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Fully Working Fridge Grow DWC LED

soronata

New member
Hello growers. First time posting here.

I live in Brazil and it's almost year-round summer.
Always had problems with temperature when growing in a closet and HPS with the internal closet temperature during the summer time hitting almost 45 degrees celsius or more!

So this time I'm trying to grow in a Fully Working Fridge to keep the temperature down.
I brew beer as well so this fridge has a temperature controller and it keeps on 20-23 degrees celsius.

Using a 500w equivalent LED Panel, but I'll add some CFLs as well.

For the air flow and exchange, the idea is to use a Carbon Scubber to constantly filter the internal air, a CO2 generator DIY style with two plastic bottles, using yeast (not ready yet) and a air humidifier.
The carbon filter will also reduce the odor and the fridge door is well sealed.

I guess it's like a big sealed grow room with air conditioner, but smaller.
icon_smile.gif


I've been growing for quite some time but had a 5 year gap not growing at all.
It's my 5th grow and first time trying DWC/Hydroponics.
A 20 Liter container, with a bubbler injecting external air, plant on a netpot with rockwool and hydroton grow rocks.
Test is working good so far, water on 22 degrees, pH 5.5 with General Hydroponics base nutrients.
No top dripping.

Still waiting for my GreenHouse Seed Co's seeds to arrive, so I'm testing the setup with a unknown strain seed that I had. Probably a sativa landrace.

I'm excited with this new setup and I think it's going to work well.

The humidifier has a manual control in it, I've discovered a position that's just right for my setup and it works fine. I cannot get high humidity levels because it starts to condense water inside the fridge.
But I can get as high as 70% humidity level without any problem. That's fine for me during the seedling time.

Everything is going great, nice water temp, nice air temp, growing fast and happy.

I've faced a Acid Rain Effect the other day in my reservoir. The pH reading went crazy!
Turned out my air pump was pumping too much air and as I live nearby a busy road, the CO2 levels must be high around here, it was pumping some CO2 into the water and maybe causing this effect.
Lowering the pump power and changing the reservoir water has turned out fine with ph stable at 5.5 now.

Unknown strain, probably a brazilian landrace sativa.
Ambient Temperature: 25-27 Celsius with the lights on / 20-21 Celsius with the lights off
Reservoir Water Temperature: 19-21 Celsius (using tap filtered water, EC with no nutes at 0.1)
Humidity Level: 50-75%
pH: 5.8-6.0
EC: 1.0
Lights: 18h/6h

Seed has sprouted on May 5th, on soil and then transferred to rockwool after 5 or 6 days.
It's been 14 days since the transfer to hydro.
It took some time to recover growth after the transfer stress.
Now it's a fast growth rate and good root system development but with the leaves are showing some problems.

I'm using 1/3 of the nutes' strength, hitting 0.6 EC.
On May 15th, the first pair of real leaves shown some brown spots. Looked like Cal-Mag deficiency, added some CalMag rich nutrient to correct. EC hit 0.8.
Had some issues with pH fluctuations, trying to keep it on a 5.8-6.0 range on a daily basis left the res with high EC level for a young plant, aprox 1.0 EC.
The second pair of leaves also shown some problems, with brown spots and then it dried out real quick.
The root system is looking good, the newest leaves are looking better than the old ones but also showing some deficiency.
It has nute burn on the tips and a light-green color all over. Don't know what deficiency is, maybe still the CalMag def. or could be iron, sulfur or nitrogen def too.

I'm considering a second water change (the first one happened after the Acid Rain issue) to keep things nice and clear. With new nutes, adding CalMag, root stimulator and the General Hydroponics base (gro, micro, bloom), keeping EC at 0.8 maximum and pH at 5.8.
Some landrace sativas have a really light green color, could this be the case?

Any tips on what this deficiency could be?

Any advices on my grow fridge setup?
 

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Douglas.Curtis

Autistic Diplomat in Training
Neat. :)

Transpiration is triggered by both low humidity and high heat. When you can keep the temps cool, also keep the humidity low. I shoot for a max canopy temp of 72F(22.22C) and prefer my humidity at the low side of 15%.

The plant spends transpiration on hydration and not cooling, allowing maximum transpiration levels. The oil production is also very high, though the veg time is a bit longer due to the reduced stretch at flip.

:tiphat: :)
 

soronata

New member
Thanks for the tip, Douglas.

Should I keep that low levels of humidity even during the veg period or only on the flower period?
 

insomniac_AU

Active member
That's a cool idea, looking forward to see how well it works. A fridge really isn't designed to have warm air being drawn in constantly so will be interesting to see if it copes. On the other hand it's not having to maintain 3 degrees celcius so it might be fine. As far as the humidity goes I find it's most important to be low towards the end of the flower cycle to prevent mold. :)
 

soronata

New member
Thanks, insomniac!

The LED panel don't make so much heat, the fridge turns on when its over 26 and off when it reaches 23 degrees and that happens sometimes during a day with the lights on. When the lights are off the door is not open for hours and it keeps this temperature even longer, not starting the engine. I'm a homebrewer as well and was already using this fridge with this temperature controller for the beer fermentation process. So I don't see this doing damage to the engine.

For the humidity, as far as I know it's important to keep low levels during the flowering period and high during the young phases.

I'll post updates.
 

Douglas.Curtis

Autistic Diplomat in Training
Thanks for the tip, Douglas.

Should I keep that low levels of humidity even during the veg period or only on the flower period?
It's a matter of transpiration rates. Cannabis can handle high heat and high humidity (transpiration being used for cooling), Low heat and low humidity (trans being used for hydration) and moderate heat with moderate humidity.

All of one or the other, or a balance of both. Regardless of plant phase, transpiration rates are very important. The higher the transpiration rate, the lower strength feed/amendments you'll want. ;)
 

Mikell

Dipshit Know-Nothing
ICMag Donor
Veteran
Your humidity is good for that temperature range. Depending on C02 level you do not want it too low. Spurr has posts on the relationship between CO2/temperature/RH and feed strength if you do a site search.

An aquarium company, Fluval, makes small CO2 tanks with a regulator. It may be possible to scab together a timer or CO2 controller (expensive) for more control.

The user Freezerboy grew in fridges and freezers. You may like looking over his posts, although he used intake/outtake if I recall.

An interesting project, I look forward to see it develope.
 

soronata

New member
Your humidity is good for that temperature range. Depending on C02 level you do not want it too low. Spurr has posts on the relationship between CO2/temperature/RH and feed strength if you do a site search.

Thanks for the info! I'll do some research on Spurr's posts.

An aquarium company, Fluval, makes small CO2 tanks with a regulator. It may be possible to scab together a timer or CO2 controller (expensive) for more control.
Thinking about CO2 solenoid valves, as I already have a CO2 cilinder used in my brewing process, guess I could make an auto CO2 injector. Still studying this possibility.

The user Freezerboy grew in fridges and freezers. You may like looking over his posts, although he used intake/outtake if I recall.
I've seen his posts. Looks like he grows in a non working fridge, just for stealthy reasons I think.

An interesting project, I look forward to see it develope.
Thank you!! Glad to read that. :tiphat:
I'll be posting updates with pictures.
 

soronata

New member
Hello growers.
The plant on the DWC project turned out to be a male.
And I've given up Hydroponics.
I think its hard to deal with, always getting issues with algae and root rot, even though I was using a sanitized and sterilized container and water temperature set between 19-21 celsius, still got problems.
The fear of losing my crop in the middle of bloom made me give up.

So I got back to soiless medium, Sphagnum and Perlite mix.

Still growing in a Working Fridge to control temperatures and things are running smooth.

Growing now Green House Seed's Super Lemon Haze strain. (SLH)
Germinated 2 seeds, got two different phenotypes.
SLH#1 is more Sativa like, thinner leaves, bigger internodal space, smaller buds and looks like its going to take a little longer to finish flowering.
SLH#2 is more Indica like, large leaves, more bushy, compact, bigger buds.

They've been vegged for 3 months from seed, then clones were taken, 2 clones selected to become mother-plants (kept outside the fridge, in another cabinet), and 4 clones were sent to flower.
They are in 7L containers, except for one plant (#2) that's in a 3L container.
Vegged for 2 weeks after the transplant and then set lights to 12/12

After 49 days of flowering, things are looking good so far!
SLH#2 has already many red pistils while SHL#1 still got many more white pistils.
Temperature near 27 C, injecting CO2 from a tank, no air exchange.

Attached pictures from day 30 and day 49 of flowering.
Expecting to harvest between 65 and 77 days, we'll see.

I'll be back after harvest with new pictures.
 

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soronata

New member
Begin of week 10 of the flowering period, 63 days.
 

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soronata

New member
More photos
 

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soronata

New member
Finally! The great day has come. My setup "Fully Working Fridge Grow" works really nice! It has kept the temperature within the limits, as is almost year-round summer where I live and temperature control has always been an issue.


The chinese Super Chip LED Panel 500w (equivalent, consumes near 200w) worked really well, giving me big fat dense buds full of crystals. It was way better than I expected!
Got a total of 248g of fresh buds, might end up with 60g dried for curing.
 

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soronata

New member
Macros
 

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