ian
Administrator
Newbie
    
Posts: 27
|
 |
« on: May 14, 2009, 11:47:04 PM » |
|
I have tried this product and found some success with it, although I wouldn't say it was as good as advertised.
I used this for 6 weeks in an enclosed (mostly air tight) 3'x3'x5' polyfilm structure. I measured the CO2 rather inaccurately with glass CO2 test tubes. After setting the unit up and letting it run for a couple of days, the PPM read somewhere been the 1000 and 2000 mark on the test. After 4 weeks, the PPM read close to but not quite 1000 which I chalked up at the time to the CO2 being mostly used. By 6 weeks, the PPM read under the 300ppm mark, which is essentially ambient air. I tested it twice during this week just to make sure the tube was not a dud.
My disappointment was that the reaction did not last 90 days. Perhaps the temperature which at times was over 90 degrees inside of the polyfilm contributed to the acceleration of decay. If I were to use it again, I would take the simple step of building an enclosure for it outside of the polyfilm to keep it cooler. It does seem like a reasonable product for a small area if the intent is to use it for only a few weeks. At 30-40 days of real world usefulness, this would be about $3 a day for CO2 enrichment, which may be reasonable compared to a one-time $500-$1000 investment and all of the labor involved with tanks.
The two advantages of this device is it would fit in tight situations where there was absolutely no way a CO2 tank would fit and does not require monitoring like other solutions for small spaces.
|