Smartie's first grow fridge: My Cerebro to connect with smart brains to guide me

[Smartie86]

Hello everybody and welcome to my fridge to grow box adventure.
I will post some pictures of the blank canvas we have so obviously my first question would be asking you to look at this canvas and consider it to be yours.
What would be your idea or ideal setup, the goods, the bads, points of interest, etc..

My idea at this stage is to try and make both veg/mother/clone room (bottom freezer part) and a flower room for maybe 4 plants? (top fridge part).

So without further due, let's have a look at our canvas

Front Closed

Front Opened

Fridge Details

Top Part (Flower?)

Bottom Part (Veg/Mom/Clone?)

Back Panel

Back Panel Usable Space (Exhaust Fan/Carbon Filter?)

2 Hours + Stripping =

I will explain my idea further in a next post but for now feel more than free to share your thoughts/ideas/concerns as they will be very much appreciated

Thank you and enjoy the rest of the day peeps!!

 

[nzwgb]

Good luck...

Be cautious with space

 

[ItWas]

Hi, I have just set up a fridge grow box using a LED panel, but i havent stripped out the fridge because i dont really know how to do it. Is it easy and is the gas inside dangerous to you or the environment?

 

[TurboBucket]

Yes it is. It's also illegal to vent it to the atmosphere. In some instances it may even be flammable.

 

[Smartie86]

Hi, I have just set up a fridge grow box using a LED panel, but i havent stripped out the fridge because i dont really know how to do it. Is it easy and is the gas inside dangerous to you or the environment?

Awesome, will have a look at your setup in a minute Like Turbo already stated, it is highly illegal and possibly very dangerous venting it in the atmosphere. Me however I live pretty rural with no neighbours in the first 100m so Ifigured it was worth the effort. I just imitated the ice pick accident, took a hamer and nail and hit one of the lines. Just be ready to jump back and let it leak out.. But again, be very careful! I just did it to reduce the weight and to create a little extra space to hide parts of the setup.

 

[Red Devil1990]

Subbed in looks like a cool lil project

 

[Smartie86]

Alright, time to specify this project a little bit more:

First of all, the main reason for this built is to cover my recreational use expenses (min. 200$/month) and besides the fact that I like building things and learning new stuff, to have my own weed and all the control (ratio, quality, strain) that comes with it, is the actual seed of this whole build.

The main idea is to have a perpetual grow box with both mom/clone/veg and flower room.
My main focus for the moment is regarding the flower room because I'm pretty sure that for the veg room I can get away with T5 lamp and some vent. When both doors are closed (air seal) both rooms are still air (light?) connected because a little airflow construction in the back wall so what I vent out from the top gets vented from the bottom aswel, maybe not really needed for veg/mom/clone but still, never hurts I'm sure.

Next images are my raw reference points:

I will use soil and I had a quick look, in the flower room I can comfortably put 4/2gal pots so probably
2/5gal if that turns out to be better.
Main concern is the height of my flower room (88cm) so considering the space the HPS lamp/cooltube/carb filter are going to take, I figured 4 smaller pots combined with a scrog string is the way to go.

So with all this in the back of my head I did my research and I came up with the following (this is a combination of gaining information and looking what is available on ebay. This is a rough sketch, a starting point, idea to paper) so please, feel free to guide me and correct me if I'm wrong:

-6inch inline exhaust fan
-?inch carbon filter
-400w 5inch HPS Cooltube light with reflector
-250-400-600 digital ballast
-some ventilation (pc) fans
-??????

If I looked correct 250w HPS should be enough to cover my flower area 68×58cm but I can understand to have more control with 400w. So when I looked on ebay I found this All-in HPS Cooltube starter kit for AUD200$ from an Australian seller (pro) but when I did some research about the ballast etc (growlush) I straight way read bad reviews on forums saying their ballasts suck.
Got adviced by most to invest in a Lumatek ballast so after a quick search I found a 250-400-600w digital ballast for 300$. Quite the difference and probably overkill, just wondering if it might be good future wise to invest a bit more now instead of buying a new one in a couple years..
I didn't found out yet if all the Growlush stuff is bad or just the ballasts, otherwise I might consider to buy the rest of the kit and worse case everything separate. Feel free to give your preference and hopefully they ship to Australia ofcourse (Always a struggle)

Thanks for reading and helping out,

Till the next one!!

Quick add: What advice would you give on lining the fridge with reflecting stuff or just keep the white (panda film is also white no?).. Probably a good/better story.

 

[Smartie86]

Good evening fellas! (Well, here it is at least)

Sadly no update on the fridge yet.. Besides working and keeping a happy wife, I try to read as much as possible but damn, it is so much to take in and there are so many different techniques that I need to take my time to do proper research.

So I figured I would start at the beginning, ordering seeds (still a challenge in Australia I imagine). No seeds no flowers, simple no? Well..

I have an order ready for 5 of my favourite strains (1 fem seed/strain so 5):

-Jack Herer
-Super Lemon Haze
-Arjans Haze #1
-Strawberry Haze
-Original Amnesia

Now I am wondering if, given the space I have, it is possible to keep 5 strains alive for a long period of time and harvest them on a regular basis? Because I don't want to keep ordering seeds over and over again and ofcourse to have a nice diversity of my favourite strains.

I was thinking to plant all 5 seeds, after veg chose 1 to put into flower and take a couple clones first, 4-5 weeks later put a second one into flower and repeat the process and try to rotate the strains so they get refreshed pretty often.

I played around with some pots and a dome I had laying around:

What do you guys think?? Is it possible to keep 5 strains alive and have 2 strains in different stages of flower (4-5 weeks difference) in this space?
Seems difficult to incorporate a scrog net with that because of the size difference too, no?

What would you guys do??

Happy smoking, thanks for reading!!



Edit: To make sure I make myself clear: If I ask if this is possible I mean considering pot size, trimming/topping/training techniques, setup (I could move out the dome and let the clones root somewhere else. And then use the whole bottom space for 5 decent size pots in veg), etc..

Cheers guys!

 

[ItWas]

cool, i'll have to keep an eye on this and see if i can get any tips. Im only growing 2 small dwarf autos using a led panel so quite a bit different but im still interested to see how you progress and what you do regarding ventilation and filters as that's what im kinda stuck on atm.


With regards to your plan, a continuous rotation sounds like a good idea but i would only look to plant 2 or 3 at a time as im not sure you would have the room in the bottom section to keep them in veg state for long. having said that im a total noob so take the advice of more experience growers.

 

[ItWas]

heres my set up and my girls

 

[Smartie86]

cool, i'll have to keep an eye on this and see if i can get any tips. Im only growing 2 small dwarf autos using a led panel so quite a bit different but im still interested to see how you progress and what you do regarding ventilation and filters as that's what im kinda stuck on atm.


With regards to your plan, a continuous rotation sounds like a good idea but i would only look to plant 2 or 3 at a time as im not sure you would have the room in the bottom section to keep them in veg state for long. having said that im a total noob so take the advice of more experience growers.

Well, I was thinking that if you plant 1seed at a time or all 5 at once, at some point you will have 5 strains (if you want to keep them ofcourse) too keep alive at the same time..

First I thought to ,instead of keeping 5 mothers or plants in longer veg, keep taking clones every month and as soon as they are rooted (probably out of the fridge) get rid of the mom's which I'm not gonna flower and replace them by the 5 new clones, 4 weeks later same story... If I root outside of the fridge I reckon the bottom room might be big enough to keep 5 (4weeks old) clones no?
It's sad to trow 3 to 4 different clones in the bin every 4 weeks, waste of time, money, effort and it's just sad in general..

Then I read you can keep clones (not rooted) in the fridge for a long time, correctly preserved ofcourse. Might be something to look into..

Cheers for the reply m8! I probably start of with one strain at a time, I was just wondering if this space would be able to manage that (regarding any technique(s)) in the future.

As for your setup, looking really good! Basic but effective. Plants looking good!!
Regarding ventilation and filters: You should be able to vent out your room in cubic feet every minute (so look for CFM on fans to know how much air it can move.. Always calculate 25-50%more CFM if you connect a filter (which you will need if you vent air).
I converted mine from litres (550l fridge) to cubic feet and that is around 17-18 CFM I would need, 30ish including the filter Seems pretty low so anyone, feel free to correct

Cheers fellas

 

[187budz]

I think thats a pretty sick idea lol personally though.. id go hydropic with a scrog in the flower section. As space is limited the scrog would help tremendously.

 

[WarChief]

I don't know shit about growing yet, but this project of yours looks fuckin cool, dude! I'm definitely going to be following your progress!

 

[Smartie86]

Cheers fellas!

Sorry for the late check-in but I just moved house, finally organised a bit so time to take my project out of the "fridge"

Besides doing a shit ton of research, only new update is that I cut out the door panel from the top compartment. Gained a couple inches of space this way because the plastic frame to hold the shelves was now gone, ready to cover with mylar Will post pictures in future post.

Most if not all of the research was towards lighting and grow style, both I reckon I figured out.

My limited height (less than 3ft) made me to decide to do like this: Sea of Green in 16/20ounce cups (clone to flower, no veg) under CFL, a LOT of CFL

I learned that OPTIMAL you want

7500+ lumen per square feet and
50-80 Watt per square feet (wait, 50W CFL doesn't have the same penetration than 50W HPS and from what I read you can triple that number if not more for CFL. That would mean you need minimum 150W per square feet, in my case 4sqft = minimum 600W CFL

Instead I looked more towards lumen because I figured if the lumen were right, the Watts would follow..
So my 4sqft room would need 30.000 lumen (7500×4) and 1 42W CFL gives out about 2600 lumen so I need 12 42W CFL = 504W (not to far off from the OPTIMAL Watts)..
Probably I start of with just 12 x 24W CFL and work my way up to OPTIMAL lumen (12 x 42W). Good to learn and see the difference.

Regardless, I will make a 12 bulb CFL light
I have a setup in mind but I'm open to any kind of input.

Bottom compartment will be for the mothers.. I don't know how many of those 16-20ounce cups I can fit in a 2x2 but I don't think I will have enough room in the mother room to root my clones aswel (clones to fill flower and clones to replace mothers, probably every month or so?) so I most likely I will root outside the fridge.

Anyway, that's the stage we are at the moment.

Thanks for tuning in and feel free to give your thoughts or advice

Peace

 

[Smartie86]

As promised some images guys:

We pick up where we left last time:

As you can tell I cut out the door panel:

Now i was playing around with these back panels:

Because i lose a lot of space to use in the smaller veg room:

And a little bit in the flower room:

I'm considering to put the panels back (modified if needed) regarding covering with mylar after:

Bottom one is a no brainer, easy to cover with mylar, just keep vents open, done:

Looks way better and maybe perfect to make my air intakes behind the panel?? I will come back on this later.

Top one looks proper aswel:

Only problem is that it is wider near the top and so i would lose a fair bit of usable space (lights):

The panel includes a mould kinda thing out of foam:

I will not use it as it takes space:

I have the idea to cut the back panel where it starts to widen at the top:

This should make me cover 2/3 of the back, might do that now actually lol

I will get back about the air intakes behind the panel in a future post..

Peace m8

 

[Smartie86]

That didn't take long:

I might throw it out but i figured it would be nice to cover up the wiring going from flower to veg or vice versa.. We'll see, for now I'm happy with it.

Now about those air intakes....

My concern is that if i put them behind the back panel of the veg room:

Air will be sucked from the flower room because the exhaust fan. Goes out like this:

And comes out in here (flower room):

So my concern is that by placing the intakes so close to my mini exhaust (round shape connects veg and flower) and on top of that covering both up with the back panel makes me think that not much fresh air will go to the actual veg room, in other words in front of the back panel.

I thought about it for a bit and it seems to me it's much better to have a single intake for each room, instead of trying to cramp 2 in the bottom one.
Roughly something like this:

I think as soon as i figure out where to put air exhaust/intakes I am pretty much done with the raw box except covering it up with mylar.

Then we can start breaking our heads about lights, fans and filters!!

Till the next one!!

 

[ItWas]

Looking good Smartie, wish i could fully strip my fridge, but close neighbors and a hippy GF means its a no go. have you decided how many plants you are going for yet? my 2 dwarfs are at week 5 and im already tight on space although i do think your fridge is a bit wider.

I just finished fitting my vent and exhaust with home made carbon filter, may help you?

I used 2 80cm pc fans using usb plug which i can link through the rear fan and runn all 3 through one cable/socket
cut through the door with a jigsaw and the fans fit perfectly. covered the holes with speaker grills.
Carbon filter is just some pvc sheet with carbon filter sponge, then a layer of activated carbon, then another layer of sponge. at the moment in not running the full filter as theres no smell.
plenty of air flow now i replaced the glass shelf with a mesh one, only issie now is temps have dropped down to 15- 17c

 

[Smartie86]

Looking good Smartie,

Cheers m8!

wish i could fully strip my fridge, but close neighbors and a hippy GF means its a no go. have you decided how many plants you are going for yet?

I probably will do a Sea of Green in 16-20ounce cups, depending how many will fit (i guess around 20-30?) with no flower time, clone/root/flower

my 2 dwarfs are at week 5 and im already tight on space although i do think your fridge is a bit wider.

I just finished fitting my vent and exhaust with home made carbon filter, may help you?

Looks good! Just wondering:

- So you exhaust air out with the fan/filter and you take air in with the lower fan, is that correct? I thought that was a no-go regarding air ventilation: I read that it's better to have 1 fan exhausting air and instead of a second fan sucking air in you better have passive air intake (vent) twice the size as the exhaust (so for a 6inch exhaust you want 2 6inch vents or 1 12inch etc).. Just wondering, I'm sure it will do the trick

- How much light is that lower fan lettin in?? I have the same concern for mine, not soo much for veg but definitely for flower.

I used 2 80cm pc fans using usb plug which i can link through the rear fan and runn all 3 through one cable/socket
cut through the door with a jigsaw and the fans fit perfectly. covered the holes with speaker grills.
Carbon filter is just some pvc sheet with carbon filter sponge, then a layer of activated carbon, then another layer of sponge. at the moment in not running the full filter as theres no smell.
plenty of air flow now i replaced the glass shelf with a mesh one, only issie now is temps have dropped down to 15- 17c

Cheers man, I wish i was at your stage already

 

[Tunkers]

Hey smartie do you mind if I sit and watch the build / grow? Like what I'm seeing so far but it's gonna be damn cramped

 

[Guy Cavallero]

Yes it is. It's also illegal to vent it to the atmosphere. In some instances it may even be flammable.

True, but it's not R12, R22 in his fridge it's R134a. Still a hydrofluorocarbon but not considered dangerous to the ozone layer. However it does contribute to greenhouse gases. R134a is bad enough to the environment that the European Union banned it in the use of all new cars since 2011. I would definitely not recommend releasing any sort of CFC or hcfc into the atmosphere in the future.