CO2 in Your Grow Room

Adding CO2 in your grow room gives your hydroponic garden a boost, and will help to increase your yields.

This guide aims to run you through exactly what CO2 is and how it benefits your plants?

What is Carbon Dioxide – CO2?

CO2 is the chemical formula for carbon dioxide. Humans expel Carbon dioxide with water vapour as a bi-product of respiration (breathing). Plants utilise CO2 to photosynthesis. Levels of CO2 are measured in PPM (parts per million) and ambient levels of freely available atmospheric CO2 in your grow room are typically around 300 to 400 ppm.

Assuming you have fresh air circulating in your grow room, you should be able to achieve around 390 ppm of CO2. This is similar to the levels of CO2 you’ll achieve out in the garden, with similar growth potential. Without fresh air, and levels of CO2 below 200 ppm, your plants will stop growing.

Increasing CO2 In My Grow Room

Increasing the Co2 in your grow room isn’t difficult, adding a My-CO2 or Exhale CO2 Bag is one of the easiest and simplest methods of increasing the CO2 levels. As CO2 is heavier than air, we recommend hanging the bag as high as you can, so the CO2 can fall through the layers.

My Co2 Bag used to increase CO" in your grow room

A small, oscillating clip on fan helps to mix the air in the grow room. These CO2 bags cultivate carbon dioxide 24 hours a day. Using one means you don’t need to purchase CO2 bottles or expensive production units.

Adding more freely accessible CO2 in your grow room can have huge beneficial results on your next grow. If you can match the correct environmental conditions with ventilation and the plant’s nutritional requirements, then adding CO2 can make a huge difference and boost your yields. Enhancing the CO2 levels in your grow room will boost your plant’s growth and you can do this in your current system, without having to change the way you grow.

As plants utilise CO2 to grow, increasing the levels of CO2 will accelerate the growth cycles of your crops. With increased CO2 levels, your plant’s will grow at accelerated rates. Increased CO2 levels up to around 1,500 PPM can result in a massive 100% increase in growth speeds.

What Are The Benefits of Increasing CO2 in My Grow Room?

Number one on the benefits list of Co2 enrichment, and let’s face it, one of the most important, is the significant increase in plant growth that occurs. This is especially true if you’re sure you’ve already maximised your rooms potential.

In addition to this, if you increase the Co2 in the air to around 1000-1500ppm, you’ll be able to run your grow room at a higher temperature. This is particularly useful during those warm spells in summer, helping you avoid temperature stress to your plants. It also allows you to use more powerful grow lights or to use your grow lights closer to the canopy if height is an issue.

Adding CO2 During Vegetation

Increasing the Co2 concentration during the vegetative stage means you’ll benefit from the protective elements of growing with Co2 enrichment. It’s also one of the best methods to increase the size of your plants. Increasing CO2 levels allows for more growth. Increasing the physical size and growth rate of your plants during the vegetative stage means you’ll get potentially larger plants with more flowering sites.

Adding Co2 During Flowering

Increasing the Co2 concentration during the flowering stage is highly important. Increasing CO2 levels in your grow room in the first few weeks of flowering works to boost flower production and significantly increases flower size.

How Do I Add Co2 to My Grow Room

The easiest method of increasing the levels of CO2 has to be by using an ExHale CO2 bag. These bags are a simple method of increasing the amount of CO2 in the air in your grow room. ExHale CO2 bags produce carbon dioxide 24-hours a day as a by-product. There is nothing complicated about it, and they remove limiting factors and the need for CO2 generators, Co2 Regulators and refill bottles.

Image of an ExHale CO2 bag used to raise CO2 in your grow room to increase growth rates and final yields

The power of ExHale lies in the mycelial mass inside the vented cultivator. This mycelial mass cultivates Co2, increasing the Co2 concentration through the bag’s microporous breather patch, 24-hours a day for up to 6 months.

The ExHale cultivator bag is designed for small to medium grow spaces. A single ExHale CO2 bag will provide 4-6 plants with up to 1500 ppm of CO2. ExHale bags can be used for both vegetative plant growth and for fruit and flower production.