Experienced Sealed Room Growers needed

[TrichCrazy5280]

12x12x8,6k gavitas,mini split,santa fe dehuey,same problems as you,switched to bottled,GONE.Seen a few of my buddies get frustrated and cut holes to vent(lights out only needed BTW!)and it works but if they tried bottled first it probably would have done the trick for them.Burners dont work good in truely sealed small rooms,at least for me and my friends anyways.After this run i would use all new soil too,you will be fine.
Another thing that i would like to say is someone brought up earlier about a tomato plant in your grow for detecting ethylene better than any air test,they are right!Tomatoes are VERY sensitive to any ethylene(ask a greenhouse guy)and will wilt fast in its presence,just a quick test.

Well seems like im beginning to see a pattern here

I am going to switch to bottled after this round. I agree about burners not being the best choice for smaller rooms but do know of people using it in bigger warehouse applications with gavitas and pulling 3lb per light in hydro. Just to many variables and i want to eliminate any potential problems, i am over the burner for this application. I am opting to do more frequent air exchanges to eliminate ANY possible variables. I look forward to being on the bottled co2 so i can lower the amount of air exchanges to possibly just before lights out. This way i can actually control my environment more consistently.

I never reuse my soil personally.

I really do need to snag a test plant, im slacking. Tomorrow i have some time, ill see what i can get.

Thanks for chiming in. I hope others read this before doing what i did.

 

[TrichCrazy5280]

I would confirm or disprove the presence of ethylene. If money isn't much an issue, an air sample can be taken and sent to a lab. I believe it is under a 100 dollars.

Other wise, you could use a plant as a coal mine canary (re:the CES contains a list of potential indicator plants, the ppm/ppb threshold and symptoms).

Just realized that a "coal mine canary" was a saying and not an actual plant. HAHAHA. Never heard that one before.

 

[queequeg152]

wow never huh? are you perhaps not a native English speaker?

also FWIW. do not underestimate the weight and bulk of a full size tank of CO2...
i assume you will need full sized tanks? owing to how much co2 we are talking about...

for my welding cart... i buy 80 cubic foot tanks of argon... because that's all i can put on my shoulder comfortably.

the full size tanks are like 170 lbs empty. im 6'2", and they come up to just under my chin. you WILL need a legit dolly, and ratchet straps. you can weld V's onto the foot of a regular dolly to make things less sketchy, ive seen that done in a bunch of places.

these cylinders will fuck up everything when they fall over. toes, tiles, drywall all get smashed. you must strap them up. its not super easy to shear off the valve stem contrary to popular belief, but you should never ever accept a tank that does not have its cap, and you should never fuck with moving a tank without this cap on. What i do is just leave a monkey wrench attached to the regulator nut.

http://www.coleparmer.com/Product/Poly_cylinder_bumper_bracket_double/EW-86109-32

 

[TrichCrazy5280]

wow never huh? are you perhaps not a native English speaker?

also FWIW. do not underestimate the weight and bulk of a full size tank of CO2...
i assume you will need full sized tanks? owing to how much co2 we are talking about...

for my welding cart... i buy 80 cubic foot tanks of argon... because that's all i can put on my shoulder comfortably.

the full size tanks are like 170 lbs empty. im 6'2", and they come up to just under my chin. you WILL need a legit dolly, and ratchet straps. you can weld V's onto the foot of a regular dolly to make things less sketchy, ive seen that done in a bunch of places.

these cylinders will fuck up everything when they fall over. toes, tiles, drywall all get smashed. you must strap them up. its not super easy to shear off the valve stem contrary to popular belief, but you should never ever accept a tank that does not have its cap, and you should never fuck with moving a tank without this cap on. What i do is just leave a monkey wrench attached to the regulator nut.

http://www.coleparmer.com/Product/Poly_cylinder_bumper_bracket_double/EW-86109-32

No i speak English, lol. Must have just fallen off the turnip truck on that one.

My Plan is to get a couple dewar tanks of liquid co2. They hold about 300lbs of co2. They are huge and heavy. I have experience working with those tanks because we use them in the medical grow i manage. We have a tank dolly that makes moving them around much easier. I was rolling them around on there edge for a couple years, that was sketchy. I actually saw a rookie delivery guy drop one on its side and nothing happened except a few turds in my britches. You are correct, they need to be safely secured to a wall for sure. I have a good relationship with my gas delivery guy so he can drop off and exchange tanks to my house no problem. They are about 50 a month to rent and around $100 to exchange. Ill get 2 to make it easy.

 

[TrichCrazy5280]

I forgot to mention that these tanks will be stored in my garage and will have to run an extension cord and non perforated tubing all the way into the basement.

 

[theother]

I forgot to mention that these tanks will be stored in my garage and will have to run an extension cord and non perforated tubing all the way into the basement.

That's fine, never had a problem with long runs of tubing, if you wanna get crazy about it, the aquarium industry has co2 specific green flexible tubing. Supposedly the carboxylic acid can break down the normal vinyl lines. I'm nuts about getting any vinyl containing plastic out of my grow, but I don't mind air hose tubing, never seen a problem from it.

Your shit will be happier with bottled gas.

 

[Mikell]

Sounds like you've found a solid way forward. Don't mind me, I'm going to piddle around with the numbers for a bit when I get a moment and find my abacus. Bringing this all together in one place would help a lot of people avoid similar circumstance, and properly ventilate sealed rooms with burners.

If you're interested, any information on tank life would be helpful (tank weight, hours in operation, nutrient EC, room temperature, ventiliation regime) to deduce a similar rough standard to the greenhouse CO2 consumption formula.

That's an open request to anyone, the more information, the more good-er.

 

[theother]

Sounds like you've found a solid way forward. Don't mind me, I'm going to piddle around with the numbers for a bit when I get a moment and find my abacus. Bringing this all together in one place would help a lot of people avoid similar circumstance, and properly ventilate sealed rooms with burners.

If you're interested, any information on tank life would be helpful (tank weight, hours in operation, nutrient EC, room temperature, ventiliation regime) to deduce a similar rough standard to the greenhouse CO2 consumption formula.

That's an open request to anyone, the more information, the more good-er.

I commend you for pushing forward! This really is something that can be solved, its an issue in a lot of gardens, and it is worth solving.

Problem for a lot of us is that it is such an expensive problem LOL.

I believe style of burner is gonna play a role and also cubic foot output to room size. I have thought before that people who have a lot of foliage in the same size room (big plants higher numbers jammed in there) could be a consideration. I know that I have a friend with the same size room, his bottle lasts a month or more, and I am out in a week. I don't have any leaks.

Also a side project that would be awesome would be to come up with some way (a clock plugged into the same outlet the gen or regulator is on) could measure the amount of on time during a day. You could use this to dial in environmental conditions and just generally chart the rate of photosynthesis. I have absolutely seen plants get really cranking and use co2 faster than normal, I think it would be interesting to compare that with data logged environmental conditions to try and actually quantify what parameters work best in a garden.

 

[queequeg152]

ahhhh a dewer thats excellent. i never considered that honestly. makes perfect sense.

the steak house in front of my old office had these deliveries of cryogenic co2 from this neat insulated truck. was pretty cool to watch the hose frost up while it pumped.

haha just dont weld the pressure relief closed. here at my university, they had an explosion in the chemistry building some years back. someone was frustrated that the nitrogen dewer kept venting and threaded a plug in place of the pressure relief.

 

[Mikell]

Don't ever touch your tongue to a frosting valve... especially if no one is within "I can't use my tongue"-mumbling distance...

I commend you for pushing forward! This really is something that can be solved, its an issue in a lot of gardens, and it is worth solving.

Problem for a lot of us is that it is such an expensive problem LOL.

I believe style of burner is gonna play a role and also cubic foot output to room size. I have thought before that people who have a lot of foliage in the same size room (big plants higher numbers jammed in there) could be a consideration. I know that I have a friend with the same size room, his bottle lasts a month or more, and I am out in a week. I don't have any leaks.

Also a side project that would be awesome would be to come up with some way (a clock plugged into the same outlet the gen or regulator is on) could measure the amount of on time during a day. You could use this to dial in environmental conditions and just generally chart the rate of photosynthesis. I have absolutely seen plants get really cranking and use co2 faster than normal, I think it would be interesting to compare that with data logged environmental conditions to try and actually quantify what parameters work best in a garden.

Excellent ideas!

Ah ha, three conditions I neglected to mention. All some what key to the whole thing... Substrate is important, I understand organic soil can produce a substantial amount of CO2 in a sealed environment. Irradiance re: wattage and distance to canopy, horizontal or vertical, etc. Any input is welcome, but more detailed response will give more accurate result.

 

[queequeg152]

Also a side project that would be awesome would be to come up with some way (a clock plugged into the same outlet the gen or regulator is on) could measure the amount of on time during a day.

what you are describing is a totalizer. basically a counter that detects a condition, and records either how many times a condition(on off) occurs or how long a condition occurs( on time).

most DAQ units will do this as well but i know you can get omron counters for like 50 bucks on ebay.

you just need a inductive current sensor to detect when the solenoid is powered on. another like... 20 bucks probably, they are very common for things like motors and and such. you want a very cheap sub 1 amp sensor, or what ever the current is on your soilenoid coil.

here:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/OMRON-TIME-...787?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item54160622fb

sensor is probably way overkill for this, but what ever. you can look for something better.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/VERIS-INDUS...909?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4d28b1507d

 

[theother]

what you are describing is a totalizer. basically a counter that detects a condition, and records either how many times a condition(on off) occurs or how long a condition occurs( on time).

most DAQ units will do this as well but i know you can get omron counters for like 50 bucks on ebay.

you just need a inductive current sensor to detect when the solenoid is powered on. another like... 20 bucks probably, they are very common for things like motors and and such. you want a very cheap sub 1 amp sensor, or what ever the current is on your soilenoid coil.

here:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/OMRON-TIME-...787?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item54160622fb

sensor is probably way overkill for this, but what ever. you can look for something better.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/VERIS-INDUS...909?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4d28b1507d

Excellent a, I was hoping something like that existed. Only problem I see is the solonoid comes on for different amounts of time so a counter might not give the clearest picture, unless I am understanding it wrong. I was actually considering hitting up thrift shops and looking for some old analog clock, but got distracted by other stuff. I truly think for dialing a sealed environment it would be one of the best ways to quantify health.

I still have to get some data logging temp rh stuff. A friend got a mini USB one but I would love to make the whole thing networkable, it would be nice to have it all available without bringing in a USB. Guess I should just order a USB for now.

 

[queequeg152]

Excellent a, I was hoping something like that existed. Only problem I see is the solonoid comes on for different amounts of time so a counter might not give the clearest picture, unless I am understanding it wrong. I was actually considering hitting up thrift shops and looking for some old analog clock, but got distracted by other stuff. I truly think for dialing a sealed environment it would be one of the best ways to quantify health.

I still have to get some data logging temp rh stuff. A friend got a mini USB one but I would love to make the whole thing networkable, it would be nice to have it all available without bringing in a USB. Guess I should just order a USB for now.

most of these devices will have jumpers to select between the two options.
the one above is set up to record the amount of time, not the number of times the switch closes. so will do what you want.

regarding data logging. if you are so inclined you CAN get a national instruments DAQ module on ebay for like 100 bucks... they are however, not for the faint of heart.
they will require some amount of expertise, and i believe you need a copy of LabView to program them to do the fancy stuff other than storing data.

these daq's are pretty popular. schools have lots of them, and lots of them always in the market place as a result. these things power alot of very cool remote weather monitoring equipment, though they require very expensive power and charging controllers. there are like 1,000 different modules for sale.
IMO you want one that will accept numerous analogue signal inputs.... its just the easiest way to handle things, though not the cheapest.

this is what im talking about incase you are interested. the 6008 only has one analogue in however. or atleast i remember that to be the case.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/National-In...113?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item5d53192fe1

it does not require any computer to store the data, only a source of power. you do need labview or some other free software they make to retrieve the files.

for what ever reason this thread keeps butting into either my nerd hobbies, or into my professional or educational experience... must be comeing off as a knowit all asshole. someone ask about poetry or art so i can stfu.

 

[TrichCrazy5280]

That's fine, never had a problem with long runs of tubing, if you wanna get crazy about it, the aquarium industry has co2 specific green flexible tubing. Supposedly the carboxylic acid can break down the normal vinyl lines. I'm nuts about getting any vinyl containing plastic out of my grow, but I don't mind air hose tubing, never seen a problem from it.

Your shit will be happier with bottled gas.

That is great to know, thanks for the tip ill have to look into that kind of tubing. When you say "normal vinyl lines" vs "air hose tubing" What is the difference? At work i use the clear tubing you can get from any grow store or home depot to run from the regulator to where we want the gas to start and then i connect a black perforated irrigation tubing that disperses the gas. I think it works pretty well but was not aware of the possibility of pollutants from the vinyl? Do you have a better suggestion?

Sounds like you've found a solid way forward. Don't mind me, I'm going to piddle around with the numbers for a bit when I get a moment and find my abacus. Bringing this all together in one place would help a lot of people avoid similar circumstance, and properly ventilate sealed rooms with burners.

If you're interested, any information on tank life would be helpful (tank weight, hours in operation, nutrient EC, room temperature, ventiliation regime) to deduce a similar rough standard to the greenhouse CO2 consumption formula.

That's an open request to anyone, the more information, the more good-er.

Thanks for all your help so far, its been a big help at least knowing there are causes to the problem and i am not just losing my mind.

I am a little confused, are you suggesting that i provide this information(temps,ec,tank weight) so that others can compare?? That would make a lot of sense. I can add that information for sure.

I commend you for pushing forward! This really is something that can be solved, its an issue in a lot of gardens, and it is worth solving.

Problem for a lot of us is that it is such an expensive problem LOL.

I believe style of burner is gonna play a role and also cubic foot output to room size. I have thought before that people who have a lot of foliage in the same size room (big plants higher numbers jammed in there) could be a consideration. I know that I have a friend with the same size room, his bottle lasts a month or more, and I am out in a week. I don't have any leaks.

Also a side project that would be awesome would be to come up with some way (a clock plugged into the same outlet the gen or regulator is on) could measure the amount of on time during a day. You could use this to dial in environmental conditions and just generally chart the rate of photosynthesis. I have absolutely seen plants get really cranking and use co2 faster than normal, I think it would be interesting to compare that with data logged environmental conditions to try and actually quantify what parameters work best in a garden.

Also thank you sir for your help, got things changed up for the current situation and now its just a waiting game.

That would be sweet. I would love to be able to see all that information. Now that there is light at the end of the tunnel on fixing this problem i can spend more time on things like that!

ahhhh a dewer thats excellent. i never considered that honestly. makes perfect sense.

the steak house in front of my old office had these deliveries of cryogenic co2 from this neat insulated truck. was pretty cool to watch the hose frost up while it pumped.

haha just dont weld the pressure relief closed. here at my university, they had an explosion in the chemistry building some years back. someone was frustrated that the nitrogen dewer kept venting and threaded a plug in place of the pressure relief.

Wow, that is crazy. HA they got sick of hearing that thing hissss off. IT can scare the shit out of you sometimes when you are not used to it. The tank will be venting in the day time so thats better then at night i guess.

Don't ever touch your tongue to a frosting valve... especially if no one is within "I can't use my tongue"-mumbling distance...



Excellent ideas!

Ah ha, three conditions I neglected to mention. All some what key to the whole thing... Substrate is important, I understand organic soil can produce a substantial amount of CO2 in a sealed environment. Irradiance re: wattage and distance to canopy, horizontal or vertical, etc. Any input is welcome, but more detailed response will give more accurate result.

ALright i will sit down soon and put this information down, maybe im missing something else.

There is something going on with soil in the sealed room. I know that mushrooms are still all up in the soil for whatever reason. That worries me because they release co2 at the rootzone which in container in sealed room could be bad?

Give me some time to put some info together for you. If that IS what you are asking for? Im slow man, sorry.

 

[theother]

That is great to know, thanks for the tip ill have to look into that kind of tubing. When you say "normal vinyl lines" vs "air hose tubing" What is the difference? At work i use the clear tubing you can get from any grow store or home depot to run from the regulator to where we want the gas to start and then i connect a black perforated irrigation tubing that disperses the gas. I think it works pretty well but was not aware of the possibility of pollutants from the vinyl? Do you have a better suggestion?



Thanks for all your help so far, its been a big help at least knowing there are causes to the problem and i am not just losing my mind.

I am a little confused, are you suggesting that i provide this information(temps,ec,tank weight) so that others can compare?? That would make a lot of sense. I can add that information for sure.


Also thank you sir for your help, got things changed up for the current situation and now its just a waiting game.

That would be sweet. I would love to be able to see all that information. Now that there is light at the end of the tunnel on fixing this problem i can spend more time on things like that!


Wow, that is crazy. HA they got sick of hearing that thing hissss off. IT can scare the shit out of you sometimes when you are not used to it. The tank will be venting in the day time so thats better then at night i guess.

ALright i will sit down soon and put this information down, maybe im missing something else.

There is something going on with soil in the sealed room. I know that mushrooms are still all up in the soil for whatever reason. That worries me because they release co2 at the rootzone which in container in sealed room could be bad?

Give me some time to put some info together for you. If that IS what you are asking for? Im slow man, sorry.

The regular clear air hose is fine IME. I mention vinyl because it is something I really try and keep out of my rooms, but I have never had trouble with the clear air hose. Only reason I mentioned the other kind is because of the lomg run and potential leaks from carboxylic acid. It's a bigger deal in aquariums because the leak is obviously worse than just the co2.

 

[shredGnar]

I did not read the entire thread so I apologize if its already been mentioned..

However with the co2 burners you need to make sure there is a proper amount of oxygen in the room.

If the burner fires and there is a lack of O2 the flames produce ethylene gas which isn't harmful to humans but is the same gas that causes fruits and veggies to ripen and will cause problems.

Switched to bottled and now its gravy train.

 

[TrichCrazy5280]

I did not read the entire thread so I apologize if its already been mentioned..

However with the co2 burners you need to make sure there is a proper amount of oxygen in the room.

If the burner fires and there is a lack of O2 the flames produce ethylene gas which isn't harmful to humans but is the same gas that causes fruits and veggies to ripen and will cause problems.

Switched to bottled and now its gravy train.

Yes this topic has been gone over already. That is the conclusion that i have temporarily came to until a test provides me with more info. The whole time i thought i had enough oxygen because my burners flames were burning the correct color blue. But i guess it can still burn blue AND create ethylene.

You are probably the 5th person who has said they switched to bottles with success. This is the game plan after this round. Anyone looking for a good deal on a sentinel burner JK

Thanks for the reply

 

[theother]

I honestly believe the answer to burners has something to do with how long they are on vs room size vs oxygen content vs probably some other unknown variable. It's an expensive gsme to play, but there is an answer out there somewhere.

Fwiw the people I know who have the most luck with gens tend to have extremely large spaces and are also using a lung room for the conditioning and burner. May be that the byproduct of combustion only happens at a certain time in the burn and the larger space shifts the ratio away from that part of the burn.

Just my 2c's, I saw it, tried to fix it, and said to myself life is too short and power is too expensive fuck this. Bottles ftw if your human.

 

[theother]

most of these devices will have jumpers to select between the two options.
the one above is set up to record the amount of time, not the number of times the switch closes. so will do what you want.

regarding data logging. if you are so inclined you CAN get a national instruments DAQ module on ebay for like 100 bucks... they are however, not for the faint of heart.
they will require some amount of expertise, and i believe you need a copy of LabView to program them to do the fancy stuff other than storing data.

these daq's are pretty popular. schools have lots of them, and lots of them always in the market place as a result. these things power alot of very cool remote weather monitoring equipment, though they require very expensive power and charging controllers. there are like 1,000 different modules for sale.
IMO you want one that will accept numerous analogue signal inputs.... its just the easiest way to handle things, though not the cheapest.

this is what im talking about incase you are interested. the 6008 only has one analogue in however. or atleast i remember that to be the case.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/National-In...113?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item5d53192fe1

it does not require any computer to store the data, only a source of power. you do need labview or some other free software they make to retrieve the files.

for what ever reason this thread keeps butting into either my nerd hobbies, or into my professional or educational experience... must be comeing off as a knowit all asshole. someone ask about poetry or art so i can stfu.

oh man no worries at all on sounding like a know it all! This industry needs info/opinions/hints from other industries/academia/engineering! Look at what grey wolf and skunk pharm did for concentrates. We always appreciate it, the info on combustion was extremely helpful. Even though no one here can afford to take on the problem, we are dropping breadcrumbs for someone with cheap power that loves to solve problems.

I am very interested in the DAQ stuff, that sounds like an ideal solution to data logging all conditions. Do you think labview would allow me to see all conditions overlayed in some intuitive way? I believe that the answer lies there. I am beginning to think that a slight bit of temp variance is actually what the plants want. It seems when things climb for a while then drop they do best, go fucking figure right! For years i tried to achieve the most stable enviro I could only to see them flourish when I fucked up and had my AC turning off automatically for awhile. Really hard to judge just by watching plants, so many variables. But I believe with co2 usage actually quantifying photosynthesis it would be possible to come to a conclusion. Unfortunately life and human error just keep me with my back against the ropes trying to get another one down instead of moving forward.

 

[queequeg152]

oh man no worries at all on sounding like a know it all! This industry needs info/opinions/hints from other industries/academia/engineering! Look at what grey wolf and skunk pharm did for concentrates. We always appreciate it, the info on combustion was extremely helpful. Even though no one here can afford to take on the problem, we are dropping breadcrumbs for someone with cheap power that loves to solve problems.

I am very interested in the DAQ stuff, that sounds like an ideal solution to data logging all conditions. Do you think labview would allow me to see all conditions overlayed in some intuitive way?

yes that is what lab view is for. you ever see power plants and such, with their custom GUI's showing boiler temps and feed water flow rates with little animations and junk? those are usually done in LabView, then run on windows machines with touch panels.

some of the very talented home brewers have actually built lab view GUI controllers for their mini home brew setups. its pretty impressive.

it is not a trivial thing to code. lab view is one of those subjects like matlab, where one buys 2" thick cheap paper back newsprint manuals. As far as just recording data however, its far easier to setup.

you can buy modules that have ethernet connections and or auto dialers and shit like that. its all quite complicated though.

if you have an edu email adress you can usually request an educational software license.