Dr Greenthumb's Fridge of Doom - Vol 1- An Adventure to Kandyland

Greetings Internet!

Let me offer my humble submission to the plethora of amateur mini fridge grows here on rollitup. I've got experience with both indoor and outdoor, but my last harvest was two years ago. I'm jumping back in, but on a micro scale.

I've been stuck to my laptop for a few days, lurking forums and picking up all the info I can get on micro grows. My choice is to go LED with additional CFL lighting for a broader spectrum. LED light will be 70w DIY to start with, parts picked up off ebay for the princely sum of $52. Two additional 23w CFL's will be added, one 6400k and 2700k for both veg and flower. I'll upgrade my ebay LEDs to CREE or similar as funds allow.

Space:

17" wide x 14" deep x 17" high - gutted free mini fridge
95mm fan for exhaust (salvaged from fridge)
Passive intakes
DIY Carbon filter in the making, will be the popular mesh pen cup style


LED Light: (Waiting on the postman)

RED - 10 x 3w 650-660nm 80lm http://www.ebay.ca/itm/251316511007?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649
RED - 10 x 3w 610-630nm 70lm
BLUE - 10 x 1w 465-475nm 30lm
Heat sinks x 3 - salvaged from fridge
Drivers - 2 x 30w http://www.ebay.ca/itm/370884721430?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649

It seems that fate intended for this grow to happen. I was searching for seeds online, medicating with a delicious new strain I picked up, apparently named Candy Kush (it did smell and taste very sweet, almost cotton candy on the exhale). I grabbed a nug for the grinder and PLINK, out falls a perfect dark seed. Upon further inspection, 13 others revealed themselves, along with one MONSTER - looks like a Siamese seed almost. Pics to follow.

I think a SCROG will necessitate itself in this grow, along with some additional LST'ing - for the ladies . I'm debating on one plant vegged out a bit longer, or two smaller ones..

Four seeds were germed using the cup o water method, then over to paper towel till taproot showed. First seed was started ~36 hours prior to the other three, it sprouted today. My growing medium for this project will be ProMix Mychorrhizae (sp?) with organic compost mixed in. When the time comes I'll clone to determine sex, and keep the best one/two. I know space will be a big concern in my little fridge, so worst case ontario I'll keep the winner.

Sativa's tend to make me ramble, so I'll conclude my first post with progress pics

SIDEBAR:

Also, I took a clone from the most promising of my outdoor femmes, unsure of exact strain. It was 2/3 weeks into flowering at time of cutting. Clone was taken on 09/09/13, dipped into RH and put right into the same soil mom was in. Transplanted into Pro Mix yesterday, seems to be surviving, but not thriving thus far.

Existing buds were clipped off, put under 24/7.

Shots of mom and baby, notice the purple in the buds, it's cold!

oh yes! some motocross love on those stickers!! + rep & subbed

I've been curious about stealth fridge grows. I'll be watching this thread with interest!

Thanks for the love guys, I love how fast these plants develop in the early stages. Any advice from others growing in similar sized settings? I want to maximize my yield, but not bust out the door.

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Looking and sounding good so far. Just getting into small grow boxes myself, so no experience yet, but I do think it would be hard to fit more then 1 plant in there... Curious to see what somebody with experience would think about number of plants for best yield. Subbed.

I would recommend a SCROG with the two plants. You will have better use of your CFL's as everything is leveled and don't have to worry about light penetration.

Update; we have progress.

Precious and Candy both broke ground today, the Fridge of Doom is now home to three beautiful Candy Kush debutantes. The fourth seed I had germinating met the garbage, too slow. Here's hoping one of these is a female.

Side note, been making my way through the French Cannoli Hash Thread, a great read! I've got a friend stopping by tomorrow with a pile of outdoor Indica bud gone to seed, let the dry sieving begin! Cannolis anybody? Stay tuned...

Nice fridge grow. I've never heard of candy kush but it sounds awesome! Any updates on how they are doing?

Looking good, I'm subbed up for the ride. I can't wait to see how this turns out.

Looks great man. I am excited to see what you can do with this thing!

**LONG AWAITED UPDATE**

Well Boys and Girls, it's been a while since I've posted and I thought all you nice people would like to see how things are progressing - yes, progress!

There's been some mods to Kandyland since we've last visited

Stage 3 is now complete with 60w of DIY LED power (30w x 650nm, 30w x 610nm) supplemented by two 23w CFLs, (2700k x1, 6000k x1) for a grand total of 106w in a 17"x14"x17" space. Inside walls are covered with Panda plastic, exhaust controlled by a 36cfm case fan blowing into a Zen style carbon filter. Passive intake is two nintey degree PVC elbows installed in the back side. Full stealth has been achieved, smellproof, lightproof, and quieter than a standard mini fridge.

A bit more on the DIY LED's since it seems to be a hot topic on the boards these days - it's easy! If you can solder and strip wire, you can build yourself an LED lamp for a fraction of the price retailers want. I creeped dozens of posts with DIY LED's and made mine based off of these and my materials at hand. I bought two 30w ebay drivers to run my two 30w boards I put together with solder and thermal glue, my plants love em. Price all in for the drivers and lights = $36 shipped!! If you'd like to pay more for an LED; you have too much money and too little time.


SIDE NOTE: To all of those who warn against Ebay LED's; with my experience so far I'd be stupid not to recommend them. They showed up in 3 weeks as advertised in perfect condition, all labeled and separated. Not one emitter has fried or faulted, all heat sinks were attached perfectly with no variations. The drivers seem to be functioning perfectly, however I have no way of measuring the actual amount of current they are drawing.

THE PLANTS:

In my last post my plants were a long ways from sexing, I'm happy to announce the Fridge of Doom is home to three gorgeous ladies!

Precious and Candy are doing well, and the clone I took...well, I'll let you check that out.
Different phenos are apparent between Precious and Candy. Candy is three days older, but is more squat with the classic Kush profile, densely spaced internodes. Precious is a more precocious one, growing taller and sparser than her sister with much more development of the bottom nodes, they're shooting taller than the main cola.

More on that; while browsing the interwebs I ran across data on the effects of a static magnetic field on nutrient uptake an availability in plants, it seemed to show a positive correlation between the addition of magnets to plant growth. I happened to have a strong little earth magnet laying around, so it got put in 2" under the soil in Precious's pot.
Without having two clones from the same plant, the comparison is a difficult one to make as I'm working with two separate phenotypes from the same bag of Reserva Privada's Kandy Kush.

Both plants are now on about week 3 of flower

CANDY


PRECIOUS


FAMILY



Both plants have been LST'd for the majority of their lives, a SCROG never quite made it into the picture. Maybe next time.


Oh, and I still need to post those hash pictures. I did a bit of experimenting, coarse screen dry seive, 1200 micron screen seive, and 95% ISO extraction. My fav method by far has to be the ISO; so fresh, so clean, so tasty!




All for now,

Dr Greenthumb