CO2 and PH drop - tweaking sealed rooms

[Guest]

What do you mean my numbers?

That is the whole point you don't need any numbers to reproduce my results.

All you have to do is keep the res topped up and use a stand alone buffered nute at the right levels depending on the stage of growth.

Both GH and PBP are rock solid with a long history of growing perfectly healthy plants.

I have a hose attached to a sink with RO water.

The PH of the water is 7.0

I use the hose to fill up a Rubbermaid with 20 gallons of RO water.

Say I was just starting flowering for example, I would put 160 milliliters of GH Flora Nova Bloom in the 20 gallons with a measuring glass.

I use a water pump to pump the 20 gallons from the Rubbermaid, and back into the same Rubbermaid itself, to circulate the water and mix up the Flora Nova Bloom in the water.

The PH is about 6.0 at this point.

Then I use the water pump to pump the nutrient solution from the Rubbermaid into my controller, which I keep topped up with another Rubbermaid of plain RO water, connected to a float value inside the controller.

If you where using coco or something I guess you would just pump the nutrients strait from the Rubbermaid onto the slabs with drippers, and use a float valve right in the Rubbermaid to keep the res topped up not sure though, never did coco.

I have maximum CO2 levels in my room.

My Rubbermaid plain RO water res for the float valve is not even sealed, just has the Rubbermaid lid that came with it.

My controller is not sealed, and my bubbler's are not sealed anywhere near air tight.

My air pumps are right in the room blowing air from the room into the buckets.

I never have any leaf problems at all except for minimum random mutant leafs which is normal.

My pH doesn't go down to 4.8.

Something has to give because my room is an example that CO2 from the air isn't going to bring your pH down a point, must be another factor.

My guess is acidic additives, but it could be anything I don't know all the details of people's rooms.

I highly, highly doubt the CO2 from the room is doing it though, because then why wouldn't my room be having the same problems?

Just because people with CO2 happen to be experiencing low pH doesn't mean it is the CO2 causing it, what about all the people who have 6.0 pH with CO2?

 

[icdog]

>lurkerguy
>All I am saying is that since using CO2 my yields improved slightly and my >veg time improved a whole lot so I am not using CO2 just to get the same >results I used to get with ventilation.

How much is slightly improved with co2?

 

[Guest]

I can get just under 7 pounds with 3,000W now.

I used to get 5 or 6 with just a huge exhaust fan and window intake.

I got 3 or 4 pounds when I used to grow in Promix.

 

[MTF-Sandman]

The Greenfuse bloom enhancer was a freebie the hydro shop, so I figured I'd throw it in...I've used it before with the others on several grows and it did increase bud density somewhat, so figured it'd be fine in there. When I ran it before, it wasn't in CO2'd enviro tho and the PH stayed rock solid at 5.8-5.9.

The Banana Manna is just a carb product that I've been using for a couple of years now...never had any PH problems from it and if anything it seems to stabilize the PH - plus it makes the buds taste and smell SOOO much better than not using it.

When I buy water, I get RO...otherwise it's fresh rainwater (less than 10ppm) or dehumidifier water (also less than 10ppm). Ironically, the RO I buy is often higher in PPM than the rain or dehumidifier water.

My plants look great right now so it's not a huge deal that I have to correct the PH, so it's not a problem per se, but just something I have to deal with. Haven't been in the room in a couple days, so when I go there tonight I'll remote the air pumps and see what happens at the next watering.

 

[Guest]

So the plants aren't showing any problems?

Just checked my pH again, yellow.

Damn this is weird.

 

[MTF-Sandman]

Nah, no problems...just trying to figure out why the PH wants to drop so I won't have to use as much PH up or Potassium Silicate to keep the PH straight.

Several of us all noticed the same phenomina with similar setups, so we figured we'd try to isolate the cause of the PH drop and one of the things we all had in common was sealed setups with CO2 and airpumps in the grow room.

 

[mace_ecam]

lurkerguy has a great point, soda is a weak acid, its not supposed to alter the pH when nutes are present in the solution.

 

[Guest]

Hopefully we will get to the bottom of it.

 

[Avenger]

Might I suggest the use of a oxide as your pH up in a solution with carbonic acid in it?

potassium hydroxide or calcium oxide might be the most beneficial depending on plant requirements.

The reaction of carbonic acid and potassium hydroxide results in the release of the CO2 back into a gas that will leave the solution. Water and potassium carbonate are also formed, which raises pH.

http://columbia.thefreedictionary.com/carbonate

 

[Neptune]

Where do you obtain these products Avenger?

 

[Avenger]

http://www.aaa-chemicals.com/services.html
http://cgi.ebay.com/KOH-Potassium-H...ewItem?hash=item120072817744#ebayphotohosting
http://www.hydroempire.com/store/pr...d/919?osCsid=46e0b296a47a97994574d3d88762649d


General Hydroponics dry pH up is a mix of KOH and K2CO3

 

[Guest]

Lurkerguy...... and everyone......

Lurkerguy...... and everyone......

First of all, I test my res every day and sometimes more than everyday. I keep log books in detailed form. They indicate what I am about to say but over the long term. I decided to see if it was the CO2. I took the CO2 hose out waited 24 hours and the pH was right where I had adjusted it to 24hr earlier. I put the CO2 hose back in and waited 24 hours and the same drops in the CO2 as before.

I think the question that was asked was if anyone with any knowledge was not having any trouble. Now don't get me wrong. I know you must be getting good yield and happy with your stuff but by your own admission you do not test. Therefore no usable knowledge as far as this discussion. Like you said many variables. You may be compensating for the pH shifts with your additives, or base water, or who knows but without any data other than I am doing fine really tells us nothing............

I am not saying you don't know or have knowledge of what you are doing but that knowledge doesn't help this discussion. I can read my plants very well, I could probably adjust nutes and pH fairly well without testing. The point is we are trying to fine tune that last few percentage points. Without data all we know is you are a pretty damn good grower who doesn't need to use the testers but may (and I say may) be even better by a few percentage points if you did use a tester to catch things before your plants suffer a little to tell you what they need. Example is a person on a heart monitor will show signs on the machine long before they have actual pain to report and then do report it.

Those few percentage points are important when you are going to the expense needed to add the additives we do and the CO2 as well.

I hope I said this well.... am not trying to come off a smart as, know it all, or a dumb ass. Just trying to explain the need for discussion with more than "my plants do fine."

Peace

 

[Neptune]

bump!

 

[Guest]

I'm currently not running CO2 but this discussion has been extremely helpful. My res is outside the grow space in a very stagnant basement so I'm gonna move the air pump into the grow space and run the air lines through the wall into the res. I guess every little bit helps.

Thanx y'all

 

[Guest]

Hello Everyone..... Been gone a few days.......

Hello Everyone..... Been gone a few days.......

Well, I been talking to a very knowledgeable person, Alphacat. He knows a lot about hydro-culture as in marine coral. He says that in the marine circles, it is common knowledge that the added CO2 from fish and addition of CO2 for plant growth does cause the formation of carbonic acid. Now, How does this effect our plants and how?

I am going to post some info from one of my favorite sites in order to add some fodder for discussion:

-Carbonic acid (ancient name acid of air or aerial acid) has the formula H2CO3. It is also a name sometimes given to solutions of carbon dioxide in water, which contain small amounts of H2CO3.
>>>>just for description but has implications.

-The equilibrium between carbon dioxide and carbonic acid is very important for controlling the acidity of body fluids...it is a stronger acid than acetic acid or formic acid: this might be expected from the influence of the electronegative oxygen substituent. However, carbonic acid only ever exists in solution in equilibrium with carbon dioxide, and so the concentration of H2CO3 is much lower than the concentration of CO2, reducing the measured acidity.
>>>>the acidity of the solution is much greater than the measured acidity due to the fact CO2 is not measured by the meters. Intracellular acidity would be even greater--affecting ion exchange (nutrients)

-A solution of carbon dioxide in water in equilibrium with the atmosphere (0.033% CO2) has a pH of 5.6. Rain water is normally not quite saturated in CO2, and has a pH of around 6 in the absence of atmospheric pollutants.
>>>>dispelling the myth that rain water is neutral.

These are some points that definitely have implication to our practices. Hope this gets some discussion going.

Peace

 

[Neptune]

I just fired up my CAP GEN-1 yesterday at 800ppm, it has been running all night so I should be able to tell you guys If I notice a drastic and sudden PH drop over the next 2 days.

When I fired the unit up: PH 6.6 PPM 670 cO2 ppm: 800 +/- 70

 

[Guest]

Neptune?

Neptune?

Are you using bubbling? Are they in the room? DWC or Biobuckets? Can you give a little info on what your system entails? This will be interesting to see. From your posts I figure you go pretty much all natural with few if any additives. Thanks for jumping in.

Peace

 

[MTF-Sandman]

A little update on my end of things...

Added a Gen1 burner setup running at 1800ppms in the last week and put the bottles/reg away for temp reasons. The damn second burner on the GEN1 wont throw the correct flame tho (thinking it was mislabled as a propane burner when it's really a NG burner). You ever had any probs with your's Neptune?

Well long story short, I got lazy and never removed my bubbler from the room....but one of the outputs off it died so that only 1 of the bubblers was running. The PH has been in the 5.1-5.4 range lately, so I'm thinking the bubblers were definitely a major contributor to the PH drop - even with higher CO2 levels the PH is consistently staying higher with only 1 of the bubblers running.

Does anyone happen to have info on CO2 sat levels and how they vary with temp? Wonder if the cooler weather lately might be affecting it in some way

 

[MID TOWN]

hey whats up sandman. I finally got my room fully sealed with CO2. my clones went in just a couple of days ago and the CO2 was turned on at the same time. I don't have a CO2 monitor this run, as there a bit expensive but I think I have it prety dialed in. CO2 runs for 10 minutes every 2 hours durring lights on. the air pump is located about a foot off the ground right under my buckets so I'm sure I'm suckin up CO2. I havn't noticed any change yet but I'll keep ya informed.

 

[jediknightsmoke]

This thread is very interesting. I too, have been running CO2 in a sealed room. I have 6 waterfarms with airstones in each. The airpumps running the airstones are located inside the room as well.

When I first started my grow, I had the CO2 level at about 700 ppm. At that level I didn't notice any pH problems. When I put the girls into flower I raised the CO2 level to 1400. I had the same problem with my pH. I would check it in the morning and it would be fine, then in the evening I would check it and it had dropped about 1 point.

I never could figure it out. I think you guys are on to something. I am going to have to relocate my airpumps too.