I've been very reliably using SGFC's for PF tek cakes for a while now, so I have nothing bad to say about them.
However, I'm lazy, and I don't like to fan 4-6 times a day.
I set out to create a way to avoid my need to fan my cakes, (This can also be adapted to an automated greenhouse on a larger scale, I guess) because I am always forgetting to do so, or overdoing it.
However, cakes need fresh air exchange to promote healthy fruits. Too much co2 buildup will suffocate them and your yeild will be poor.
You could stick an aquarium pump outside of your terrarium, and have a hose delivering air constantly fed into the terrarium, but who wants to waste their money on an unreliable, 10$, precisely manufactured piece of equipment that isn't even needed if you weren't so damn lazy? Besides, if we're not playing with high voltages, explosive chemicals, and the possibility of your lab exploding, where's all the fun? Besides, if you just used some sort of device that gave you air, you run the risk of contaminates landing on your cakes (Ignoring the fact that fully colonised cakes are resistant to contamination)
I got two clear plastic (Or acrylic cylinders). I connected them together with another tube in the middle, and inserted rubber stoppers into the bottoms. Through these rubber stoppers I put two steel electrodes, one in each tube. At the left electrode, which will be reciiving a positive current, I put a pressure release valve, and a line filter. On the other tube, I ran the line outside. In the connecting peice, I glued on another small acryylic tube, which I then put to a water supply unit that constantly fed in filtered water at a very slow rate.
I hooked up the positive end of my power supply (I actually just found a DC transformer, hacked it up, and soldered the electrodes on, but same difference. If you're nuts you can also use your mains and plug it into the wall) to the tube with a pressure release valve, and affixed a long acrylic tube and routed it to my terrarium. I then plugged my device into the wall.
The electrolysis of water creates hydrogen and oxygen. We only need the oxygen, so we throw the hydrogen out the window. So that I don't dry out the cakes by constantly having air moving in the terrarioum and to keep the humidity up, I added a pressure release valve on the oxygen producing part of my device, so that only once it reaches a certain pressure does the oxygen get fed to the cakes. This ensures that there is not a constant stream of oxygen drying out my cakes, but rather short concentrated bursts of oxygen every few hours.
Why is this method better than other methods? It's really not, I only did it because science. However, oxygen generated this way has no contaminations in it or mould sporres, it is chemically pure, and your mooshies will love it.
So if you have money to throw away or you just really want to make your set up exessively complex, this is the guide for you.
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