WILD SPIRIT Mycelium CO2 Bags

[DesignatedDave]

Hey all,

So when i first started out growing, I grabbed a "Small Because Nature" co2 bag and when I got my co2 meter, I found that it wasn't really putting out that much co2, I wrote them off as gimmicky.

For my new grow where I am doing a little bit of min/maxing with plants, I came across the WILD SPIRIT CO2 MYCELIUM BAG - It says on the package that only 1 bag is "needed" for a 1.8m³ space, I have a 1.2m x 1.2m x 2.0m (2.4m³) so I figured it might a bit low, but I would give it a try.

They arrived yesterday afternoon, the first thing I noticed is that they advertise 3 different versions of mycelium, 

Grey Oyster - Quick release co2 

King Oyster - Medium release co2

Shiitake - Slow release co2

The bags that were delivered happened to be the King Oyster variant, which I was super stoked about.

To activate the bag, you have to pull these orange clips that separate the two and then break up the mycelium and "massage" it down into the substrate. I do this at about  15:00 yesterday afternoon and go pop them into my tents (I have 3 tents, so one bag per tent). I figure they probably going to take a week or two to start colonizing the substrate, but I'm just curious, let me charge up my co2 meter and check it.

 

Now... Either I am losing my mind here or this shit is just straight up, fucked up. 

I put my co2 meter into one of my tents at lunch time today and it reads 3000 ppm. "No ways... let me check the other tents....tent #2 - 2800ppm, tent #3 - 3500ppm... ".

So thinking this can't be right I take the co2 meter outside, it resumes back to around 450ppm, walk back into the grow room, 800ppm, into the tent, 3500ppm

I decide to fire up my extractors and just bring in some fresh air. Nothing like three 150mm extractors sucking harder than a hillbrow hooker.

I get the tents back down to 500ppm, turn off the extraction, zip up the tents, close the grow room and off I go to the shops.

19:00 tonight I decide to go "troubleshoot" this strangeness. On my walk there, I think that it's impossible that 24 hours after activating this mycelium bag that the ppm would be this high. I unlock the grow room, walk inside and the meter instantly clocks out at 5000ppm. After resetting the co2 meter outside the grow room, I go back in, clocks out again at 5000ppm. I instantly fire up the extractors, open the windows and turn all fans to flush the room. After about 5 minutes or so the levels have dropped to about 1500ppm. 

I have removed these bags from the tents and put them on a table outside for now. I tested my meter in one of the tents after I have run the extractors and it stayed at around 750ppm, so it must be the bags.

I held the sensor again the facbric breathing hole of the bag and it immediately climbed over 4000ppm.

 

However, could 3 of these mycelium bags in a 34m³ be producing lethal amounts co2 24hours after activating it?

Is my co2 meter fucked? (its reading 450ppm for ambient air outside and if you breathe into the sensor, it climbs accordingly.

How can 1 bag be "needed" for a 1.8m³ space when in a 2.4m³ space it's already at 4000ppm within 24 hours?

Am I going crazy, or are these things really that ridiculously potent?

 

 

Edited August 19, 2022 by DesignatedDave

[Naughty.Psychonaut]

Hey bud, hope you well! 

Those bags work nice for people who have more airtight grows where the plants deplete the CO2. in a completely sealed grow room you'll need to pump in CO2 from a tank. in a room that has sufficient FAE you won't really need those bags, because with every FAE you get fresh new C02 aswell.

those bags are also beneficial to people who live in very very low RH areas. 

I am in Western Cape, never needed added CO2. Infact, I always need to lower the RH so my circulation and extraction fans are constantly running from the day I plug them in. I just turn the extractors higher and lower depending on outside RH. 

rainy cold wet days - extractor on high.

warm humid days - extractor on low. 

this is also only for the flower tent as during veg it's beneficial for plants to go through RH fluctuations.

I grow bulk mushrooms, I inoculate 100's of these bags, when I first heard about these bags I had to try it out myself. They do pump off quite a bit of CO2, but only for a while, after the first 2 weeks they they release much less. 

[DesignatedDave]

5 hours ago, Naughty.Psychonaut said:

Hey bud, hope you well! 

Those bags work nice for people who have more airtight grows where the plants deplete the CO2. in a completely sealed grow room you'll need to pump in CO2 from a tank. in a room that has sufficient FAE you won't really need those bags, because with every FAE you get fresh new C02 aswell.

those bags are also beneficial to people who live in very very low RH areas. 

I am in Western Cape, never needed added CO2. Infact, I always need to lower the RH so my circulation and extraction fans are constantly running from the day I plug them in. I just turn the extractors higher and lower depending on outside RH. 

rainy cold wet days - extractor on high.

warm humid days - extractor on low. 

this is also only for the flower tent as during veg it's beneficial for plants to go through RH fluctuations.

I grow bulk mushrooms, I inoculate 100's of these bags, when I first heard about these bags I had to try it out myself. They do pump off quite a bit of CO2, but only for a while, after the first 2 weeks they they release much less. 

All good my guy.

So I'm based on the west of Joburg and today it's reading 13% RH outside  - I permanently grow with humidifiers during this time of year and then dehumidifiers in summer.

Right now all my plants are in veg and I'm currently running my tents in a good VPD zone for early veg of about 28 degrees and 75% ~ 80% RH (during lights on that is, when the lights go out, the humidifiers go off).

So interestingly enough today, I'm only getting a reading of about 1000ppm coming out of the bags, I have them back in the tents and co2 is sitting at about 850ppm atm. So maybe this was just an initial activation burst of co2 or something?

 

 If you say they only pump out hectic co2 for about 2 weeks or so, then hopefully I will be able to get use out of them. Thanks for the info, greatly appreciate it.

 

 

Edited August 20, 2022 by DesignatedDave

[Naughty.Psychonaut]

On 8/20/2022 at 12:55 PM, DesignatedDave said:

If you say they only pump out hectic co2 for about 2 weeks or so, then hopefully I will be able to get use out of them. Thanks for the info, greatly appreciate it.

Oh yeah, for sure use them still they can do wonders for younger plants!

Just be careful of thinking it was just the enitial burst, though. You see the thing with these bags are that the mycelium is alive and it's busy consuming the substrate, as it's doing that it's actually breathing. if you put it on a timelapse it actually looks like a working lung and everytime it expands it consumes a little more of the substrate. crazy thing is it doesn't just look like a lung.... without the consuming part of it, mycelium, even the fruit body of the mushroom, breathes exactly like humans.

Oxygen in

Carbon Dioxide out

so it's a lung that lives and feeds on its own and grows mushrooms every now and then to reproduce

untill the bags are fully colonised they gona fluctuate, few hours of releasing higher levels of CO2 and few hours of releasing less and overall just kinda slow down and reduce CO2 production till it's fully colonised. 

but yeah, because it's a living thing you kinda have to know how they "act" and use that to your advantage, but you can't really regulate them the way you can regulate a CO2 tank. so it becomes a little harder if you trying to achieve a specific ppm.

younger plants, such as you have there, love a good fluctuation of CO2. once the bags are fully colonised cut a few 5 to 10cm holes in the bag, keep it moist by taking it out the tent and giving it a spray of tap water 3 or 4 times a day. see if you can grow a mushroom!

On 8/20/2022 at 12:55 PM, DesignatedDave said:

So I'm based on the west of Joburg and today it's reading 13% RH outside  - I permanently grow with humidifiers during this time of year and then dehumidifiers in summer.

Aaah, summer rainfall with cold dry winters, that can be a tough one for indoor growers! 

Whaaaaaat 13% RH outside? that's dry as fuck  

How constant is that 13%? 

Those conditions can be hard to manage, but you definitly made the right move with the humidifiers and dehumidifiers. The quick fix solutions kinda go out the window if you live in an area like that.  

On 8/20/2022 at 12:55 PM, DesignatedDave said:

Right now all my plants are in veg and I'm currently running my tents in a good VPD zone for early veg of about 28 degrees and 75% ~ 80% RH (during lights on that is, when the lights go out, the humidifiers go off).

What lights you running? Do you have natural high RH during lights off? or what's the reason for added RH with lights on, but not when lights go off?

Idealy, for cannabis, you want a lower RH during lights on than during lights off. As much as we can we should try replicate how they grow in nature and if you look at the places cannabis favour they have dry summers and wet winters. Hot days and cold nights. During the heat there is very low RH and during the night the RH goes way up. as far as my knowledge allows me, I think high temp + high RH = high probability for PM. amd the low temp + low humidity = stunted/slow growth.

 

[DesignatedDave]

56 minutes ago, Naughty.Psychonaut said:

Just be careful of thinking it was just the enitial burst, though. You see the thing with these bags are that the mycelium is alive and it's busy consuming the substrate, as it's doing that it's actually breathing. if you put it on a timelapse it actually looks like a working lung and everytime it expands it consumes a little more of the substrate. crazy thing is it doesn't just look like a lung.... without the consuming part of it, mycelium, even the fruit body of the mushroom, breathes exactly like humans.

Oxygen in

Carbon Dioxide out

This does make sense and I did notice that after about 4 hours the co2 was back up their again. At first I thought it might be a temperature thing with it putting out less co2 when it's cold and more when it's hot in the tent, but the breathing you explain does make more sense. 

I've got the bags in the tents now, I just rigged my extractors up to timer switches, so every 4 hours from 6am to midnight they come on for 5 minutes and just clear out the excessive co2 and just cycle the air. I'll stick with this until my Inkbird devices arrive. 

 

1 hour ago, Naughty.Psychonaut said:

Aaah, summer rainfall with cold dry winters, that can be a tough one for indoor growers! 

Whaaaaaat 13% RH outside? that's dry as fuck  

How constant is that 13%? 

Those conditions can be hard to manage, but you definitly made the right move with the humidifiers and dehumidifiers. The quick fix solutions kinda go out the window if you live in an area like that.  

The humidity hovers between 10% and 30% during winter with warmer days being below 20% humidity and October being the worst month (lip-ice sales soar in JHB come september/october ). For flowering it's easy to manage, but for veg you basically running humidifiers all the time.

 

1 hour ago, Naughty.Psychonaut said:

What lights you running? Do you have natural high RH during lights off? or what's the reason for added RH with lights on, but not when lights go off?

Idealy, for cannabis, you want a lower RH during lights on than during lights off. As much as we can we should try replicate how they grow in nature and if you look at the places cannabis favour they have dry summers and wet winters. Hot days and cold nights. During the heat there is very low RH and during the night the RH goes way up. as far as my knowledge allows me, I think high temp + high RH = high probability for PM. amd the low temp + low humidity = stunted/slow growth.

 

For lights I have:

tent 1 & tent 2 - 700w Samsung 301H 8-bar spydr light

tent 3 - 720w Lummi 6-bar light

I'm currently running all lights at 400w at roughly 60cm above the plants.

So here's my logic right for VPD and the way I run my RH.

So for veg it wants to be warm and humid during the day and cool and "dryer" at night , essentially simulating a tropical climate.

So at the moment I run my tents at about 28 - 30 degrees with a RH of around 75% - 80%, then when my lights turn off at midnight, the humidifiers stop and there is no more air extraction.

The humidify in the tent drops slowly with the temperature until 6am in the morning when its about 18 degrees in the tent and 50% humidity. At this time the lights come and by about 8am the tents are at about 25 degrees and I come in and turn the humidifiers back on.

Doing this allows me to slide my plants up and down the early veg VPD line with the temperatures going through their normal warm / cool cycles.

So far my plants are growing at a good steady rate, looking healthy and are praying nicely to my lights. How much my VPD antics are influencing their current health and happiness is debatable, but I do think "simulated summer environment" is helping with the growth rate (or at least it is in my head, which is all that counts right? ). This is my first time using VPD as a measurement factor and so far things seem to be coming together nicely.

I promise I will post the grow diary of it soon, but here is a 8 day apart photo of one of the tents: