Running CO2 effectively requires a sealed room, pressure tank and regulator, generally hydroponic to push high salt levels and finally insane amounts of light. Due to the high CO2 environment heat is built up and also requires special air handling. It’s expensive and finicky but can produce huge plants.
Exhale bags simply don’t produce enough gas to add anything to the grow space. You’d be as well off just sitting in your grow space and breathing lol.
I remove large fans that I can’t tuck, anything that is down in contact with the substrate and at week three of flower I strip the lower third of the plant and remove most fan leaves. One more defoliation at around day forty five of flower. Just before harvest I remove most leaves simply to make wet trimming easier.
I would recommend looking at other journals; in particular…