First Time Grow - Stealth Fridge CFLs, opinions and advice appreciated

Hey Guys, I've got 3 white widow seeds germinating at the moment and hopefully they'll be moving into my converted fridge-freezer in the next day or two



The dimensions of the fridge section are (h)31", (w)19", (d)17". I currently have a 125w 6500K CFL that I plan on using for the first week of growth. Then I will be adding 3 or 4 42w 2700K CFLs. There's an extractor fan in the top left corner that is probably too strong. I reckon it removes all the air in about 20 seconds when the door is closed! I have drilled 26 half inch holes in the bottom step for intake. I don't think odour will be an issue so there's no filter (yet!). Im hoping the freezer section will become my cloning/vegging area in the future.
I'm using 7" pots with biobizz allmix soil, I have a bottle of biobizz bio-grow nutrients and will probably be purchasing the bio-bloom bottle when the time comes for it.

It's quite a compact space so I plan on keeping these plants as short as possible by LSTing and possibly scrogging. After reading Buds For Less by SeeMoreBuds, I'm thinking I'll follow his schedule of vegging for just 16 days. Hopefully the combination of training and a short veg time will result in short plants with plenty of bud sites.

I think I have all my bases covered. My one major concern is going to be the temperature swing when the lights go off. At the moment, with the 125w cfl and extractor fan on, the temp remains around 23-26*C. But it gets real cold at nights (the fridge is in my garage) and can drop to 3 or 4*C. I think I can counter this somewhat by timing my 20w heat mat to come on when the lights go out but I'm still concerned that a large swing in temps will stress the plants.

Anyways, what do you guys think?

Will the temperature swing be too much?

Anyone ever used biobizz allmix before?

Thanks in advance and much love

Edit to say I shall be keeping this thread updated with the progress of my soon to be bushy and resinous plants (I hope!)

Sounds like you got your shit hooked up... I think that if the temp drops that much you should think about getting some type of space heater and maybe you can put it behind your intake fan and it will draw in some heat... And if you plan on vegin for such a short time you might look into starting off 12/12 from seed... Thats wat i would do if i had height restrictions.... theres a thread on here that talks about it and im thinking about trying it when i start my flowering... Dont know much about bio bizz other then my friend trying it out and soon found out that he didnt like it and switched to wat im using... the Fox Farm products Grow Big, Tiger Bloom, and the advanced nutes as well... and they seem to be working great... Ill be following this thread so keep it updated and pix are great... Good Luck mate...

Cheers mate. I'll have a look for that 12/12 thread. Might save me a few precious inches in height

Are you able to have the lights off during the day and on during the night, that could help with the temps.

yes temp drop is too much dont drop the temp moar than 10 celcius at night and i think the fridge too small for 3 it can barely hold one i say get another bigger fridges good luck mangg u haz long way to go

peece

Thanks for the input fellas. I think I've sorted my temperature problem. I tested out my heat mat and it brings the temperature back up to the low twenties so by timing that to come on when my lights go off should keep things fairly steady. Although, that is with the extractor fan off. But I think by placing the heat mat on the bottom, the rising heat will still be moving air through the leaves. What do you guys think?

Zo0t, I've seen a few videos and threads on here where people have got a couple of plants to harvest in areas smaller than mine. I'm pretty confident I can do it by training the plants and going 12/12 from the start. If things go bad I can always remove 1 or 2 and concentrate on the survivor(s). Realistically I would be delighted if I got two plants to harvest on my first attempt.

Thanks again guys and much love

Looks good man. My cab is a similar size, you can definitely make it work just train the shit out of them! As far as temp goes, I'd suggest running your lights on at night, off during the day time to counter act the temp.

Hey guys. Well its been about 17 days since my seeds sprouted, everthing is looking nice and green and I feel the time has come to switch to 12/12.
They all look pretty healthy in my opinion although 1 seemed pretty sad until about 3 days ago but now it seems to catching up.



I'm still running the 125w 6500K CFL and have added a 46W 2700K and intend to get another 2 or 3 46W in the next few days.
I started LSTing them this evening. I'm looking forward to seeing the lower leaves shoot out.

So, what do you guys think? Should I start adding fertiliser soon? The allmix soil says it has enough nutes for a few weeks but a little extra organic biogrow can't hurt right?

dont switch to 12/12 unless you are completely restricted on growth space! those will only get you 3-7 grams each max as they look right now... not trying to hate they just could veg much longer! they just began their training and they can grow much more horizantally before growing vertically at all! just my .02, looking good brother.

gingerbuddha said:

dont switch to 12/12 unless you are completely restricted on growth space! those will only get you 3-7 grams each max as they look right now... not trying to hate they just could veg much longer! they just began their training and they can grow much more horizantally before growing vertically at all! just my .02, looking good brother.

Click to expand...

I think with my small cabinet and small pots (7") I'm quite limited to what I can do. I had a good read through your thread last night and you got some impressive results off that plant. Nice job and sorry to hear you're unable to sample the fruits of your labour

What height did yours finish at? Do you think I'd have enough room in my pots to get a good enough root system to try something similar?

i looked at your pics again, you are pretty limited on space but my cab was just a bit wider than yours, about the same height wise. They ended up being maybe 6-8 inches taller than the pots. IDK, i just feel like you might be let down if you start flowering right now. Another week or two of vegging and training could greatly help, maybe even double your potential yield. Just keep tying that bitch down, remember the light can stay with in like 1/2" of the plant.

Buddha knows what he is talking about, take his advise. Everything is looking good so far, move that heat mat to the bottom so the heat rises is a good idea. Also try running the lights at night as some have suggested. Good luck!

Cheers for the input guys.
I think this time I'm going to try a quick grow and see how big they get. I plan on making some clones so I should have a good idea how long to veg them for next time. I must admit, I'm probably too keen to smoke my own homegrown stuff as soon as I can!

seedling heater mats........under the pots, on their own timer.

Ya I would run the lights at night too...and if you have one of those smart meters hydro is cheaper at night.

SilverSerf

Hey guys,

It's been about 40 days since the seeds sprouted and about 24 days since the switch to 12/12. I think things are going well.



I'm still working with just the one 125W 6400K and one 46W 2700K. I had planned on getting some more 46Ws but money has been pretty tight recently.
Temperatures are ranging from about 60F-70F. Sometimes it might dip into the mid fifties if it's a particularly cold day.
There are a few dying/dead leaves. Should I be worried? Should I pull them off?

ready to c how this turns out...sub

Hi folks. Just a quick update

It's day 41 since the switch and about day 57 since they sprouted. The plant on the right and one in the middle are looking pretty healthy, a few yellowing leaves (I remove them when they're completely yellow and dead looking) but I believe that is to be expected at this stage.

The plant on the right however never really took off like the other two. Maybe I topped it too close to the flowering stage? It has lost more leaves than the others and isn't the same dark green (sorry about the crappy pics, it's more obvious in real life). I think it may have something to do with the soil. The water runs through it very quickly through the soil into the dish compared to the others and takes longer to soak it all up. Perhaps it is too porous and the roots can't get enough nutrients? Also, a lot of its pistils have turned brown already (I thought this only happened near the end of its life?)

Anyway, the seed company says the flowering time is 55 days but I'm not sure if that means from when the light cycle was switched or when the first flowers started forming. What do you guys think? Will I be ready to harvest in two weeks? Anybody want to hazard a guess as to what type of weight I can expect?

Thanks for reading and any input at all is much appreciated.

DW

Any experts out there wanna guess how much and when I'll harvest?