Robotninja's SSH grow

[1982grower]

yah man. go with mixed bulbs every time. 42 days veg eh? damn you must want some monsters. cant wat to see them. the good thing is about flowering that big is you know you got alot coming. but you have to wait. lol. gonna be worth it.

 

[onenumcat]

Sorry bout the lack of updates, I've been swamped at my new job and school work is really piling up. On top of that I have to go out of town on a business trip for a week (San Fransisco) so I am placing the care of my plants in the hands of my roommate.

I'll get some updates/pics when I get back and everything is up and running. I was gonna start flowering this week, but my new job dropped this business trip on me totally last minute. I don't wanna leave for a week and come back to dead plants. They are kinda like my babies and I don't wanna start flowering at the hands of my roommate who is kinda clueless about this stuff.

Arg, I wanna flower these bitches already! It would be nice to have a fully automated system where the light adjusts itself according to the canopy height. Or a automatic Nutrient/Ph/Res filler.

BTW, anyone know of any good dispensaries in San Fran?

hey bro! are you only growing SSH? if so, I suggest going to flower before your B trip. my SSH took about 20 days to show sex...and never needed anything but water. if your trip is gonna be fairly short, under two weeks, and your plants will only need water, then I'd do it now and, seemingly, cut out that waiting time. the time while you're away. imo
I'm from that area, but don't know of any...just ask around...will be easy to find. but I would guess around Mission St. or in the Haight area. as in Haight-Ashbury, it's famous hippy, peace n love area.

 

[robotninja]

Alright, everything is good now. Got back from my trip and the plants are fine. The res was alittle low, but that's about all that happened. As for the trip, it was all business and no pleasure

I just ordered a 600w Digital Ballast with HPS bulb and a 6" Air Coolable reflector last night! Should arrive within a business week I'm told, so hopefully by this time next week, I'll be in business.

Finished building my modified Stinkbud Flowering chamber. I decided to house the tubes inside of the res container so the lid can be fully shut to keep noise/splash to a minimum. This also gained 5-10 inches of more vertical height inside. I also cut them at an angle so the roots have plenty of room to grow inside/on the posts and not into/on the pump clogging it up.

Over the course of this weekend I will finish the room with panda film and install all the ducting/fans/carbon filter/screen/dehumidifier/ect...

Girls are sleeping now, no photos.

 

[onenumcat]

that looks real nice. looks so simple too, but I have no idea what you're talking about! haha
I guess it's time to begin researching hydro grows. can you add a few more pics of that? with flash to show the
dark places...and some closeups?

did you find a dispensary? or, if you meant you didn't when you said "no pleasure", I guess you didn't.

 

[robotninja]

can you add a few more pics of that? with flash to show the
dark places...and some closeups?

did you find a dispensary? or, if you meant you didn't when you said "no pleasure", I guess you didn't.

Yea, I can take more pix later when I'm off work. It's pretty simple to make, All the supply's came from Lowe's/Home Depot.

Stinkbud's thread has detailed instructions for building his version of the Aeroponic Flowering chamber, but I modified mine to fit my closet and my number of plants.

As for the trip, there were some dispensaries, but I literally had no time off. I was working the whole time and then some. Didn't even get to enjoy the city. It's been a long week, finally Friday!

 

[robotninja]

Ok so the plants, they have been flowering for about 5 days now under my 600 watt HPS. Finished building the flowering chamber and got all my ducting/fans hooked up. I have a 450 cfm Valueline inline fan to cool the 600 watt through a air cooled hood. The air is pulled from my bedroom, through my veg/clone chamber and from there into my light, then through the attic and vent's outside the roof. Works pretty well, keeps the flowering room from getting hot. Also I have a 8" duct boost fan to exhaust the actual flowering chamber which also pulls air from my bedroom via a vent.

Temps stay around high 70's low 80's, however I did have a major problem the first couple days. Turns out I stretched my flexy ducting a bit too much and the heat from the light caused it to tear in a few spots around the light hood. This caused all the heat from the light to escape into my flowering chamber which in turn rose well over 90 degree's! And for how long, I'm not sure, but 3 of my plants got some nasty heat stress! I fixed the leaks and the temps are normal again, but hopefully the girls will all recover.

I'll get picks when it's "daytime", I'm running them at midnight to noon to keep temps down. I thought I would need a de-humidifier but as of now I got like 15-20% humidity in my flowering chamber, will probebly change the denser the foliage gets. Also not using a carbon scrubber yet, but when I do I will probebly upgrade the flowering exhaust fan to another valueline or something equivilant, the 8" duct booster works great for my small space, but it won't pull through a scrubber, no way!

I'm running them at just over 2,000 PPM's, 5.8 ph, and man are they drinking water! I will have to devise some kind of float-filler device to automatically dump RO water into the res once it drops to a certain level.

I'll get some pics when the lights come on, you can see the heat damage for yourselves. Lemme know if you think they will survive or not.

Oh yeah, one more thing. My res is reaching 73-74 degree's, aside from getting a water chiller (don't wanna have to do that!) can't I squirt some hygrozyme or similar stuff in there to prevent algea and stuff? I'm useing all organic nutrients, so I don't wanna use something that will destroy the nutes themselves.

Also I'm waiting on installing my Screen because I'm not sure exactly how high to mount it. For a typical SCRoG grow, how high do you normally mount the screen? These SSH are expected to get 5-6 feet, so I'm probebly gonna supercrop them again.

 

[jigfresh]

For a screen the typical above the medium is 8 - 12 inches... you want it high enough that you can reach underneath around the branches and reach everything. But the higher it is, the more that will be shaded and eventually die/ get picked off.

If your plants are going to grow really tall, you won't need many plants per sq. ft of screen.

My screen is 12" off the medium... I wish I would have put it about 9" so I wouldn't have had to pull so much off.

Also, don't overgrow the screen, it will turn into a monster and a lot of work (still a lot of work anyways)...

Sorry it's so hot down there.

Nice job on all the construction stuff too.

 

[NewHiddenGrower]

Looking good bro!! when you going to clone?

 

[robotninja]

Thanks man,

Uh for cloning, I dunno. I don't want my next batch getting as big as these ones. So I think I'll wait a few weeks, I only have 1 flower room and 1 cloner/vegger, so if I took clones now, they would veg for a very long time. If I can cut off a few weeks from the veg process, they won't get soo big next time round.

Plants are looking better today, yeah the burned stuff still looks horrible and won't recover, but they all have new healthy growth. And my temps are cooler, in the high 70's. I think they will all recover, just takes alil time.

On a side note, I discovered that whoever previously owned this house didn't do much for insulation in the attic. The fiberglass is really crappy, like only 1 inch thick! I will have to go up there and tear out all the old insulation and get a bunch of new rolls of some pink panther. When we run the AC in the house, it only gets hotter, unless ur directly under a vent. All the heat from the attic is radiating into the house.

Well check the pics, I'm still worried about the Resevoir temps but water chillers are such a pain in the butt. Will Hygrozyme destroy the organic nutes?

 

[robotninja]

[UPDATE - Week 1 Flower]
Well it's the end of the first week of flowering and the progress is amazing. I heard SSH took a long time to show sex, but hell it's been 6 days and these girls are already getting hairy. They grow up so fast don't they?

10-11 More Weeks to go. Had my friend take some pics at "night" with a flash on a decent camera, not my typical POS pics with no zoom.

It's too early to predict weight, but I would love to get 5 oz's dried off these girls, seem doable? I don't think I will mess with CO2 yet, but I figure an oz per plant is pretty reasonable considering how long I veg'd them for.

 

[Ryknow]

Looks good! Im currently also growing SSH from clone. We went flower at 10" tall. Went from 20/4 400w MH to 12/12 400w HPS. She is growing by herself in a DWC 5 gallon bucket setup. And shes slightly more than 6 feet tall in the bucket. Massive massive massive. I probably wont grow it again.. to tall for my closet! But I have some nice indicas sprouting and veging from seed at the moment.

However, I got a chance to blaze some of the mother fruits.. AMAZING.

 

[SpruceZeus]

Thanks man,

Uh for cloning, I dunno. I don't want my next batch getting as big as these ones. So I think I'll wait a few weeks, I only have 1 flower room and 1 cloner/vegger, so if I took clones now, they would veg for a very long time. If I can cut off a few weeks from the veg process, they won't get soo big next time round.

First off, looking good, and sounds like your setup is only getting better too.

Now, If i can step in and offer some unsolicited advice, it would be to take clones earlier rather than later. If you're concerned about height, you can always top/fim and keep them low with more growing tips. In any event, you'll be better off with clones that have had a longer time to take root, bigger root system almost always=more bud.

Just my 2 cents.
Keep up the good work!

 

[robotninja]

Looks good! Im currently also growing SSH from clone. We went flower at 10" tall. Went from 20/4 400w MH to 12/12 400w HPS. She is growing by herself in a DWC 5 gallon bucket setup. And shes slightly more than 6 feet tall in the bucket. Massive massive massive. I probably wont grow it again.. to tall for my closet! But I have some nice indicas sprouting and veging from seed at the moment.

However, I got a chance to blaze some of the mother fruits.. AMAZING.

How do they smell man? Right now, I'll be honest there is little to no odor at all. I will probably take clone cuttings next weekend. If these girls take another 11-10 weeks to finish, that will let my next 6 clone's sprout roots for 3 weeks, then 8 weeks of vegetation and they can go into flower.

This being my first grow has taught me alot, but next round I wanna really go crazy on the supercropping/topping while in veg from a early age. I waited too long to top/supercrop em this time round, I won't make that mistake again.

I will install the screen really soon. But man that thing is gonna fill up quick with 5 plants. Once again, this is my first grow so I think I'm underestimating how difficult it's gonna be upkeeping a SCRoG type grow. But I have heard that SSH is a great plant to SCRoG, so it shouldn't be too difficult.

So you at least got to sample some SSH, very nice. I have never smoked it myself so I'm super stoked, hopeing the legends are true.

 

[jigfresh]

How do they smell man? Right now, I'll be honest there is little to no odor at all.

I know we are growing different strains, but mine still don't really smell at all either. It's been 5 weeks since the flowers first showed up. I don't think we are both doing anything wrong except expecting too much odor this early.

But man that thing is gonna fill up quick with 5 plants. Once again, this is my first grow so I think I'm underestimating how difficult it's gonna be upkeeping a SCRoG type grow.

It will. Seriously, if you listen to me on one thing, don't over fill the screen. Switch it too early if anything, it will cut down work, and you will get the same if not more bud if you do it right.

hopeing the legends are true.

They are... it's awsome.

Also, it's going to be great when all us first timers have another go round. Iron out all the bugs, fix up the grow rooms. We are the future farmers of america, haha.

 

[robotninja]

Yeah man, so far so good. But I'll admit it could be better, with Co2 of course and a better RO water filtration system in place. Also better Veg lighting couldn't hurt.

Gotta save up for Co2, stuff is expensive to setup. Maybe after this grow I'll have enough cash to burn.

This little operation is becomming expensive, but hey it's better than investing in a 401k, at least in the current market!

 

[onenumcat]

hey R-Ninja, your setup is looking really kool. I'd like to try something just like that!

but, I'll be sticking with soil for a few more grows, I think.
that is a bummer about those scorched plants. I hope they recover...did they recover?

thanks for the extra setup photos.
anyway, I got my camera back, so check out the pics!

here's a SSH for you...just began wk 8, flowering...each plant has about 6-10 colas, about a foot long or more. LST'd

 

[robotninja]

Very nice man, your plants look amazing! I hope my buds get that big, you still got a few more weeks to go eh? When you gonna flush? Is your SSH from Greenhouse Seed Co? I think mine are, but not positive.

I noticed there is some yellowing on some random leaves in your picture, is that from the flash on the camera or are they kinda yellow? Reason I ask is because my girls have a few random leaves that are turning a hint of yellow, but my PH is stable at 5.8, temps are perfect, humidity is in check. I'm running em at over 2,000 PPM's, no mites or bugs. Maybe SSH doesn't need alot of nutes and gets nute burn easily?

In any case I asked a few other growers about SSH and they all grew it in soil and claimed they had some random yellowing as well, but it didn't effect the grow. Might be the genetics of this strain?

Anywho I will change the res tommarow and go alittle weaker on the nutes, maybe 1800-1900 range and see if the yellowing stops. I wish my meter didn't max out at 2,000. I'v known some strains to handle 3,000+ nutes, but I don't think SSH likes high nutes.

At any rate the girls look fantastic! I'll try and borrow my freinds high res camera and get more pics. Till next time...

 

[onenumcat]

Very nice man, your plants look amazing! I hope my buds get that big, you still got a few more weeks to go eh? When you gonna flush? Is your SSH from Greenhouse Seed Co? I think mine are, but not positive.

I noticed there is some yellowing on some random leaves in your picture, is that from the flash on the camera or are they kinda yellow? Reason I ask is because my girls have a few random leaves that are turning a hint of yellow, but my PH is stable at 5.8, temps are perfect, humidity is in check. I'm running em at over 2,000 PPM's, no mites or bugs. Maybe SSH doesn't need alot of nutes and gets nute burn easily?

In any case I asked a few other growers about SSH and they all grew it in soil and claimed they had some random yellowing as well, but it didn't effect the grow. Might be the genetics of this strain?

Anywho I will change the res tommarow and go alittle weaker on the nutes, maybe 1800-1900 range and see if the yellowing stops. I wish my meter didn't max out at 2,000. I'v known some strains to handle 3,000+ nutes, but I don't think SSH likes high nutes.

At any rate the girls look fantastic! I'll try and borrow my freinds high res camera and get more pics. Till next time...

my plants were LST'd, several side branches are taller than the main stem. I think they just look so different than one grown regular. technically, 2 weeks to go, but I think mine will go 7-10days longer. I didn't get these seeds directly from GH, so I'm not sure which breeder they're from.

I don't have any random yellowing. only the bottom leaves get any yellow on the SSH. I think my 400w don't penetrate very well. my indicas are another story...more yellowing, random.

have you seen the GH video on YouTube for the SSH grow?
Youtube SSH Grow

that link is informative and pretty kool too

 

[robotninja]

[UPDATE - End of Week 3 Flower]
Got a few more pics up. End of my third week in flower and the bud sites have just exploded. They are everywhere, I did a bit of trimming to optimize light penetration.

For the most part they look pretty healthy, going to change the res this weekend and rev up the new batch of clones.

Still new to this whole SCRoG thing so we will see how it goes. I may have mounted the screen too high but I'v seen the YouTube Video of SSH and she keeps growing all the way up to the 11-12 weeks, I'm paranoid about heigh issues. Humidity is climbing with the density of the plants so I'm gonna have to get one or two more fans underneath the screen facing up (critical to SCRoG). And then possibly get a de-humidifier, but floating around 40-50% for now.

They are guzzling water, gotta fill the res couple times a week. Makes me want a RO system!

 

[NewHiddenGrower]

Hey ninja keep up the good work, im still watching.

What was your PPM on the first week of veg? because thats where im at right now. Also do you recommend me super cropping?