Ethylene poisoning?

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noob12345

noob12345

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I posted this on another thread but I also added it here on my own thread to see if anyone else is having or had similar issues. Im experiencing this problem at the moment! I built myself an RDWC and a tankless water heater hooked up to co2 controller, the first grow it seemed to do ok but not great, this grow im getting stunted leaves, calmag issues, really bad purple leaf stems and purple stripes up the main stems, it seems to effect the plants opposite first (first contact with the gasses from the burner?!) I have tried venting at night and a few times during the day but these problems persist until I cut the generator completely and switch the vent on! I have a CO alarm in there which never registers anything. What really confused issues is that I had a PH pen issue at the start and was running PH too low, when I realised this and corrected it I had hoped the problems would go away, but they just got worse! I found a few posts on the burner issue and after running for a week or so without the burner the plants were doing ok again, not perfect as im not getting the fan leaves that im used to, they all seem thin fingered if that makes any sense? My single pot is doing much better but what I did notice is that with the burner on, any roots above the water in the big system slowly die, only the submerged ones seem to survive. My environment is pretty dialled in! RH 60% temps a bit low at 22 but I blew a ballast other day and am waiting for the new one to turn up so I only have 1 light on for a few days, I have added an aquarium heater and all fresh airstones as I found a couple of them seemed to be blocked and the water was a little cold, ive got it up to 21°c now. This problem is driving me crazy, Im thinking about ripping the whole lot out and going back to simple single buckets next grow. In the pics you can see since turning off the generator im getting nice new root growth but it still seems like they are growing slower than they should be too me, In my single bucket dwc tent grows I had a job to control them they grew so quickly!

The single red bucket (first 3 pics) was a cutting I put in after the others and its doing great, big normal fan leaves but the big system …...I decided 24hrs ago to seal her up and switch generator on to make sure that's whats causing it and 24hrs later....cal-mag issues, purple stems getting a lot worse and this strange leaf curling and stunted growth, the fan leaves are much smaller. The older roots look stained but they are not slimey and dont smell of anything, although they do seem very ropey, not many feeder hairs. Anyone able to shine a little more light on this before I explode lol.
 
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Dbear180

Dbear180

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I'm just curious what does the flame on your "c02 generator" look like? Is it fueled by natural gas or propane?
 
noob12345

noob12345

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its on butane and its a nice blue flame, ive had the cover off and ran it up for a while to make sure! do you think propane/butane would make a difference? more byproducts perhaps?


I'm just curious what does the flame on your "c02 generator" look like? Is it fueled by natural gas or propane?
 
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noob12345

noob12345

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After putting all the work in above (plumbing water and gas lines in and buying an expensive co2 controller), I guess im just pissed that it seems to be killing the plants.
 
Aqua Man

Aqua Man

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Well I have an idea. You can rent a CO2 cylinder and test it out. That way you don't have to buy it. I'm fairly confident it's the byproducts produced such as ethylene and carbon monoxide. I believe natural gas burn much cleaner in those aspects.
 
noob12345

noob12345

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The room is really well sealed so bottles is an option! maybe bottles are the way forward for me.


Well I have an idea. You can rent a CO2 cylinder and test it out. That way you don't have to buy it. I'm fairly confident it's the byproducts produced such as ethylene and carbon monoxide. I believe natural gas burn much cleaner in those aspects.
 
Dbear180

Dbear180

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I think it's from the butane. Spend a few more bucks & get a prop/ng one. I love my ng generator, it's only given me one problem & it was just some crap built up in the tips. Filling tanks can become a hassle but the plus side is no heat generated by tanks.
 
Dbear180

Dbear180

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Another thing to consider is cost. Ng from the house will almost always be cheapest, but not available everywhere, also never runs out (I pay MAYBE 10 bucks a month for c02). Propane is portable (some homes are plumbed for it) not too bad cost wise if you shop around, & tanks are relatively easy to handle. Filling c02 tanks might be a bit of a drive away, they're heavy, i was constantly refilling them, & it gets expensive over time. I have really only used tanks when I had no other option.
 
Aqua Man

Aqua Man

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I run a very small space burner would be overkill. One benefit is you never have to vent your space at night or otherwise when using tanks. But if I had a bigger space I would definitely try out a burner
 
Dbear180

Dbear180

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I run a very small space burner would be overkill. One benefit is you never have to vent your space at night or otherwise when using tanks. But if I had a bigger space I would definitely try out a burner

I'm in a sealed room but not like super air tight, more like water tight lol. The can fan creates positive pressure in my room & forces air out @ the bottom door gap. I dont vent @ lights off more like a slow seep, but in the morning before lights on my c02 is back down to like 400. You'd be surprised the new mini burners are pretty efficient 👍 they pay for themselves in a year or two for me.
 
Aqua Man

Aqua Man

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I'm in a sealed room but not like super air tight, more like water tight lol. The can fan creates positive pressure in my room & forces air out @ the bottom door gap. I dont vent @ lights off more like a slow seep, but in the morning before lights on my c02 is back down to like 400. You'd be surprised the new mini burners are pretty efficient 👍 they pay for themselves in a year or two for me.
Wow it must be vented well my CO2 skyrockets up to over 2000ppm after lights out. The controller shuts the tank off with the lights but I used to have it shut off an hour early which I what I recommend if people are able. When the light go on in the morning I can literally watch them suck up the CO2 as the ppm drops fast like over 2000ppm to setpoint depending on stage of growth in under 45 min.
 
Dbear180

Dbear180

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Wow it must be vented well my CO2 skyrockets up to over 2000ppm after lights out. The controller shuts the tank off with the lights but I used to have it shut off an hour early which I what I recommend if people are able. When the light go on in the morning I can literally watch them suck up the CO2 as the ppm drops fast like over 2000ppm to setpoint depending on stage of growth in under 45 min.

Yeah I run a 8in can fan moving about 800cu ft a min in a space that's less than 1500cu ft. I cool my veg by exchanging air with flower room ac so I over shoot & run enough to exchange 3000cu ft every 15 minutes for a good mix, good pressure.

What type of controller do you use? I know my sentinel has the fuzzy logic to keep it from overshooting but I never actually used it with the tanks just the gen.
 
Aqua Man

Aqua Man

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Yeah I run a 8in can fan moving about 800cu ft a min in a space that's less than 1500cu ft. I cool my veg by exchanging air with flower room ac so I over shoot & run enough to exchange 3000cu ft every 15 minutes for a good mix, good pressure.

What type of controller do you use? I know my sentinel has the fuzzy logic to keep it from overshooting but I never actually used it with the tanks just the gen.
Autopilot. Mine is not over shooting that's easily adjusted by lowering the flow rate. The plants give off that much CO2 over lights out. At lights out ppm max I set is 1100-1200ppm and it's not over that when the light go out. Which shut off my tank. I have seen night levels as high as 2500 ppm
 
Dirtbag

Dirtbag

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Worth pointing out, with that low temp and low light intensity you shouldnt need high Co2. Just atmosphere levels around 400ppm is more than enough.

I think getting the temp up to 25-28 in the room and and getting more light on them to get them transpiring more would help, Calcium relies on transpiration for uptake. And yeah for a small well sealed space I'd run bottled Co2 over a burner if I couldnt just ventilate it.
 
Aqua Man

Aqua Man

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Worth pointing out, with that low temp and low light intensity you shouldnt need high Co2. Just atmosphere levels around 400ppm is more than enough.

I think getting the temp up to 25-28 in the room and and getting more light on them to get them transpiring more would help, Calcium relies on transpiration for uptake. And yeah for a small well sealed space I'd run bottled Co2 over a burner if I couldnt just ventilate it.
Very good point on the temps and light. With out them CO2 supplementation at higher levels is pretty much useless.
 
noob12345

noob12345

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my burner overshoots from 1000 to 1500! more depending on where I put sensor, The room is at bout 22°c vented atm with 660w on them, they are looking a little better tonight since stopping the burner. Once my new ballast gets here ill have them back up to 1000w and finish on 1200, with 1000w running in there I see pretty constant temps of about 27° at canopy but even with temps at 27° as soon as I switched the co2 burner on, they seemed to stop transpiration and within a day or so I start getting defs. Heres a pic from a couple of weeks ago when I switched it off because of the same kind of problem, it was at 27-28° and RH 55% roughly when I took these. I flipped without co2 but ive seen nearly no stretch! they have stretched maybe half veg height nearly 2 weeks into flower
 
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noob12345

noob12345

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one this I am noticing is that even without added co2, im not getting the big fan leaves like in the single bucket, The single bucket has what I would call normal fan leaves bigger than my hand, these never seem to get as big even though its a cutting of the same mother, feel like banging my head on the wall atm lol I spent so much time and effort building this room I really want to get a decent harvest out of it!
 
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