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Hydroponics Co2 Injection

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Hydroponic Nutrients - Co2 Enrichment

Carbon dioxide or CO2 is the essential gas for supporting plant life. It is a colorless, odorless gas, found in small quantities in the air.

 In order to make the most of indoor gardening, it is necessary to provide plants with all the constituents of the above mentioned process: light, CO2, water and nutrients. If plants receive enough water, but have weak supply of hydroponic nutrients or light, it won’t work out. Injecting CO2can offer great benefits, when performed by a skilled and experienced gardener. However, the beginner may easily kill his plants by injecting CO2 in inappropriate manner.

Several important pre-conditions should be created before using the increased CO2 levels. First of all, it is necessary to provide a very bright lighting for the plants (more than 20 watts per square foot). Otherwise, there will be little or no increase in plant growing. It is also necessary to increase temperature slightly (about 3-5 degrees). Finally, do not forget to supply plants with adequate amounts of water and nutrients, since increased photosynthesis will require more resources.

In the natural environment, plants usually use about 300-600 ppm (parts per million) of carbon dioxide, which is available in the atmosphere. However, plants can handle significantly larger amounts of CO2. With 1500 ppm of CO2 consumed, plants can grow twice as fast as they grow under the normal conditions. However, in most cases about 40% - 50% of growth increase is achieved.

Ideally, CO2 should be maintained at steady level constantly. To reach this goal regular injections of small amounts of gas are needed. However, it is not always possible to perform such operations, since there is a requirement to ventilate the growing site thoroughly right before the injection.

The biggest catch about carbon dioxide injection is not to exceed limits. Most of the plants will be destroyed, when the CO2 levels reaches 2000 ppm. Besides, such elevated levels of CO2 are also toxic for humans. That is why it is recommended to vent the room before injecting CO2 in order to remove excess CO2 and prevent its accumulation.

Usually, in order to increase CO2 levels special CO2 control devices (either bottled CO2 or CO2 generators) are used. Both of these methods provide automated way of delivering CO2 into the growing environment. It is preferable to use CO2 monitors in order to keep tracking the exact CO2 levels in the growing environment and automatically add gas, when it is necessary. However, such devices can be pretty expensive, so most people use more cost-effective methods, for example, timers.

How to Use Bottled CO2

Among other CO2 control devices, bottled CO2is, perhaps, the most widely spread method to deliver gas into the growing environment. The system usually consists of CO2-filled tank, a pressure gauge to monitor the amount of gas in the tank, a flow meter to control the amount of the released gas, a solenoid valve and a timer. Solenoid valve is used to turn on and off the flow of gas, when needed.

In order to make carbon dioxide delivering easier and more precise, there are some handy tables below, developed by Green Air Products. The first table shows how much time it is necessary to release CO2 from your bottled system in order to reach 1000 ppm concentration, and the second table offers data timing for reaching 1500 ppm concentration. In order to use those tables, you have to know the volume of your growing environment in cubic feet and the flow velocity in your bottled CO2 systemin cubic feet per hour.

How to Use CO2 Generators

Earlier CO2 generators were mainly used by large commercial hydroponic growers only. However, today, when these devices are available in many different sizes, even hobby growers can use small CO2 generators for their indoor gardens. CO2 generators work by burning natural gas or propane. They are usually equipped with a timer to ignite gas in the predefined time periods and thus deliver CO2 on a regular timely manner.

In comparison to bottled CO2 use of generators is a more money-saving option, since they can produce about 26 cu. ft. of CO2 gas per one pound of burned fuel. Besides, CO2 generators are easier to work with. However, along with producing CO2 they also generate a lot of heat. The latter may be treated either as a benefit, when you live in a colder region and additional heating of your indoor garden will be welcomed, or as a drawback, requiring additional ventilation, cooling or air conditioning to prevent overheating of growing plants.

While operating CO2 generators, it is also necessary to keep in mind that, when damaged, they can produce Carbon Monoxide (CO) instead of Carbon Dioxide (CO2). This substance is life-threatening and may cause death to humans even in small quantities (unlike CO2 which becomes deadly only in high concentrations). In order to check whether your CO2 generator works properly have a look at the flame, that should be blue under normal conditions. If the flame is yellow or orange, it means that the generator does not burn fuel properly and dangerous CO may be released into the environment. If you noticed yellow or orange flame, turn off your CO2 generator and have it examined and fixed by a qualified service person. Finally, it is needless to say that only quality CO2 generators as well as other CO2 controldevices, designed specifically for gardening applications, should be used indoor.

Are There Any Other Ways to Deliver CO2

If you are not ready yet for using bottled CO2 or CO2 generators, there are still several options to deliver CO2into your growing environment. Mostly, these are manual techniques, so it may be pretty challenging to define the actual CO2 concentration; on the other hand, the chances that you will exceed CO2 limits, while using such methods, are also miniscule.

One of the alternative methods to provide CO2 is composting organic substances, such as leaves, sawdust, manure, hay, etc. In the process of their decomposition, certain amount of CO2 is generated. This method is simple to operate and requires no or very little costs. However, it is necessary to be aware of potential diseases or fungus, which may develop in the decomposing materials.

Some amount of CO2 can also be received during fermentation process. For example, mixing water, sugar and yeast results in fermentation and generation of CO2.

Dry ice is another source of CO2for your indoor grown plants. In fact, dry ice is nothing but compressed into a solid mass CO2 gas. By the way, CO2 can never be in liquid form: it is either solid or gas. So, if you put a block of dry ice in your garden, it will slowly vaporize and release CO2 gas. The disadvantage of dry ice is that this is a pretty expensive material.

One more method to produce CO2 originates from kitchen: dripping a small amount of baking soda with vinegar will result in active release of CO2.

About the Author

My name is guy. I am the founder and owner of the urbangardenershop.com.au . I fell in love with hydroponics gardening. As time went by I gathered a vast knowledge base and 2 years ago I decided to find a way to make hydroponics gardening a hobby that anyone can peruse. I added a hydroponic gardening information center to our hydroponic supplies site that offers a large range of hydroponics articles. Thank you for your interest and feel free to ask questions on hydroponics gardening in our site

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This entry was posted on Sunday, March 7th, 2010 at 10:48 pm and is filed under Seed Trays. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
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