co2/o2 levels

first off evening all, ive really enjoyed reading the forum up until now so thanks for all the information

im fairly new to orchids and but i grow a lot of tropical and rare plants and have a big interest in the more scientific growing methods. having recently paid out for a fully aeroponic growing system ive now stopped growing all my plants in non sterile media and im having incredible results (for those of you using semi hydro think triple the growth speed and you wont be far off!)

the next step i want to take is controlling the atmosphere i.e high co2 levels in the day and high o2 at night. Im just wondering if anyones tried a system like this before running at high purity levels (90% atmosphere content plus) and what effects it had on the plants? I know plants in pure co2 will eventually die from the effects of carbonic acid when they absorb that much co2 but would running on a pure o2 atmosphere at night be enough to clear the cells of dangerous amounts?

i expect its going to be experiment time again but i thought id ask before i kill more plants

I don't have the slightest idea, I'm not quite that advanced in my studies, but I did just want to say welcome to the forum, and I look forward to seeing pictures of the plants you grow, and also that aeroponic system. Sounds interesting...

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Geoffrey

thanks for the welcome, il try and get some pics up soon. ive used hydroponic for a while but ive got to say as expensive as it is the aeroponic setup is simply incredible! ive just moved 3 tacca chantrieri over into it so il get some before and after pictures.

Sounds like an interesting experiment. i look forward to seeing your results. Welcome to our group. Enjoy the forum.



Cheers,
BD

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We could learn a lot from crayons: some are sharp, some are pretty, some are dull, some have weird names, and all are different colors....but they all exist very nicely in the same box. ...Hmmm? .

Welcome to the forum. This is a subject I have wondered about for a while. I keep a planted aquarium and supplement with CO2 using a simple fermentation technique. The results can be quite dramatic. Other aquarists use more advanced systems, sometimes using fire extinguishers as a source of CO2. I would be pleased to hear the results of your experiments, good luck with them

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Nothing is so clean as a fish.

draggon- i to keep a cold water aquarium with the co2 fed off of a bulk tank so ive got the supply sorted its just the o2 i need to lay my hands on. with co2 being heavier than air it should be quite easy to run a contstant supply from the top of the grow chamber and let it purge all the oxygen out. so if anyone knows of a cheap place to pick up o2 cylinders in the uk id be gratefull!

when i was growing my veggies i had a couple plants i was giving a lot more light so i thought i'd see if they'd benefit from some extra co2 (i too enjoy the scientific side of gardening...) i just mixed some yeast and extra sugar into a cup of apple juice and put that inbetween the plants, certainly not an extremely high concentration or anything but it made a huuuge difference. i guess when all the lighting is perfected for the plant they're really limited by how much carbon is available to fix, but there's probably a point at which it doesn't make a difference anymore. atmospheric carbon is really low, a few hundred ppm i think, so in a supercharged growing system i think a little extra carbon is warranted but i'd just want to caution you if you're going to try this experiment to be really careful b/c i'm pretty sure waaaay less than 90% concentrations of co2 are toxic to humans (actually, i don't think you're supposed to go over 1%...)
other than that i'm reeeeally interested in how this turns out... keep us posted