Need help building a sealed room for Co2 use

[pacoclandestino]

setting up the room

setting up the room

Today am setting the CO2 system in my room

I have my first doubt, i am puting the CO2 drilled tube at the very top of the metalic structures,building a circle in the middle of my grow area, as Titan recommends, problem is, i do have electrical wires attached also to the structure wich is one of the main reason i use those structures. everything hangs there,lamps,fans,filter,wires,tubes etc etc, so no damage to walls asides the confort of having hundreds of hanging points ready to go

here in this photos you can see the CO2 tube (the one that curls),set up is provisional, and I guess best stay away from electrical wires? since this tube is drilled all over it, it is going to be a tough one

 

[pacoclandestino]

In the end, i have decided to go from corner to corner crossing in diagonal shape with the drilled tubes, and also its way easier to stay away from electrical wires, conection etc. Here you can see the tubes at the very top attached to the structure

In any case am stoping everything to re place the wires and conections i have attached to the structure to be sure everything is away from the CO2

 

[PurplePotion]

Hey paco; thumbs up for trying to take your time and do everything right. I gotta tell you though, you are over thinking it right now. Your Co2 line can be run next to power cords, etc.. it is a non flammable gas. Definitely try to keep everything tidy and out of the way as best possible while you get going. Setup looks good my friend. Keep it up

 

[pacoclandestino]

Hey paco; thumbs up for trying to take your time and do everything right. I gotta tell you though, you are over thinking it right now. Your Co2 line can be run next to power cords, etc.. it is a non flammable gas. Definitely try to keep everything tidy and out of the way as best possible while you get going. Setup looks good my friend. Keep it up

Lol I know what you mean with over thinking it, I always do it.
In any case i wasent sure if its ok to have wires, plugs etc around CO2 with no problems, thanks for letting us know

 

[pacoclandestino]

Co2 Controller and Sensor ready, in the end i am building a CO2 zone where I will have the bottles,controller and sensor, its just behind the door away from any direct air flow, problem is going to be when I go in and out to fill up tanks,feed the plants or work on them.

I had the lights on all day, 26ºC 50%RH without AC or dehum, the room almost goes by itself.
I supose to seal the hole on the wall where the xtraction goes, but I have a feeling I dont need to in regards to the room been sealed, and since am unsure on how the room depletes the CO2 at night I might leave the extraction system functional since my controller can control also my fans,this way as soon as light are off the controllers kicks the fans depletes the room to 600ppm or whatever i set it up too and sitches off til next day

 

[Dirtyeyeball]

It looks like your using DE’s
Make sure you have enough AC to control the heat. I’m not sure how many your running. Running a burner will help keep down your humidity but having a quest dehumidifier will ensure that your humidity stays below 50% from week 5 on

 

[Dirtyeyeball]

And make sure no light penetrates
Even Green lights are bad. Put tape over them

 

[PurplePotion]

Co2 Controller and Sensor ready, in the end i am building a CO2 zone where I will have the bottles,controller and sensor, its just behind the door away from any direct air flow, problem is going to be when I go in and out to fill up tanks,feed the plants or work on them.


View Image




I had the lights on all day, 26ºC 50%RH without AC or dehum, the room almost goes by itself.
I supose to seal the hole on the wall where the xtraction goes, but I have a feeling I dont need to in regards to the room been sealed, and since am unsure on how the room depletes the CO2 at night I might leave the extraction system functional since my controller can control also my fans,this way as soon as light are off the controllers kicks the fans depletes the room to 600ppm or whatever i set it up too and sitches off til next day

Venting at night is mostly preference; whatever works best for your situation. Also, without plants in the room, RH is staying low... don’t count on it when you have it packed full. Hard to really test a room without plants in it.

 

[pacoclandestino]

It looks like your using DE’s
Make sure you have enough AC to control the heat. I’m not sure how many your running. Running a burner will help keep down your humidity but having a quest dehumidifier will ensure that your humidity stays below 50% from week 5 on

Hi Mate! thanks for droping by!
Got plenty AC for the room size, also am running 2 X led and 2 X LEC lights, so wont have much heat problems.
Also have a 80/liter a day Dehum

 

[pacoclandestino]

Venting at night is mostly preference; whatever works best for your situation. Also, without plants in the room, RH is staying low... don’t count on it when you have it packed full. Hard to really test a room without plants in it.

I know .... A lot of people keeps telling me to do it.

I have a bit of a problem with venting due to smells, and thats why i first thought in using CO2, it all depends in how fast the room depletes....at least I have the option to automatise it if needed


Last photo for the night, getting the controller made me realise my room was in bad need for CO2.

Tomorow am picking up the CO2 tank, so i can do some testing for a couple of days and start with my next crop after that

 

[moses wellfleet]

I have never noticed any detrimental effects from allowing co2 to build up over night.

 

[pacoclandestino]

I have never noticed any detrimental effects from allowing co2 to build up over night.

Hi there mate! I thought you were suposse to bring CO2 down when lights are off??

 

[pacoclandestino]

Co2 bottle arrived today, I can finally test the system fully

Great to finally see the whole system together

Since it is the first time am working withe the regulator am not sure is that what the bottll should show (psi) when full??

 

[pacoclandestino]

Had some time with the controller, begining to understand it better and enjoying the features, I guess it will be very similar to whatever controller anyone might have

Since the CO2 sensor is a bit away from what would be the cannopy I dialed it at 900ppm aiming at having 1000 ppm of CO2 in the room(for testing purposses).

Here are max and min CO2 values since last night, very tight to the 1000 ppm mark, no plants in the room so am aware once they are in and growing it will be different

Another feature I liked is this one, you can dial the time the dose should last and the minimum time in between dosage, this is in my case is very helpfull since my Sensor away from the cannopy it gives time for the sensor to detect the prior full dosge before starting to release more CO2

It has a lot of other logs and settings involvibng the extraction system for when lights off time comes in , but for now I have not connected it, and i still unsure if I will cover the wall where the extraction hole that takes the air out of the room is; I need to calculate first the CO2 am using in the room to see if there is a leak or if it is big enough to worry.
For now the controllers Log tells me that it has released CO2 for two minutes, and when it releases CO2 it does it at a rate of 10 SCFH, i need to calculate that....and i just had a spliff

 

[siftedunity]

A truly SEALED room is a great experiment if you're getting paid by NASA to do experiments for the ISS.

But if you're growing for personal meds or commercial, plants do better with ventilation.

I tried building a 4x4x4 cube once, 2 of them actually. Then clamped them together & grew in a Public Storage place.

One of them had a glass top, with a 400 watt HPS over that.

Got some decent personal use bud out of it. I used fermenting sugar water as the CO2 source.

A lot of work for a small amount of Herb.

a sealed room with CO2 is far superior to a ventilated room.

 

[siftedunity]

are you growing in the uk/eu?

 

[moses wellfleet]

Hi there mate! I thought you were suposse to bring CO2 down when lights are off??

That was the talk when I got going with it years ago, but I never did it and haven’t noticed any ill effects from letting it build up. You also save a shit ton of gas that way, I guess if you think about it logically it is very unnatural for the plant. Maybe others can chime in?

 

[pacoclandestino]

That was the talk when I got going with it years ago, but I never did it .......Maybe others can chime in?

yep love to hear more about each growing stages ppm needs!!!


As it is i am not to happy with the sensors placement I will try to get it closer to where the plants will be.


Yesterday I walked in the room and ppm was at 1460ppm when I had it dialed at 900 ppm,I connected the extraction fan to bring it down and as soon as I switched it on ppm counter instead of decreasing it was augmenting...1500- 1600-1700....obviously CO2 had settled at the bottom of the room and as soon as i connected the extraccion fan sucking the air upwards towards the filter it re surfaced.


Conclusion, you need fans at the bottom of the grow to move air upwards I will also receive my scrubber filter and fan next week, my idea is to put the filter standing either at the floor or close to it and have a tube after the fan that will move the air towards the top of the room, see if that way I help CO2 not to stay at the bottom of my room

are you growing in the uk/eu?

Europe, my friend

 

[PurplePotion]

The design of your airflow is critical. Position fans, intakes, and exhausts (a/c and dehu included) so that they are creating constant circulation throughout the room; make them work with each other, not fight against one another.

For example, my a/c intake is below the canopy and my cold air registers are at the top of the room blowing towards the ceiling and out the sides, but 0 cold air directly blows onto the plants.

My dehu sits on the floor and blows straight ahead toward a wall. I have a floor fan in front of it that is pointing straight up constantly recirculating air from bottom to top, and helping to distribute the heat from the dehu exhaust when it kicks on.

I then have two additional oscillating wall fans, one on top of the canopy on one side, and another below the canopy on the opposite wall.

All of these things work together to keep a consistent environment across the room.

If you don’t configure all that stuff the right way you will end up with micro climates through out the room. You could read 40% rh in one place and 90% in another.. it happens a lot easier than people realize. If you ever see a drop of water on a leaf, you don’t have enough air flow. The whole plant should look like it’s subtly dancing 24/7. Do not directly blow air onto your plants; blow around them.

 

[pacoclandestino]

The design of your airflow is critical. Position fans, intakes, and exhausts (a/c and dehu included) so that they are creating constant circulation throughout the room; make them work with each other, not fight against one another.

For example, my a/c intake is below the canopy and my cold air registers are at the top of the room blowing towards the ceiling and out the sides, but 0 cold air directly blows onto the plants.

My dehu sits on the floor and blows straight ahead toward a wall. I have a floor fan in front of it that is pointing straight up constantly recirculating air from bottom to top, and helping to distribute the heat from the dehu exhaust when it kicks on.

I then have two additional oscillating wall fans, one on top of the canopy on one side, and another below the canopy on the opposite wall.

All of these things work together to keep a consistent environment across the room.

If you don’t configure all that stuff the right way you will end up with micro climates through out the room. You could read 40% rh in one place and 90% in another.. it happens a lot easier than people realize. If you ever see a drop of water on a leaf, you don’t have enough air flow. The whole plant should look like it’s subtly dancing 24/7. Do not directly blow air onto your plants; blow around them.

Hi there! thanks for all the valuable advise.
As it is we have a very similar set up, my only differences are:


I dont have registers for the AC, its a Split system, but yes the air is coming from the ceiling where the inside part of the unit is blowing the cold air from the top, never direct to the plants

Dehum is blowing air towards a wall(but i dont have a fan blowing the air up, good call!)

Fans I do have one under each lamp, since I lowered them down yesterday they are doing a great job at pushing the CO2 back up.

Next week am receiving my new filter and fan to use it as a scrubber inside the room, well, in the end, since i got a ver good deal for it, i got two 125 fans and two filter, in the end both add up a little bit more CFM capacity than a 150 one, this way one can go in one end and the other in the other end of the room, that will add up also some bottom to top flow since am planing to put the filter/fan at the floor and stick a tube and tie it to the top of my metal structures between lamps .


Lastly I ve decided to move the sensor to a different place since there was a lot of difference between min and max CO2 levels.
Moving it , also helped me to find out that the move I did yesterday puting the fans very low towards the floor is that when switched on my extractor fan to bring the room down to 850 ppm, this time ppm didnt rised like it did yesterday when i switched on, meaning CO2 is well spread between top and bottom of the room.

So, new placement for the sensor and another 24 hour to test it see if this time i manage to have it more stable