are as follows

    20 oz soda bottle...

    3/4 cup pure granulated cane sugar (it will say pure on the bag)
    2 tbs. highly active yeast ( usually the kind in the packets is pre measured to 2 tbs.)
    1 1/2 cup (distilled) water. do not use tap water, chlorine, fluoride, and other additives will De-activate yeast.

    2 liter bottle......

    1 1/2 cup sugar

    3 tbs highly active yeast

    2 3/4 cups distilled water

    Now the not so science for those of you whom do not have meters.

    A 20oz bottle mix (shaken every 4 hours) in a sealed space with 0 atmosphere will produce 5,400 ppm ft2 so if your grow space is sealed tight you would use one bottle for 4 sq ft, if you have 8 sq ft use two bottles of the 20 oz size or, 1 of the 2 liter bottles. the temp in the grow space should be 88-96 degrees for proper co2 absorption for photosynthesis but the tricky thing is the bottle should be between 80-86 degrees as to not over exhaust the fermentation and co2 production, if it is to cold the reaction will stop... too hot.... the reaction will "boil" and your mix will erupt like a school project volcano.

    THE MOST IMPORTANT THING

    the air must be exchanged every 2 hours totally. you can do this one of two ways.

    1. open up the grow space every 2 hours let it vent for 10 minutes, then close it up.

    or

    2. use vent fans. but you must be careful on how much air they move. i use a 4" blade fan blowing through a 1 inch hole with 2, 1 inch exit holes. the fan turns on for 5 minutes, every 20 minutes, then shuts off. i bought a timer from home depot.

    Now the finer details.

    If your temperature is too low...
    YOUR WASTING YOUR TIME WITH co2

    If your air exchange is to fast.......
    YOUR WASTING YOUR TIME WITH co2

    If your enclosure cannot be sealed..
    YOUR WASTING YOUR TIME WITH co2

    If your air exchange is too slow....
    YOUR WASTING YOUR TIME WITH co2

    If you do not use a higher nitrogen food......
    YOUR WASTING YOUR TIME WITH co2

    If you do not (a) shake your bottle every 4 hours or (b) have an off balance fan to vibrate the bottle all day long.
    YOUR NOT MAKING ANY MEASURABLE co2

    I hope that clears up any questions you might have. if you think of any more. please feel free to ask, i have been playing with self generated co2 for almost 5 years now

     
  9. Thanx for details MT. The fabrication was easy i had all the stuff already. Took me 30 min to build. basically 2 liter jug with hose placed in my aquarium. The jug in aquarium under two curly q florescents temp is consistent 85-89 degree. I currently have hose from bottle into glass of wtr so i can observe bubbles. Venting no problem i can either open flap in hood, or lift entire hood, or turn small 3'' fan in hood on. To get high humidity i just add wtr or not. Currently 1/2'' wtr keeping humidity at 50%. System also functions as mini ebb&flow with addition of pump and timer. I'm still experimenting so i haven't tried to make it airtight yet....duct tape strategically placed should do it.
    to figure my co2 levels i bought two tester tubes....$5 ea. for my 20yr old syringe style tester. I got my mix formula off youtube...it was sketchy. I'm going to mix a new batch using your formula. I did look up your co2 meter on amazon and found they have another for $114 as compared to the other for $149. The only slight drawback is there is some odor so i'm keeping this rig in the bathrm where the fart fan takes care of it. Thanx for saving me an imense amount of time by not having to figure out how to RUN this system
     

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  10. Any time DR. only issue i see with that setup is... where is the plant going to go? the jug and cup seem to take up all the room in the system. but i am sure you have gotten it figured out. dont forget to like and add rep.

    Any further questions feel free to toss them out there
     
  11. The jug stays in tank so the lights heat it. Cup is just for testing purposes plnts in net cups will take its place. When roots show cups go in mister/bubbler tank under led nothing but regular air.When roots have grown into nute solution they are ready for next chmbr which is led ,co2,ebb&flow dwc get roots used to being immersed continuously.Next transferred to flower chmbr into dwc/top feed tank in rolling rack under 2 90w ufo's and 400whps . Run daytime to make use of sunlight coming in window with southwest exposure(glass blocks picture window) and have a/c for whole room rig is in. Only have one question .Do i have to keep the light on the jug 24/7 or can i turn it off at nite say 5hrs? And can i use R.O wtr instead of distilled ?
     

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  12. Good question about the RO water.

    If you have a well that is perfectly fine. If you have a RO filter on city water then no. The membrane in the Osmosis chamber filters solids on a microscopic level, calcium, lime, rust, ect. chlorine and fluoride will not filter out.
     
  13. The wtr here in socal is bad so most people buy wtr. I belong to wtr store and get all my wtr there. Ph 7.2 out of tap ...7.0 at wtr str ppm around 120 i think. Its a big commercial sytm with all the gear to theroretically filter out the chlorine and fluride or at least thats what i'm paying for. I can get distilled wtr but its another expense.If i'm understanding the science even minute amounts of chlorine & flouride will afect the microbal process so it must be absent entirely and only distilled wtr will guarantee this.Evidently whats good for the gander is not good for the goose. Guess i'm going shopping...and reread instrctns have to maintain minimum 85 temp or reaction will stop. To do that lite will have to be on 24/7...answd my own question
     
  14. I stop co2 during flower after about the 1st week. myself i use the light for heat. and i placed a very. very small dot of hot glue on one of the blades of my micro fan inside the grow bag i am using now. it causes a slight vibration and the bottle is sitting next to it. it agitates the water enough to keep the reaction going at a steady pace. one trick i cannot remember if i shared is when i start a fresh bottle. i seal the hole thing air tight for about 4-6 hours. usually reaches about 10,000 ppm. then i open the vents do a complete air exchange and turn the system on for the usual 1,300 - 1,500 ppm. thats about every 2-3 days. the 4-6 hours of very high co2 does nothing for the plant. but it ensures no bugs even microbial in most cases. the co2 level is too high to sustain life. if you want to run co2 during the "lights off" stage of flower. use a reptile tank heater pad. set it low and let it go.
     
  15. Does it have to be biological or chemical yeast?
     
  16. bakers highly active yeast, 97 cents for 3 packages at most stores
     

  17. alright thanks. it's the fungus from the yeast that reacts with the other stuff right?
     
  18. It ferments yes, there are a lot of ways to make co2, you can use corn, grapes, celery, barley, hopps, ect. any yeast/ sugar combo with heat creates a fermentation which produces co2. but the cheapest, least odor, and easily obtainable is sugar and yeast.
     

  19. I got yeast but not the one needed... anything else I could use instead?
     
  20. Any bakers yeast is going to work to a point. its just that highly active works best per the specs in my previous post.... it's 97 cents. go buy some. 10 dollars will get you through the whole veg stage if used right.
     

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