DAY 1

Plant Stage: Seedling
Light Cycle: 24/0
Lights: 175w 4200K Metal Halide, 3x26w 6500K CFLs.
Medium: Jiffy #7 Peat Pellets
Ferts: None
Strain: 8x Unknown Bagseed

High everyone!! So here I am attempting round 2. For those of you that didnt catch my last disaster, er... attempt Ill fill ya in briefly. It was my first ever grow attempted in my bedroom closet. 3 weeks into the grow with no real ventilation, high temps and LOOOTS of over watering I decided to pull the plug. I learned a lot, especially about watering plants as most noobs do lol.

So on to round 2. My seedlings sprouted on 4/20 so for argument sake that will be day 1. What better day right?
So here we go. A buddy of mine used an old fridge a while back and was able to produce 2 plants that yeilded about 1.5-2oz total if I remember right. He was broke as a joke and used dirt from the backyard, no temp/humidity monitoring, tap water w/ no ferts ever. he also had to prop the door open to get ventilation which Im sure resulted in very low temps during lights off since it was in a cold basement. Point being, if he grew in those conditions, this should work MUCH better for me than my closet!!

So I didnt plan very well and I had 8 seeds fully germinated, with at least 1.5-2 inch tap roots the day I got the fridge. It had been in a dank basement and sat idle for a couple years so it is a bit rough. I will get everything cleaned up better as I go, but getting the lights and ventilation done were the main projects the last 2 days. Ok on to the pictures.

Here are some open & closed pics of the fridge with just the lights (half-ass) installed. Note the duct tape residue, my buddy had aluminum foil taped up top as a reflector but it was comming apart and I figures the white works just as well.


I plan on cleaning the whole inside with soap & water, and removing the duct tape residue too. I also want to slap some duct tape over some of the holes, sockets & plastic whatnots up by the big bulb. My original plan was to spray paint over the duct tape, the bottom of the fridge & over the rails that the shelf hangs on with white spray paint but I dont know if that would be a good idea even if I took the plants out for a bit, what do you guys think?

The fridge originally had the 175w Metal Halide bulb that Im using, plus a 70w HPS. Here is a pic of the HPS. The ballast & that other box thing (haha) were both assembled seperate from the bulb, but after taking it apart we couldnt figure out how to rewire the damn thing.


After getting the lights setup I got to work on the exhaust. I bought an 80CFM NuTone bathroom exhaust fan at Home Depot for about $80. I read a cool DIY for a carbom scrubber for this type of fan and copied it somewhat. My fan didnt have bolt holes so I brought on the duct tape, and mine is hanging upside down and is enclosed compared to the DIY though. Here is the DIY link.
I mounted it into the fridge so well it almost looks FACTORY! Haha not really, but considering I had to borrow almost every tool I used I think I did ok. Here is the top "freezer" section with my exhaust setup. The other fan is the original fan that pulls air from the lower chamber up to the freezer, it pulls a lot of air and is pretty quiet.


Heres the bottom side of the filter where all the air is pulled in.


Connected to 4" dryer hose, it's clamped to the exhaust fan but I taped around the hole to prevent stinky air from coming out, and duct tape is holding the duct work to the back of the fridge for now.


We drilled a 3" hole through both layers of the floor for a passive intake. I ended up lining the inside of the hole with duct tape as not to pull any insulation through, I also taped a section of window screen over it as a filter, I will take more pics later. Since the exhaust is 4" Im thinking another 2" hole all the way through the floor would be best, but we'll see how the temps are for now.


A 4" dryer hose is connected to the intake and ran under the fridge to the front side below the door, so I am not drawing in air from behind the fridge where it is exhausting to. I need to buy or make something to cover the area under the door, any ideas? I also made sure to put some of the window screen on this end of the intake too.


Last but not least, my little Jiffy greenhouse. The first picture was taken around 10PM on 4/19 right after planting them, the 2nd pic with the sprouts was taken the next day at 6PM. I planted them in order of longest tap root. I figured #1 would take off first but it looks like #3 is in the lead with #2 trailing behind. I am considering 4/20 as "Day 1" for all my plants to make things easy to remember



That's all the pictures for now. Here is some other info worth mentioning I suppose:
I will be using a medium of 3 parts Sunshine Mix to 1 part Pearlite to begin with. I will add bone meal & blood meal at 2nd transplant probably. Other than the lights I am using now I have quite a few other CFL bulbs. I have: 1-26w 6500K, 2-23w 550K, 6-26w 2700K & 3-68w 2700K. I plan to stick with the 3 6500K CFLs and the 175w MH for now, maybe adding more veg CFLs later. I plan to have all 3 of my 68w 2700K CFLs hanging between all my plants with the 175w MH still above while flowering. Maybe even some 26w 2700K CFLs mounted to the side if I get crazy.

Thanks for checking out my journal and feel free to leave any comments or suggestions. Im all about reading others' posts so if you have a grow going that is related in any way to this one or any particular topic at hand, feel free to post it! Just no spamming please.

Peace for now
KB

__________________
150w HPS Mini Fridge Grow (Finished 07/26/09) ---- My Fridge Grow (Finished 09/07/09)
Autoflower Thread & Resource Guide

Looks good dude I only have one suggestion. I would try putting that 175watt metal halide horizontally across the top of the cab instead of vertically. Unless you are placing the bulb in between the plants I would mount it horizontally. Most of the light gets put out on the sides of the bulb. The way you have it currently set up most of the light is contained withing the top 12 inches or so

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hey good luck man. I am new to this site but love it so far. Was reading your last journal but want to see how you do this time. So once I figure out how to subscribe I will.

Fawk yeah! Looking good man. Love the carbon filter and fan you put together. There's a chance i'll be upgrading soon as well - starting to look for a house today to grow in. Hopefully both our second attempts will go smoothly

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Gastanker's 1st Grow 6 plants 2 months 388w CFL 5.4oz + Current 700w CFL SCROG.

New double tent 50 plant grow started 9/29/09

this is kinda cool good luck

Yeah after looking around at other journals using HID bulbs, I realized that 90% of people mount them sideways. This would also help with how tall the plants can get, as I would gain probably 4-6" turning the bulb sideways. I just need to figure out a good, SAFE way to do it. The ballast is wired up inside a receptacle box (I think thats what its called) and that box gets pretty hot. Its been nice having the ballast in the upper portion of the fridge to keep the heat away from the plants. Any suggestions there?

Hey man thanks for stopping by. Youre right this site is fucking AMAZING. A plethora of information at your fingertips. As far as subscribing goes, its easy. Just go up to the top of the page and click "Thread Tools". It will drop a list down, select "Subscribe to Thread". Then it will take you to a page to confirm the subscription, click "Add Subscription". If youre still havin any problems feel free to ask away. Glad to have ya

Hehe, my carbon filter is about 10 times more ghetto than I had planned but it works GREAT, I cant feel any air leaks anywhere. Best of luck to ya on your house search and your next grow man, sounds exciting!! Thanks for stopping by the new thread, Im soooo excited about round 2 haha!

Thanks man! Feel free to swing back by whenever, and if you have any questions or suggestions my ears are open


So I woke up today and checked the fridge before work. The night before, the temps reached 87 with only the one fan pulling air from the fridge to the freezer. There was a hole in the back so SOME of the air was being pushed out but some was being pushed back into the fridge through the light holes too. Today, after installing the new exhaust fan and leaving the door closed overnight, the max temp was 80F, WOOHOO!!! That was a solid 15 hours or more with the door closed too! Temp in my garage is around 70F currently.

Also, 2 more of the plants have sprouted with petals & all, and 2 others are just starting to poke out of the soil. Only 2 more to go and they will all be officially plants! Ill do some work to the fridge tonight and maybe take some pics. I don't want to flood the journal with too many pics, unless of course thats what you guys prefer, I am a picture taking fool sometimes. Besides its so exciting in the beginning, but maybe its just because I haven't been any farther yet HAHA!

Peace
KB

__________________
150w HPS Mini Fridge Grow (Finished 07/26/09) ---- My Fridge Grow (Finished 09/07/09)
Autoflower Thread & Resource Guide

OK sorry I didnt get around to taking any pics I had company over pretty late and I didn't get much done in the garage. One very exciting thing I got done though was I successfully taught myself how to wire up a HPS bulb, ballast, ignitor, socket & capacitor to a stripped extension cord.

I have never wired anything up in my life that required striping wires and such. Google is an amazing thing. I was very proud of my accomplishment. I will be picking up some cans to use as reflectors tomorrow and Ill be getting to work on mounting the lights horizontal instead of vertical. Any suggestions on the cans? I was thinking like a large steel bean can or something for the MH and maybe a Heineken mini keg can for the HPS, but Im open to any other suggestions, Im on a limited budget these days however.

6 out of 8 of the seeds have sprouted and they are looking VERY green & healthy. I haven't watered them since I planted them and they are taking off wonderfully. I will try my best to get pics up soon, hopefully all 8 will be out of the soil tomorrow sometime.

Peace
KB

__________________
150w HPS Mini Fridge Grow (Finished 07/26/09) ---- My Fridge Grow (Finished 09/07/09)
Autoflower Thread & Resource Guide

Off to a great start! The fridge looks great for growing! My only fear was max temps but turns out they are more than great! and without a vented hood for the MH! Nice. Why not try and build a vented hood for both the mh and the hps? Oh and I think it would be better to try and clean the inside than spray paint it looks like a good reflective white. Good luck man!

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Check out my guerilla grow progress!:
http://www.rollitup.org/outdoor-grow...ow-greece.html

DAY 3

Plant Stage: Seedling
Light Cycle: Last day of 24/0, 18/6 Starts Tomorrow
Lights: 175w 4200K Metal Halide, 4x26w 6500K CFLs, 2x23w 5550K CFLs
Medium: 3 Parts Sunshine Mix, 1 Part Pearlite.
Ferts: None

OK, so the last couple days have been pretty exciting for me. The main reason being that my plants are easily the same size as my 1st grows plants when they were 2 weeks old. Sad I know haha. Well its very late and I have been cleaning up my garage all damn night so Ill give a real quick update then get to the pics.

I got the HPS light put together nicely last night, and it will sit idle for a while, maybe till its time for 12/12. All but 1 plant have sprouted and all but 1 of the sprouts had their main tap roots coming out of the bottom of he Jiffy pellets. I decided it was time to transplant. I tried to be delicate, but I wanted to tear each screen off to prevent any stunted growth, and I accidentally popped the tip of the root that was poking out the bottom off 2 or 3 plants . In all cases, it was only about 1/8 of an inch worth of root at the most, think I will be ok? Also, plant #1 was kind of growing out the side of the pellet, and when I took the screen off the pellet crumbled apart. I pretty much just plopped the plant into the soil and packed around it a bit, I hope it will be ok. I also added 3 more CFLs to the mix since I had them sitting around. 2 of them are 5500K. I also added a small 6" fan for some circulation. OK on to the pics, Ill give more info about each as we go.

Here is the HPS that I wired up, the ballast is hooked up seperate from the bulb so I dont have to mount it in or near the grow area. I will eventually do the same with the MH, as well as mount it horizontally and get a reflector for it. Its a 70w bulb from a security light.


Here are my lttle ladies just before transplanting, I forgot to take pics of the roots poking through but oh well. #7 still hasnt sprouted yet so I did not transplant that one. You can see how #1 didnt come straight through the middle but out the side instead.


Here is the fridge with the new pots & lights. The 4 6500Ks are on the outside in the Y adapters and the 2 550Ks are in the middle. I used 1 gallon jugs with the tops cut off. I drilled 8 holes in the bottom of each and put about 1" of Mosser Lee Marble Nuggets (rocks) in the bottom of each container before adding soil. The plants look so damn tiny now that they are in their bigger homes. Did I transplant at an OK time, and into a big enough pot? or too big? I haven't watered them since I planted them, I plan on watering them before work tomorrow which is 1 hour before lights out.


Here are a couple pics of the ladies in their new homes. Notice in the first pic the #12 plant, it was from my old grow and has sat in a dark closet for about a week or more. I watered it and put it in there for shits & grins. Also, I put #7 under a "humidity dome" in hopes that it will still sprout, you can see it slightly in the first pic.


And for my last 2 pics in this update, I snapped a closeup shot of my largest, #3 and my smallest, #8. Of course, if #7 sprouts it will become the smallest.


So everything seems to be going much better, however.....I am seeing the beginning of some heat issues It was about 77F outside when I got up today (1PM) and the temp in the fridge was 81, which I thought was pretty good. At 4 I called my wife and she said the temp was 86f I had her prop the door open and when I got home 7 hours later the temp was 80F. Once it gets to be 90+ outside I think I will be having some nasty heat problems. Any advice or links on making a vented hood for my 175w MH would be GREATLY appreciated! Other than that I will be cutting one more 3" intake hole and the light cycle will be 18/6 starting tomorrow. I have the lights turning off at 3PM and back on at 9PM, which are about the hottest hours in my garage. It takes my garage a few hours to heat up in the afternoon and a few to cool off at night, plus this way I will be able to water them before work and the lights will go off within an hour of me watering them.

OK so even though Im tired Imanaged to type a damnnovel as usual, my apologies to anyone who hates reading alot haha! This grow is getting exciting and I plan on sticking with it and doing what I have to to keep all growing conditions in order. All advice is always welcome and appreciated as usual. Thanks guys!!

Peace
KB

__________________
150w HPS Mini Fridge Grow (Finished 07/26/09) ---- My Fridge Grow (Finished 09/07/09)
Autoflower Thread & Resource Guide

Other than the heat issues, I am pulling up a seat and watching this. I like this setup and it looks clean. I think you transplanted right on time, Sounds like you did your research too and it looks like it, good job bro..oh btw i also started my second grow on 420, your seeds are ahead of mine a bunch haha check it out, its the hydroponics link in my sig

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My first growhttp://www.rollitup.org/grow-journal...-comments.html
My hydroponic growhttp://www.rollitup.org/grow-journal...droponics.html