First Grow - Stealth Fridge Conversion - White Widow & BubbleG

[Peeece]

So here it is..

The Chronicles of Peece's Fridge Conversion Grow...

I was going to use the old fridge for a smoker...gut it, re-line it, retro fit a smoke box... but all the talk about smoke... I thought, Hey I'm going to try and grow my own Meds... Know exactly what goes in and on them, and feel good about reaping the rewards of my own hard work!

What strain is it?
Gonna try and raise 2 Girls one a White Widow Fem, and the other gal a BubbleG Fem.
Picked them up from True North Seedbank, Canuckseeds (hope thats ok to post)

Is it Indica, Sativa or Hybrid? Let's just say I have all the bases covered with these two, unless the pheno's are way off..

Is it in Veg or Flower stage?
Germinated on May 30, in soil now and about 2 inches tall...
If in Veg... For how long?
Going to Veg for 60+ days
If in Flower stage... For how long?
Going to Flower for at least as long as they veg...
Indoor or outdoor?
Indoor
Soil or Hydro?
Soil...
If soil... what is in your mix?
Because I'm a newbie, going to use a mix of ProMix (50%), Miracle Grow starting soil (25%), and Vermiculite(25%)
If soil... What size pot?
Using a small paper cup now, but will transplant to their forever home in the next week or two... a 4 gal pot.
Size of light?
Right now the sprouting girls are under 4 CFL's and a 100W led
Will turn the 300LED on at some point...
Not sure yet how or what I'm going to do yet...maybe I'll get some input
Is it aircooled?
I have a 6"fan blowing exhaust from the top of the fridge down to the bottom and into a Carbon canister...intakes at the bottom of the fridge
Temp of Room/cab?
Hovers a bit high... right now 26.3-28.1 Degrees C
RH of Room/cab?
Unsure as I am still picking things up... still need a ph meter..
PH of media or res?
lol...I'll tell you when I buy one...
Any Pests? None
How often are you watering?
Probably going to go once a week or whenever the forever pot feels light...
Type and strength of ferts used?
Nothing yet... still thinking about that...

So like all the other people I have been reading about, I'm pretty stoked about this... I'll post some pics as soon as I figure out how to do it....!

Cheers!

 

[Peeece]

re: First Grow - Stealth Fridge Conversion - White Widow & BubbleG

 

[Jurf]

re: First Grow - Stealth Fridge Conversion - White Widow & BubbleG

Im in. This looks fun

 

[Peeece]

re: First Grow - Stealth Fridge Conversion - White Widow & BubbleG

The last picture is almost how it sits... the wires have been cleaned up but this is more or less the setup... My girls are only a day or two old depending on how you count them...I'm going to call it, a June 1st start date. The WW has just popped up and the BubblG is through as well just slightly behind her sister...

 

[Peeece]

re: First Grow - Stealth Fridge Conversion - White Widow & BubbleG

Took a picture of something interesting... was able to gently detach it successfully, but Darla (WW) grew right through it...

 

[Peeece]

So...hoping someone has an answer for me... right now I am running 4/100w CFL's, and a 100w LED... for my two little girls... I have another 300w full spectrum LED. that I was going to flip on at flower time... and switch off the other Led... is that a good idea or should I have ALL guns blazing from dusk to dawn??

 

[Peeece]

Well I'm going to sit on the light question but if anyone comes through and has an opinion... let me know...

I have been struggling with keeping the temp more moderate and the issue is the heat...so I thought if I introduced CO2 then from what I've read it these types of girls thrive with it...

Soooo...
I washed out a Juice jug, used my drill and made 4 holes in the lid, added 2cups of sugar, and 3 cups of water at a temp of 165... mixed, cooled slightly, and then added 4 TBSP of yeast... Violla! A CO2 generator!

Farm Job Central! My next 'Idea...' I placed a cookie sheet under my fridge, and below the intake holes... filled it with water and hung a cloth down the intake into the water to cause a 'wicking action' air comes by, cools off and pulls in some moisture.
Then I took it another step... I have two can frozen cooler things...you know... freeze them and then put in the cooler...keeps things cool... Well I drop them in the water in the cookie sheet and it cools the water further.... I dunno... lol!

 

[Peeece]

The pics are way too big and I will squeeze the next ones down.

 

[Jonyoudyer]

Yeah love the setup

 

[Peeece]

Well I have transplanted the ladies and moved them both into my wife's front porch pots... she's not too impressed but my other girls are loving it! After 10 days of light at 24/7 I have switched it to 18/6... also I replaced my small single LED with a 300w grow LED... and have kept the CFL's...

 

[Peeece]

So question about run off... I have drilled a copious amount of drain holes in the wife's pots... so I have good drainage... but I'm unsure about whether to leave the pots sit in the run off or if I should pour it out?

. What say you? Thanks in advance

 

[Peeece]

So those pictures were taken Tuesday and yesterday was the first day that I just let the girls cook... checked them today and apparently they love their little 6 hour naps!

Red pot is the White Widow and the brown pot is BubbleG

 

[Peeece]

So great growth in such a short time!! I looked in on them this morning and they have shot up even more... I'm going to wait until they have 4 maybe 5 distinct nodes and then I'm going to attempt to FIM them...get them started with a little LST as well! Anyway...Have a great growing day! .

 

[Peeece]

Here are my girls... such cuties!

 

[Peeece]

Ph meter was used today for the first time! After calibration, gave the girls their second feeding of 7.2 in and it came out at 6.9... I was expecting more variation, but I'll take it.

I'm having trouble keeping the heat down, so I'm giving it one more week and then it will be upgrade time for my exhaust fan... temps at hovering between 26C during lights out and then up to 38C when they are cooking... I added a small fan on the intake to try and help it out but it was negligible. I do have a homemade CO2 generator inside the fridge... so that may be what is helping them along... any suggestions?

 

[Nightmask]

That's a pretty cool setup. Well done.

Temp issues, you've got intake fan, outtake fan, and a circulation fan correct? Maybe try replacing the tin foil on the sides cause apparently that reflects a lot of heat so you'll get hot spots but not as much light.

As for the run off water get it out of there. Pots/plants sitting in water can cause root rot, it could attract bugs, and it could increase your humidity.

 

[Peeece]

That's a pretty cool setup. Well done.


Temp issues, you've got intake fan, outtake fan, and a circulation fan correct? Maybe try replacing the tin foil on the sides cause apparently that reflects a lot of heat so you'll get hot spots but not as much light.

As for the run off water get it out of there. Pots/plants sitting in water can cause root rot, it could attract bugs, and it could increase your humidity.

Thanks for stopping in! I didn't think my OCD was as bad as it was until I started growing!! Lol!

So drain off the runoff and don't leave it in the catch pan... check!
The tin foil is one of those emergency blankets... I thought it would be similar to Mylar. I'll give it a shot, because right now I'm looking at dropping some more coin to upgrade the exhaust fan to an 8" and I'm not keen on making anything louder in there...
.

 

[Nightmask]

Thanks for stopping in! I didn't think my OCD was as bad as it was until I started growing!! Lol!

So drain off the runoff and don't leave it in the catch pan... check!
The tin foil is one of those emergency blankets... I thought it would be similar to Mylar. I'll give it a shot, because right now I'm looking at dropping some more coin to upgrade the exhaust fan to an 8" and I'm not keen on making anything louder in there...
.

Tin foil and Mylar is so not the same thing, though when you're first starting out and you aren't rolling in cash it may seem a good idea. Other people have said that painting your walls with flat white paint is more effective than tin foil. Though if you can't afford the paint I mentioned to someone else to try using plain white printer paper and sticking that on your walls as a reflective surface, but I can't remember where or to whom I suggested it or if the idea worked. If you've got some spare white printer paper it might be worth a shot to atleast try it and see how it goes, atleast then you could let other people know if it would work for a cheap option. Just layer it from bottom to top so your sticky tape or whatever you use to stick it to walls gets covered by the piece of paper above/ontop of it to hopefully reduce the weird reflection of the tape.

Regarding the fan you've got a fairly small grow area by the looks of it so a 6" exhaust fan should be fine, but you'd likely need atleast a 4" inline fan. Smaller fan to suck air into your grow area and bigger fan to suck/pull it out of our grow area, plus a small to medium circulation fan inside the grow area to move air around.

As for your OCD, I'm a Virgo. Virgo's tend to be perfectionists. It sucks. You have no idea how much I measure every dang thing and buy and replace stuff to try and get everything just right. I decided on setting up an indoor grow around November 2016 and only got everything (I hope) I need last week. It'll be worth it in the end (atleast it better be) but it sure has been a major pain in the ass trying to get everything set up just right.

 

[Peeece]

Tin foil and Mylar is so not the same thing, though when you're first starting out and you aren't rolling in cash it may seem a good idea. Other people have said that painting your walls with flat white paint is more effective than tin foil. Though if you can't afford the paint I mentioned to someone else to try using plain white printer paper and sticking that on your walls as a reflective surface, but I can't remember where or to whom I suggested it or if the idea worked. If you've got some spare white printer paper it might be worth a shot to atleast try it and see how it goes, atleast then you could let other people know if it would work for a cheap option. Just layer it from bottom to top so your sticky tape or whatever you use to stick it to walls gets covered by the piece of paper above/ontop of it to hopefully reduce the weird reflection of the tape.

Regarding the fan you've got a fairly small grow area by the looks of it so a 6" exhaust fan should be fine, but you'd likely need atleast a 4" inline fan. Smaller fan to suck air into your grow area and bigger fan to suck/pull it out of our grow area, plus a small to medium circulation fan inside the grow area to move air around.

As for your OCD, I'm a Virgo. Virgo's tend to be perfectionists. It sucks. You have no idea how much I measure every dang thing and buy and replace stuff to try and get everything just right. I decided on setting up an indoor grow around November 2016 and only got everything (I hope) I need last week. It'll be worth it in the end (atleast it better be) but it sure has been a major pain in the ass trying to get everything set up just right.

Lol! I sound like a Virgo... lol! I have already been pricing out Mylar... I'm going to do some research and find a coating that will work for sure... I wonder if the white plastic inside of the fridge has some kind of reflective/insulation property...?...maybe? To help with cooling efficiencies? Or am I really stretching on that one...lol...

I added two small fans to both my intake lines... a small 2 inch cheapo USB fan and the original 4"fridge fan... the temp came down a degree or two... That was last night... lol. another day collecting some data...

I'm building a scrog and am going to incorporate a small platform for the circulating fan I am going to stand up in it...

I'll keep yah posted! Gonna go have a look and see how they are doing now that the lights are on and they are awake!

Thanks for the input!

 

[Jonyoudyer]

Lol! I sound like a Virgo... lol! I have already been pricing out Mylar... I'm going to do some research and find a coating that will work for sure... I wonder if the white plastic inside of the fridge has some kind of reflective/insulation property...?...maybe? To help with cooling efficiencies? Or am I really stretching on that one...lol...

I added two small fans to both my intake lines... a small 2 inch cheapo USB fan and the original 4"fridge fan... the temp came down a degree or two... That was last night... lol. another day collecting some data...

I'm building a scrog and am going to incorporate a small platform for the circulating fan I am going to stand up in it...

I'll keep yah posted! Gonna go have a look and see how they are doing now that the lights are on and they are awake!

Thanks for the input!

If your using a fire blanket I'm pretty sure those are Mylar