5x5 Closet, Hashberry, with SolarStorm 880

Hi all!
I'm starting my second indoor medical grow using the SolarStorm 880 from California Lightworks.
I plan to use just this light throughout the entire flowering cycle (if I can, it's stretching the recommended footprint of this light by a little bit, so I may supplement with 600W HPS during the later stages if necessary). I already grew one round of Sour Diesel, but the light didn't arrive until halfway through the flowering cycle, so not really a good test of its capabilities. I am participating in the Grower's Feedback Program through CLW (full disclosure). My last round didn't turn out as great as I hoped because I am still getting the room dialed in and purchasing more equipment as finances allow (not much).

The stats:

SOG style Medical Grow

The room is 5 feet by 5 feet square (or 1.524 meters by 1.524 meters - a large closet).

I am using a carbon filter in the room and a 6" inline fan connected to that, which sucks the scrubbed air into the bathroom.

I have an 8 inch by 8 inch intake cut low into the sheetrock, covered by a darkroom louvre, which has a carbon filter caulked to the inside. On the other layer of sheetrock (in the closet side), I have a 12 inch by 14 inch HEPA filter (the thin HVAC type) caulked to the sheetrock. I just added 3 PC fans to the outside of the louvre, which will hopefully provide better intake. Eventually I will probably either add another intake hole using the same system or enlarge this one as the temperatures tend toward the hot side.

I just acquired a dehumidifier, which I am running to keep humidity at +/- 50% (as little as possible as it generates a ton of heat - I generally run it during the dark period, which keeps the room at roughly the same temp during both periods).

I sprouted 50 Hashberry seeds under T5 HO lights about 2 months ago to the day, put them into flower a month ago, and just finished culling the males out. Very high number of females - 33 out of the 49 seeds that actually sprouted were female (67%), which is good on the one hand, but means it will be a little bit crowded (there are about 3 more plants than I can fit in the footprint I had planned). I will probably run them all through anyway unless some are just not looking very good in which case I will cull them or chop and clone to run in another round just to make sure it's not some environmental factor (e.g. roots got damaged in the transplant process).

I am growing them in 3 gallon fabric pots using Empire Builder soil from Sanctuary Soils.

I plan to give them (Advanced) nutrients only if necessary (as per Mandala Seeds' instructions), and this is a fast flowering strain. They should be finished around July 26th (round 1), and August 2nd (Round 2), as I staggered flowering/sexing a good portion of them because they were lagging behind in growth.

I just finished building a platform for the plants to sit on, which will measure 60 inches long and 50 inches wide (it's actually 48, but I am going to fudge it out from the wall a little bit to get the extra space). The tarp is supposed to get delivered tomorrow. The pots are 10 inches across, so I should just be able to cram 30 plants in there, and will probably rotate some of the taller ones out to a little spot off the platform where they can still get decent light. I may just expand the plaform to cover the entire room, but I haven't decided yet. Right now the dehumidifier can just roll in the doorway, and I can set the fan up on one side of the 10 inch walkway along the door side of the closet.

CLW just sent me a new SolarStorm 880, because the blue and white lights in one of the panels burnt out.

I'll get some pics of the room when I'm installing the platform. For now, here are some pics of the ladies as they grew up.

5x5 said:

Hi all!
I'm starting my second indoor medical grow using the SolarStorm 880 from California Lightworks.
I plan to use just this light throughout the entire flowering cycle (if I can, it's stretching the recommended footprint of this light by a little bit, so I may supplement with 600W HPS during the later stages if necessary). I already grew one round of Sour Diesel, but the light didn't arrive until halfway through the flowering cycle, so not really a good test of its capabilities. I am participating in the Grower's Feedback Program through CLW (full disclosure). My last round didn't turn out as great as I hoped because I am still getting the room dialed in and purchasing more equipment as finances allow (not much).

The stats:

SOG style Medical Grow

The room is 5 feet by 5 feet square (or 1.524 meters by 1.524 meters - a large closet).

I am using a carbon filter in the room and a 6" inline fan connected to that, which sucks the scrubbed air into the bathroom.

I have an 8 inch by 8 inch intake cut low into the sheetrock, covered by a darkroom louvre, which has a carbon filter caulked to the inside. On the other layer of sheetrock (in the closet side), I have a 12 inch by 14 inch HEPA filter (the thin HVAC type) caulked to the sheetrock. I just added 3 PC fans to the outside of the louvre, which will hopefully provide better intake. Eventually I will probably either add another intake hole using the same system or enlarge this one as the temperatures tend toward the hot side.

I just acquired a dehumidifier, which I am running to keep humidity at +/- 50% (as little as possible as it generates a ton of heat - I generally run it during the dark period, which keeps the room at roughly the same temp during both periods).

I sprouted 50 Hashberry seeds under T5 HO lights about 2 months ago to the day, put them into flower a month ago, and just finished culling the males out. Very high number of females - 33 out of the 49 seeds that actually sprouted were female (67%), which is good on the one hand, but means it will be a little bit crowded (there are about 3 more plants than I can fit in the footprint I had planned). I will probably run them all through anyway unless some are just not looking very good in which case I will cull them or chop and clone to run in another round just to make sure it's not some environmental factor (e.g. roots got damaged in the transplant process).

I am growing them in 3 gallon fabric pots using Empire Builder soil from Sanctuary Soils.

I plan to give them (Advanced) nutrients only if necessary (as per Mandala Seeds' instructions), and this is a fast flowering strain. They should be finished around July 26th (round 1), and August 2nd (Round 2), as I staggered flowering/sexing a good portion of them because they were lagging behind in growth.

I just finished building a platform for the plants to sit on, which will measure 60 inches long and 50 inches wide (it's actually 48, but I am going to fudge it out from the wall a little bit to get the extra space). The tarp is supposed to get delivered tomorrow. The pots are 10 inches across, so I should just be able to cram 30 plants in there, and will probably rotate some of the taller ones out to a little spot off the platform where they can still get decent light. I may just expand the plaform to cover the entire room, but I haven't decided yet. Right now the dehumidifier can just roll in the doorway, and I can set the fan up on one side of the 10 inch walkway along the door side of the closet.

CLW just sent me a new SolarStorm 880, because the blue and white lights in one of the panels burnt out.

I'll get some pics of the room when I'm installing the platform. For now, here are some pics of the ladies as they grew up. View attachment 3189094 View attachment 3189095 View attachment 3189096 View attachment 3189098 View attachment 3189099 View attachment 3189101

Click to expand...

Sick set up, efficient use of the tent. Well done, subscribed this ones gonna be good

Finally got some time for an update.
These babies finish really fast!
I'm gonna start with some photos of the initial set up in the closet.







Having some issues with upload.

They seem to be coming along nicely. I am actually going to harvest them any day now (probably this coming weekend). As a testament to the power of this light, I got the SS880 as close as 14 inches from the canopy, and I got light bleaching on some of the tops. I have since moved the light to the recommended minimum 20 inch distance. This comfortably covers my small number of plants.
I actually started out with a "full load" of plants, but someone had an emergency so I donated ten of them to the cause, leaving me with twenty plants, which take up about 4 feet by 3.5 feet.
I only started giving them nutrients on 7/16 when I first noticed some yellowing of the leaves.
7/16 - fed .7 EC, 32L Connoisseur
7/18 - still looked thirsty, so fed an additional 16L plain water. Had some runoff at that point.
7/24 - fed .7 EC, 32L, Connoisseur plus Carboload. Had some runoff.
Despite two rounds of nutrients, the yellowing is still creeping up the plants on which it had begun, and is beginning in a couple more. I'm pretty sure this is just the natural dying off of the fan leaves at the end of flowering. I could try giving them stronger nutrient mixes, but I had good results outdoors with this strain using the same nutrients at the same strength (as recommended by the seed bank).
One of my complaints about the LED's is that they take poor photos because of the purple hue it gives everything. Your eyes can adjust when working near them, but the camera does not. I don't have a "normal" spectrum work light in the closet atm, so you'll have to bear with me and the photos being purple.

The room from above.

Closeup of one of the ones closest to fully ripe.


Some light bleaching. This one is also close to totally done already. The leaves are almost all yellow at this point. I would chop now, but I think I am just going to split the difference and do them all at once. Some will be quite ripe, some right at the day that Mandala says they should finish, because I staggered flipping them into 12/12 by a week.

Another example of light bleaching.

Some final notes:
I will definitely be letting this strain grow taller in veg next time. They barely doubled in height since I flipped them, and there is almost no branching. For SOG, this is not a bad thing, but I will now have to re-veg them in order to get clones for a new round. I will give a final height on them when I chop them, but I would say almost all stayed under 18 inches. Some have stayed under 16 inches, hardly growing at all since flipping them. I feel like if those were a little bit taller before flipping, they would have produced better.

Live and learn, but remember any harvest is good harvest...good luck on your next grow and enjoy...I just bought a solar storm 880 when 2 of my 3 mh/hps ballasts decided to crap out.......MANY THANKS (NOT) TO VIRTUAL SUN HYDROPONICS....a piss poor excuse of a company, they didn't answer my email for almost 3wks these lights had less than 30 days of use...I had my solar storm in 5days from ordering thank goodness.