by Chris Shores
Adding Co2 …. Anyone?
8:01 am in Completed Window Farms, Education, Help the project by testing this, Materials and Resources, Nutrients, Plants, Projects in Process, questions, Seeking Advice, Version 3.0 Modular Airlift Columns by Chris Shores
Greetings from sunny Florida.
I have a 2 tier/3 module per tier (6 plants) system growing cukes, cherry toms and Basil. I am about to make a DIY Co2 generator and was considering the best way to get the gas into my farm….has anyone tried this yet?
To generate Co2 I am going to use the simple yeast/sugar method.
1 gallon milk jug, tubing drilled tightly into the lid, 1 cup sugar, 1 heaping tbsp yeast, warm water.
This will generate plenty of Carbon Dioxide, no problem. My concern is distribution….has anyone used this and if so how’d you get it distributed to your farm and was it pretty even? I am considering running the tubing out of the bottles (I’ll make 2 of course) straight up to the top of each tier with T’s attached to small lengths of tubing inserted into each plant along the way. Anyone?
Also, in my DIY Co2 generator research I found a couple of different plans that called for ”CO2 proof Tubing”….what is that? Is it necessary for tubing to be Co2 PROOF? Does the gas eat away at the tubing or something?
Hi there,
I think your post should contain one more tag: Health&Safety !
All greenhouse gardeners (and a few miners) are aware of the dangers of CO2 accumulating, a tasteless, colourless gas that will kill within seconds you if you’re in the wrong place at the wrong time. Professional greenhouse operators use special equipment to monitor the concentration of the CO2 that’s blown into the facility, something we don’t have.
And the distribution of it you’re worrying about is probably more effective than you think:
I’ll get into all the rooms in no time, and when it’s working well, your child, or a pet, will probably be the first to feel the effect …
It’s dangerous, and it’s unnecessary.
Because you probably won’t need the generator anyway: If your WF is hanging inside your house/apartment, the concentration of CO2 will always be much higher than outside, because of the human(s) inside exhaling the gas – you yourself are the best CO2 generator one could wish for.
Well, thank you so much for your reply. I am certain that the amount of CO2 produced in the tiny space at the top of a milk jug isn’t going to kill my family…including the dog, but I’m sure everyone appreciates your “doom and gloom” enthusiasm over the gas. What, did Carbon Dioxide wipe out your village?
I did however speak to a qualified hydro expert today (he had plaques hanging on the wall…I GUESS he knows what he’s saying. LOL!) this gentleman confirmed that yes, while co2 IS very effective in “boosting” your crop’s health and all that, on the scale of what I’m (and most of us WindowFarmers) growing, EXTRA carbon dioxide is really unnecessary. And of course too much can have opposite effects.
That said, I have decided to abandon the idea, for now anyway. However, I do have another question to ponder….if Humans exhale CO2, which we know we do, how then is breathing into a person’s lungs during CPR helpful? That’s always made me curious.
That’s because most of the air in your lungs are never actually used, and is expelled ‘unchanged’.
(This holds even more true when doing CPR as you take deeper breaths than you need, hold it in for shortertime and breathesmore often)
The little amount of CO2 you expell in each breath isn’t enough to cause any problems, unless you actually suck in again the air expelled from the patient, to breathe it into his lungs again and again…
I’m glad you and your professional friend got a few lols out of it.
But that is exactly the point: Windowfarming is an amateur sport.
I simply don’t want to have someone thinking “Well, I’ll just throw in some more sugar, the plants will need it on that hot day tomorrow”, close the kitchen door overnight and come back next morning to find his generator merrily bubbling away in sixth gear, and himself feeling strangely dizzy
whilst reading the morning paper …
Alarmist ? Perhaps.
Forgive me.
- This has been an announcement in public -
As said, we’re all amateurs, messing about, having a fun time and possibly growing a few vegetables.
So, keep on with the ideas. The next one might just be the one everyone has been waiting on to supercharge their WFs.
Just remember to ask here before strting to build anything. Someone might know something, or have tried it already.
well i have been using nutrafin co2 natural plant system for my indoor gardens for about 6 months with out issue, probably be cause its tiny. buts its basically what you described just small. so I get a small steady stream of co2 for about a month at a time. it seems to help a little bit and doesn’t pose much risk. (although my dogs aren’t allowed to close to the garden for fear they will introduce more bugs from outside than i naturally have to deal with). heres a link if you want to see what it is. but I don’t use the hose or bubble counter since its not being put in a fish tank.
http://www.marinedepot.com/ps_viewitem.aspx?idproduct=HG17690&child=HG17690&utm_source=mdcsegooglebase2&utm_medium=cse&utm_campaign=mdcsegooglebase2&utm_content=HG17690
Just thinking…
The reason you want to use CO2 is because of the carbon in it, right?
What about other ways of adding carbon?
I older times farmers used to burn the fields and plow down the ashes, and even today the method is used here and there.
Maybe you could take a couple of spoonfuls of ashes in a coffee filter and pour water through that, then add the nutes when you refill the WF?
(The coffee filter should filter out the largest particles so there’s slightly less danger of clogging the system, I hope… )
Myself, I’m thinking of adding ashes to my Bokashi compost soon after I start a new bucket.
Ash is extremely basic, if you add ash, you will most likely need to pH correct way down. And I don’t know a lot about plant chemistry, but I think that the plant needs CO2 to perform the reactions of photosynthesis, not just carbon.
I was reading around and found this: http://www.hydrofarm.com/articles/co2_enrichment.php thought some may be interested.
Carbon dioxide isn’t what kills so easily, carbon monoxide is. CO has a higher affinity to bond to hemoglobin than oxygen does, and doesn’t take much to be toxic. For CO2 poisoning, there would need to be a larger amount of CO2 in the air than yeast would likely put out (they need oxygen too) unless it’s in a small, unventilated and sealed room, or if it’s from an insanely huge amount of yeast. The amount of CO2 normally inside(600-800ppm/0.06-0.08%) would need to go up by 12.5-33x (up to 1%) before it would affect the more sensitive people (like me, I’m borderline anemic), double for most other people. A CO2 generator small enough for a windowfarm would probably not reach that.
Keep in mind that CO2 is heavier than O2 and the roots need O2 since they don’t photosynthesise and need to metabolise sugar for energy, adding too much would choke them out. It would probably be best to have the CO2 be released above where it would reach the most leaves (maybe with something to spread it out in multiple directions) and on some sort of timer to only allow some through a valve (or turn on a pump to give the yeast fresh air and push out the CO2 it made) at intervals during the day. If there’s a constant drip going through them, that would prevent the CO2 from going through the drain holes in the lids and would build up near the roots. Adding some at night could be harmful to the plants too since they only take in CO2 while photosynthesising; they release it at night when they use some of the sugar they made during the day.
Oops, by “affects us” I should have put “becomes noticeable (drowsiness)”.