Is Dry Ice Ever Used?

My brain has a habit of not stopping, and yesterday after reading a thread about someones propane CO2 generator I though. "I wonder if anyone ever used small amounts of dry ice." (For closet type grows.)

It would give off CO2 and cool things down a little. However I DONT know how much CO2 and if it would be too cold, even if used in an intelligent location.

Any thoughts?

its not cost effective dry ice is way expensive

robert 14617 said:

its not cost effective dry ice is way expensive

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Thanks for the reply robert!

Personally I've never had a problem walking into the supermarket and asking for some. Do you think it would work otherwise? I don't think I would try it until I was much more experienced however I thought I would throw the idea out there for the community.

it will raise the humidity as well but i have used it with great results, the plants start shooting up and get a really nice dark green the week after using.

dry ice, although effective to some degree isn't really the best option, it depends on how big your grow room is, plants etc. for a few basic plants, I just use the tried and true Co2 generator, I rigged one up using plans on here. I have also used the yeast mehtod, smelly like a brewery but not the best either. I have had several grows and by far the best and cost effective ones are what most growers use, in the long run you're growing for about 4 months, maybe longer, flowering for up to 8 weeks if need be, don't skimp for lack of a better word, the pay offs are worth the expense.

Thats neat info Bud and Farf.

Personally, my grow is just for personal medicine. However I love comming up with ideas that can supplament commercial products in a bind, or substitute for them while you try to save money. The generators you mention Farf (like the propane one I saw on a random thread) look much more suited for grows of medium to large scale. By the time you scavenge all the parts to distribute the reside from the ice, and set up sources to keep getting it - you would have been better off buying a stable system.


Something else I was thinking of. Does anyone use chicken grit (crushed oyster shell) in their substrate? You can get it at a lot of hardware stores and feed shops and it's not that expensive. It's a good PH buffer and it leechs a little cal and mag as well. I think it's similar to lime except it doesn't break down as quickly. I have experience in the past using it as a PH buffer for water filtration systems with excellent results.

Just another thought! Back to building my cabinet. Starting a journal later or tomrrow.

Bud

Nice ideas......

DinafemHashPlant said:

Nice ideas......

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Do you mean that literally?

If so, I appreciate the good words.

I was on the fence about posting the two ideas. I know folks use the commercial CO2 generators, and I've already read of many folks using lime dust. Of course that has been used agriculturally on all sorts of plants forever. I've mentioned in a couple other postings of mine that I am new to gardening. I've never grown a damn thing besides taking mint cuttings, rooting them and spreading them around. (With such an invansive plant like that, if you can't succeed you stink!)

Anyways, I'm not new to biology as a whole. I think I'll have a lot of cross-referenced ideas (like how chicken grit is a good water buffer, but does leech cal/mag (good for plants though) - or that CO2 from dry ice can be used a cheap way to do a lot of things that you might need CO2 for. (One thing is an easy, reliable and humane euthanization method for animals.) <No not cats and dogs, lab animals.

Whether or not my ideas I come up with are good - that leaves to be discovered.

Bud

http://co2bags.com/aboutus.html

http://www.planetnatural.com/site/co2-bags.html

Buddy232 said:

Do you mean that literally?

If so, I appreciate the good words.

I was on the fence about posting the two ideas. I know folks use the commercial CO2 generators, and I've already read of many folks using lime dust. Of course that has been used agriculturally on all sorts of plants forever. I've mentioned in a couple other postings of mine that I am new to gardening. I've never grown a damn thing besides taking mint cuttings, rooting them and spreading them around. (With such an invansive plant like that, if you can't succeed you stink!)

Anyways, I'm not new to biology as a whole. I think I'll have a lot of cross-referenced ideas (like how chicken grit is a good water buffer, but does leech cal/mag (good for plants though) - or that CO2 from dry ice can be used a cheap way to do a lot of things that you might need CO2 for. (One thing is an easy, reliable and humane euthanization method for animals.) <No not cats and dogs, lab animals.

Whether or not my ideas I come up with are good - that leaves to be discovered.

Bud

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Yeah i meant it for real boss, always looking for new ideas that i may need to use..

I've thought about the idea and dismissed it. The CO2, in a cooler, will only last a few days. So you will constantly be running to the store for CO2, and here, for whatever reason they ask for your drivers license. A few times sure, but I bet after a while you might get flagged. And either way, there are other problems.

Humidity, dispersion of CO2, that stuff coming off the ice is cold, it can't be dumped directly onto the plants. Also you have no way to control the rate of CO2 coming off the ice, you would need some type of regulator, custom built of course. In the end, I decided to go with a CO2 tank system, that I will only have to refill every 2-3 months, for about 20-30 a fill up. The problem of course is the initial investment in the tank, $100 or so, and the regulator equipment which I have priced around $150. That is my next investment, I looked into dry ice to do it on the cheap, but in the end its not worth it, imho.

i did the dry ice thing for a little while, i eventually switched to a co2 tank and regulator