Hydro vs CO2 Enrichment

I'm finishing up my current setup and have enough money left for either a hydro setup or a CO2 enrichment system.

Any opinions on what would be the better investment between the two?

We need details about your setup. Lights, room/tent size etc.
You're running a closed system?

- 5'x5'x6'11" Gorilla Grow Tent.
- All unused ports are completely sealed off.
- Intake and exhaust fan will either be set to turn on at specific intervals, or they will be connected to my temp/humidity controller (so they only turn on when the temp. or RH hits a certain level).
- Tested the tent for air leaks. The only vulnerable spots are where the fans are, but they are closed up with ducting, zip ties, duct tape. Obviously no tent is perfect, but I think this is pretty air tight. If I do go with CO2, I'd have a PPM monitor and if I see irregularities, I'll go leak hunting.
- Light is a 715w actual draw COB.

Nice setup brother. Very impressive.
I have no experience either way but I'd say the CO2 would be the path of least resistance. You sound experienced so you've probably got a certain method dialed in. Adding CO2 would be a definite bonus. I've been watching Phnerd on YouTube and he uses co2 with coco and botanicare kind. Great results.
Anyway I'm just yakkin' here but I'm interested to hear what the mavens have to say.

T.C. Bosby said:

- 5'x5'x6'11" Gorilla Grow Tent.
- All unused ports are completely sealed off.
- Intake and exhaust fan will either be set to turn on at specific intervals, or they will be connected to my temp/humidity controller (so they only turn on when the temp. or RH hits a certain level).
- Tested the tent for air leaks. The only vulnerable spots are where the fans are, but they are closed up with ducting, zip ties, duct tape. Obviously no tent is perfect, but I think this is pretty air tight. If I do go with CO2, I'd have a PPM monitor and if I see irregularities, I'll go leak hunting.
- Light is a 715w actual draw COB.

Click to expand...

You are gonna find that the tents leak much worse than you think. We're not talking about light, we are talking about gas. Now, if you are running an intake/ exhaust plan on losing co2 every time they run as well. I had a gorilla tent when I first started and went through a tank every 7 days. Now my sealed room uses a tank about once a month. Where is your tent? Can you supply co2 into the room it's in and pull from there? Where are you pulling air from? Depending on your style of growing you might see an increase in yield growing hydro vs. using co2. If you are supplementing your tent with extra co2 then how about your lighting and temps? I wouldn't think the cob's get that hot, so to supplement with co2 could also be a waste. You need optimum water, nutes, light, temperature, and humidity in order for co2 to be properly used by your plants, achieving optimum photosynthesis. If these are not met you might as well be throwing away money. You could get a ppm reader and see what you are at normally because you might be sitting around 400-600ppm. The national outdoor co2 level is around 400ppm, so again, being in a non-sealed room you are already getting a good amount of co2 in your space. Hope this helps.

T.C. Bosby said:

- 5'x5'x6'11" Gorilla Grow Tent.
- All unused ports are completely sealed off.
- Intake and exhaust fan will either be set to turn on at specific intervals, or they will be connected to my temp/humidity controller (so they only turn on when the temp. or RH hits a certain level).
- Tested the tent for air leaks. The only vulnerable spots are where the fans are, but they are closed up with ducting, zip ties, duct tape. Obviously no tent is perfect, but I think this is pretty air tight. If I do go with CO2, I'd have a PPM monitor and if I see irregularities, I'll go leak hunting.
- Light is a 715w actual draw COB.

Click to expand...

So your doing soil/soilless and are going to enrich with co2? Sounds like you have your room already in check!!!! If you know you can keep the extra co2 in the tent then rock it. Have fun!!!!

I think a hydro setup would be more well-suited for what you are doing. I agree with @xmatox that the tent is going to leak gas more than you think.

Get the hydro and save yourself some trouble

Hydro has way more benefits, but will also cause way more trouble.
Hydro is a bit more advanced (not hard, just needs more attention and research, starting knowledge etc.), but will yield better results overall. And it will do so with a higher chance than CO², which only works to your advantage if everything else is perfect, otherwise the plants will not make much use of the CO².
There needs to be excessive light, there needs to be more heat and humidity and plenty of room to grow. and if you grow in a 3 gallon pot in earth, no amount of CO² will help. As a matter of fact, I would not even consider CO² before I would run it all in a hydroponic set up to start with.

But you don't have to go full out tech for the CO². Instead, get the hydro setup, and then do a DYI CO² drop. Something like this:

A small canister in which you feed sugar-water to yeast (bakers/brewers yeast), with a small air hose sealed into the lid, leading deep into a smaller transparent bottle, filled with water (this way you can see the CO² bubbles moving and know that it works), which has an air hose attached, spreading the CO² into the room. raise it high enough (CO² is heavy and drops to the floor, good air circulation helps moving it around) and you can still get some additional CO².
It does not seem like much, but two-three of these in a grow tent of your size will at least keep the CO² at a slightly elevated level.