First ever grow, stealth, cfl, bagseed

Well I decided to make the jump and grow my own after buying an abysmal bag from a new source the other day. I have some seeds from some pretty decent bud Ive gotten in the recent past. I live alone in an apartment but its not very big so Im going with a stealth grow using an old mini fridge. Id like to use the closet but unfortunately for a variety of reasons including not wanting to alter the property itself, I dont think its a good idea for me. I did some research and settled on the mini fridge over the pc case as its a tad more roomy and is already insulated quite well. Ive stripped the fridge itself already and will be installing 120mm pc fans and three cheap basic fixtures for the cfl lights. Wiring is to be routed out the back into a box with a on/off switch and single power chord. I might make the fans/lights seperate so I can easily turn the lights off without the fans. I think this would be better no? Ill be covering the entire inside surface with a reflective barrier. Finally ill be sticking in a battery powered thermometer and digital humidity guage I have laying around from my reptiles. Ill be posting pics probably tomorrow of the fridge, both before and after. I plan to germinate my bag seeds after the grow box is complete. Here we go .

 

Didnt get to update this sooner as I was waiting for the thread to clear. I finished the box itself and germinated my seeds. Out of the ones I germinated, three looked pretty viable and were planted in plastic cups with a mixture of organic potting mix and perilite. This was done tonight, so hopefully there will be some sprouts in the coming days. As far as the grow fridge (as ive dubbed it) everything turned out pretty well. It has two 30 watt 6500k CFLS. I went with two over three as I probably wont have more than one plant in here, there is room for more fixtures though should the need arise. I ran the system all day today before adding the planted seeds and it maintained around eighty degress temp and fifty five to sixty percent humidity. Ive yet to attatch the humidity/temp gauge as I forgot to pick up a few of those sticky things you hang pictures and such with. Its just about completely lightproof except for the strip of insulation between the door and fridge which seals it when shut. It seeps very slighty through the insulation piece itself, giving it a glowing color. I cant figure out how to remedy this yet, any suggestions? Im going to go snap some photos right now and will post them within the hour.

Edit: Also, didnt make this as elaborate as id planned mostly due to it being less than a week from christmas and im sort of approaching broke. Still though, for twenty dollars plus the fridge and some romex I had laying around, I think it will do the job and I can always improve it as I go. That being said any suggestions or improvements would be very appreciated.

 

Have been waiting patiently for something to sprout, still nothing. Im going to have another batch of seeds germinating starting tomorrow just in case these dont take. Also changed my setup a bit. Added another light fixture for a total of three bulbs, added another fan at the top and fixed the light leak around the door insulation. Will post more pics tomorrow of the upgrades as well as some (hopefully) sprouting plants.

 

Yea im still hoping they will sprout. The first time I ever germinated/planted a few weeks ago for laughs, a plant sprouted out of nowhere after about 10 days. Im hoping now that im taking this more seriously and actually using proper (well sort of proper anyways) lighting/temps and whatnot ill get something going.

 

Well I finally found out why nothing was sprouting. Between a faulty thermometer and my own ignorance, temps were reaching in the high 90's and cooking the poor little seedlings. I checked the germinated seeds I planted last night and found them to be completely dryed out to point of being brittle/cracked in my fingers. I added alot more airflow, remving an entire one foot long section about 3 inches high on the bottom back and another smaller piece from the shelf area. Covered with screen and a small plug in fan was added to the inside. Air circulation and temps are now much better. I had some germinated seeds left from what I planted the other day (just left them in the tupperware) so I planted those tonight...will report back in a few days with hopefully some good news. Also, does anyone have any tips for creating good watering drainage in solo cups? I put a hole in the center bottom and some holes around the bottom outside but it seems the water just pools up when I add it.

 

Ended up germinating a new batch two days ago, placed in solo cups with ziplocks over them to at as humidity domes. Most of the cups have the plant beginning to push out of the soil. Im going to leave them in the bags until the come out a bit more, maybe another 24 hours or so. I have ten cups currently. I plan to keep the four strongest ones. Im going to place two in the growfridge and the other two in a pc case I just gutted and will finish assembling by when the time comes. I figure this way Ill have four plants, so hopefully ill at least get one female plant (or 2) and should anything go wrong due to my inexperience and a plant dies, it isnt my only one. Hopefully Ill end up with a single female growing in each. The difference I think this time was a combination of fixing my problems with my growbox and using a better quality soil mixture. I figured id take pics after the bags were off so you could actually see something instead of a bunch of cups covered in ziplocks. Im really excited to see them start to grow and take shape.

 

Okay, got some pics of the growfridge, pc in process and the some of the sprouts. I need to pick some more things up to finish the pc case. Going to add another light fixture (bulbs in pic only for show) and I need to find another 12v adapter for an exhaust fan. As well as cover up a few light leaks. Enjoy!

 

Went to home depot today to get a few things for the pc case. I cant find mylar anywhere so im just going to get some emergency blankets tomorrow. Heres what it looks like now, basically finished except for the covering. In addition to lights on the power strip I hung a socket on the side to provide light from a different angle.

 

Just a quick update on the plants progress, of the ten cups I had going, a few proved to be lame and didn't sprout, with one not being able to shake off the husk from its seed. I currently have six that are off to pretty solid starts and are starting to grow and take shape. It was really cool watching the transition from a tiny sprout to something resembling a cannabis plant. About five days from germination here, I only took a photo of one as my cameras battery was dieing and honestly they all sort of look identical at this point. Currently im keeping the cups about three inches from the lights. I'm planning on letting them gain some strength in the cups for another week and a half to two weeks and then depending on growth transplanting them to their final homes. Also, from what I've read, nitrogen seems to be one of the more important nutrients during veg, my soil mixture has nitrogen and a few others in it already, it says it's enough to feed for two to three weeks, when would be the correct time to being introducing liquid nutrients in that case?

 

Added more lights to my growfridge. Mounted a power strip with three sockets plugged into it with another 27 watt 6500k bulb and two 27 watt 5000k bulbs, which now gives me six total, 4 6500k and 2 5000k (all 27 watt bulbs). I added a second exhaust fan near the top where the bulbs sit to draw excess heat away from the ballasts. Now, each cup essentially has a bulb directly over it with another in close proximity. inside is noticeably brighter now. I have the cups sitting on risers so they are about three inches from the bulbs. While the progress in terms of growing is small on a day to day basis, I can actually see change and growth in some of the plants since even yesterdays post. I plan to take some photos this weekend, hopefully there will be some noticeable changes. Saturday will basically be about a week since germination/planting.

 

Pictures of updated setup and of the babies.

 

Thanks, from the outside the fridge is about 2 1/2 feet high id guess. I was planning on doing on growing the plants sort of up and across the internal shelf once they get to that point. I also setup a pc grow box in the event more than two are female. Only room for one in there since its a mid tower case. Im currently trying to bring the plants back as I was away over the weekend, my friend who was supposed to come to my apartment to feed my fish, reptiles and water my plants didn't. So they got pretty dried out and only two of them look like they have a chance of recovery. I'm in the middle of germinating MORE seeds. While its disappointing, at least I have a pretty good idea of these early stages now so it should be pretty painless.