Medical grade O2 to aerate reservoir?

I have come into a basically limitless supply of disposable O2 cylinders. They are called Lif-O-Gen O2 units. They are disposable 15 minutes of high flow O2 for emergency medical use. You see them alot at sporting events on the sidelines.
I was ordered at work to find all the expired or close to expired ones and run them empty and throw them out. I asked if I could take them home to experiment with. They let me.
I disconnected the tiny air pump for aerating my reservoir and hooked up the O2. I only run it about ten minutes every day so far then switch back to the regular pump. I have about 100 cylinders right now.
Is this a bad idea? I know that oxygen in large enough amounts can even be harmful to us oxygen breathing humans.
Anyone have any insight or ideas?

And I thought about the fire hazard and its all taken care of. I never leave the room when the O2 is on just to keep an eye on things.

BigGuyinRI said:

I have come into a basically limitless supply of disposable O2 cylinders. They are called Lif-O-Gen O2 units. They are disposable 15 minutes of high flow O2 for emergency medical use. You see them alot at sporting events on the sidelines.
I was ordered at work to find all the expired or close to expired ones and run them empty and throw them out. I asked if I could take them home to experiment with. They let me.
I disconnected the tiny air pump for aerating my reservoir and hooked up the O2. I only run it about ten minutes every day so far then switch back to the regular pump. I have about 100 cylinders right now.
Is this a bad idea? I know that oxygen in large enough amounts can even be harmful to us oxygen breathing humans.
Anyone have any insight or ideas?

And I thought about the fire hazard and its all taken care of. I never leave the room when the O2 is on just to keep an eye on things.

Click to expand...

not many people have access to 100 cylinders of med grade O2, but this is definately interesting. Do you have a setup where you can test this on only one plant? Plants in hydro grow pretty dang fast anyway, would nice pure O2 make them grow much faster?

inquiring minds want to know.....

So I've been aerating with pure O2 for one whole bottle a day for almost a week now. I think I may be on to something.

If ANYONE has access to medical O2 please PM me and we can compare results. I'm currently flowering my plants and they have started taking off at a rate comparable to veg'ing them. Growth had slowed for the first two weeks of flowering as usual but with the O2 added it has accelerated again. Coincidence or hard science to be worked out?

I may increase to 2 bottles a day soon and see what happens.

o2 is good for the roots, but just make sure that you dont overdue it. too much o2 in the res can lead to a bad dose for your roots. as for what would happen. As far as i could tell, it would be very good for the roots if the proper level is kept constant (ie not enough or too much) i could see where it would make for explosive root growth. as for what it would do above ground. i suppose with a excelent and overly healthy root system, you would probably find the above ground stuff would be doing excelent as well. maybe not as good as with co2, but i think with a mixture of the proper o2 in the res and with the proper co2 above for the plant, you'll reap one hell of a big harvest. let me know how it turns out.

BigGuyinRI said:

I have come into a basically limitless supply of disposable O2 cylinders. They are called Lif-O-Gen O2 units. They are disposable 15 minutes of high flow O2 for emergency medical use. You see them alot at sporting events on the sidelines.
I was ordered at work to find all the expired or close to expired ones and run them empty and throw them out. I asked if I could take them home to experiment with. They let me.
I disconnected the tiny air pump for aerating my reservoir and hooked up the O2. I only run it about ten minutes every day so far then switch back to the regular pump. I have about 100 cylinders right now.
Is this a bad idea? I know that oxygen in large enough amounts can even be

harmful to us oxygen breathing humans.
Anyone have any insight or ideas?

And I thought about the fire hazard and its all taken care of. I never leave the room when the O2 is on just to keep an eye on things.

Click to expand...

One spark is all it takes. A fire fueled by 100% Oxygen is not the kind you're going to be able to fight. The O2 it's self won't burn, but it will make other things go up like flares. Literally. You won't be able to put a fire like that out until the oxygen is either consumed, or turned off. Also if pure O2 comes into contact with oil it can cause the oil to SPONTANEOUSLY combust. I don't wanna piss in your cornflakes, but you are literally playing with fire here. Something tells me that the pump you're using has been lubricated with oil, and has components inside which could cause sparks. This is a recipe for disaster. Trust me.

Finally, as you mention, 100% O2 isn't healthy for any kind of cells. It's an oxidizer. I suppose that should be obvious, but lots of people think that O2 is harmless. In high concentrations it really isn't.

Try some Peroxide if you want to get oxygen into your feeding solution. Please be careful.

If it's pressurized 02, you don't even need a pump. As long as the 02 tanks have oil-free regulators (which they all do), you're fine. Assuming the regulator is adjustable, which many are, you should be able to run a line directly from the tank into the reservoir. Adjust the output pressure to adjust the bubble volume and make SURE you're very very very well ventilating the room. You really don't want your lights to create enough heat on anything for it to ignite...

O2 in high concentrations, isn't awful, except when it comes to fires. In fact, people suffering from suspected decompression sickness breathe pure O2 until paramedics arrive. It's O2 at pressure over 1.6 atmospheres that you really have to worry about -- it becomes toxic.

I think this is doable, definitely. Just be careful and don't do anything dumb please!