1800w ~ Chemdog & Sensi Star ~ SCRoG

[NIMMAJEKAJ]

Well hello everyone
I want to log some grows and thought what better place then ICMag...

I'm a newer grower that has done a LOT of reading...
So this legal grow is my 4th or 5th run, and it's going to be an 8 plant SCRoG..


Chamber:
1800w MH/HPS Digital (three 600w)
Three 400cfm inline blowers
6,100K BTU Window A/C
Hydrofarm 45 pint dehumidifier
Hydrogen Pro Co2 generator
Sentinel CHHC-4 environmental controler

8 of the 7gal buckets filled with a mix of Coco Coir, Perlite, and Hydroton, all mixed to equal parts.

Basically I took a 7gal bucket of Coco Coir, a 7gal bucket of Perlite, and a 7gal bucket of Hydroton, then mixed them all together. What that gave me was an extremely fast draining medium, which I'll be using synthetic organic nutrients, and treating it as a hydro top feed system.

So, each 7gal bucket's bottom is filled with 1/4" holes, and each bucket is put into a 5gal bucket that has a 3/4" ebb&flo fitting in it for drainage, and then recovery. I will be recovering, topping off, adjusting the tds & pH, and then reusing the nutrients.

Each runoff recovery bucket's use gravity to drain into a reservoir which is below in the basement..
All the sites are being hand watered 1gal of nutes every 9hrs and runoff is about 40%...
Every 30 days each site will be flushed with about 20gal of tap water (128ppm @ 6.8)...


VEG Nutrients:
Heavy 16 VEG
Organic B1
Orca
Rapidstart
Cannazym (because this is the 4th time I've used this medium)
Nirvana

After the seedling week, I started veg with 500ppm (700 scale) and @ 5.6 pH
The runoff (40% fast draining system) was around 300ppm @ 6.1.

Second week of veg they got 800ppm @ 5.6 pH...
Runoff was around 500ppm @ 6.2...


They're starting their 3rd week of veg and I'm feeding 1000ppm @ 5.8 pH...
Runoff is around 750ppm @ 6.4...



Started VEG 7 days after breaking ground

8 Days VEG

14 Days VEG

Current Environment:
Day Temp: 80-82*f
Night Temp: 73-76*f
Humidity: 55-60%
Co2: 1500-1800ppm


Just tonight I noticed some rust on the leaves, and the reason for the pH bump up..
I'm also going to add 1 teaspoon of Epson Salt per gallon of nutrient to bump up the magnesium level...

I still need to get the netting on the SCRoG frame and get it screwed down to the floor...
The netting is lacrosse netting which has 1-1/2" holes...

 

[NIMMAJEKAJ]

Oh sorry, I'm stoned out, here is the chamber itself......
The SCRoG screen is going to be 3' x 10'

 

[Born Loser]

clean/pro looking setup! Nice plants too.
Cant wait to see it happen..

Do it up!

 

[NIMMAJEKAJ]

16 Days Veg......

Heavy 16 VEG
Organic B1
Orca
Nirvana
Rapidstart
Cannazym
Epsom Salt


1050ppm (1.5ec) @ a 5.8 pH.
Runoff 800-850ppm (1.1 to 1.2ec) @ 6.2 pH

 

[SoulSurfer]

WOW

WOW

Teach me your ways, master. LOL. Beautiful grow man. Perfect conditions to the MAXXXXXX. I'm jelly I only got like 300wLED right now >_<. Very nice, I will be tuned it. Namaste. 5 Stars for awesomeness.

 

[Snype]

I'm always interested in watching a documented Chemdog grow. Good luck with the grow!

 

[NIMMAJEKAJ]

Thanks guys

Glad to have ya all around (manly group )...

And yep Snype, I'm excited about doing Chemdog under a screen...
I've run it as lollipops but in my opinion Chemdog needs to be done in a vertical grow or under a screen if you're running all top light..
So I'm really looking forward to seeing it grow under the screen....


I'm only able to have a 7' x 11' x 8' bedroom for the next year or so...
So I figure that I'll just play a little in this small area for the next year, like with the 33% coco/perlite/hydroton mix, until we move from here...


Then we will go vertical open bulb....
Well in the wintertime anyway... lmfao

 

[OldLuck]

Looking very good, I would hate to be the one in charge of feeding every 9 hrs.lol You are knocking it out the park so far.

 

[NIMMAJEKAJ]

Looking very good, I would hate to be the one in charge of feeding every 9 hrs.lol You are knocking it out the park so far.

I know, it goes against just about everything we've known about coco growing.. lol
But in my mind, even though it's 33% coco, it's hydroponics, because 66% of the medium drains off rapidly..

Well the perlite retains some water and more so than the hydroton does..

I want to be able to use brew teas and still get the growth rates of say a bubble bucket, or close to it anyway...
What I'm finding, even though the organics are synthetic, the plants are booming, and pretty dam close to my hydroponic growth rates.
So I'm trying to use the coco so I can incorporate more organics for better flavors, while getting back some of the growth rates which in my personal opinion, organics fall flat on the yield itself... Kick ass in flavor, but the yields are ALWAY less over hydroponics...


So I'm just playing to see if I can get the two as close as possible, use organics and treat it more as a hydroponic system...

 

[NIMMAJEKAJ]

Unbelieveable Growth rates from Chemdog

Unbelieveable Growth rates from Chemdog

The growth rates from Chemdog is shocking... lol


17 Days Veg from seed and 12-14"es tall already....
The screen is set to 10" off the tops of the buckets, and the medium starts 2" below the rim...

Chemdog............. Into the screen already..

Sensi Star............ All 4 of them are the mostly Indica phenotype, I was hoping for at least 1 Sativa pheno... NOT...

They're still about 4-5" away from the screen, so I think I'm going to put the Chemdog on the outsides of the screen, and the 4 Sensi Star in the middle, then shorten the middle legs so the screen is 8" off the containers in the middle...




Nutrient feeding has not changed.....

Heavy 16 VEG
Organic B1
Orca
Nirvana
Rapidstart
Cannazym
Epsom Salt


1050ppm (1.5ec) @ a 5.8 pH.
Runoff 850-900ppm (1.2 to 1.3ec) @ 6.2 pH

I see no further rust spots on the Chemdog, so the bump in magnesium with the Epson Salt cured the issue..
And I used 1/2 teaspoon per gallon of nutrient that should have given me around a 15% bump in magnesium levels....

The Sensi Star is not liking all the magnesium so I'm going to have to mix 2 different soups for both strains...
One with the bump in magnesium for Chemdog and one without for Sensi Star....

 

[GreenPrincess]

Nice!

Nice!

I'm excited to watch this...

New grower,
GP

 

[Snype]

And yep Snype, I'm excited about doing Chemdog under a screen...
I've run it as lollipops but in my opinion Chemdog needs to be done in a vertical grow or under a screen if you're running all top light..
So I'm really looking forward to seeing it grow under the screen....

I don't completely agree with your statement. I grow my ChemDD with reflectors with lights above the plants. I would say it has more to do with the height of the plants. If you are growing taller plants then I agree with your statement because Chemdog really wants intense light and with taller plants the light can't penetrate the canopy and give the mids and bottoms the intense light that Chemdog needs. That leads to nice dense top buds and less dense mids and bottoms but the quality is still there. I would say that if you had 36" plants or less, light above the plants would be fine for top quality dense nugs if you were using 1000's and your other environmental factors were in line. Because I grow 55" bushes, for every 2,000 watts of horizontal lighting, I add 2 x 600 watt bare bulb vertical per side. The bare bulbs don't stay on for the full 12 hours of flowering. The first row comes on for 4 hours and when those shut off the next row turns on and so on. This additional lighting is to dense up the mids and bottoms more without wasting more watts than I have to.

 

[NIMMAJEKAJ]

I don't completely agree with your statement. I grow my ChemDD with reflectors with lights above the plants. I would say it has more to do with the height of the plants. If you are growing taller plants then I agree with your statement because Chemdog really wants intense light and with taller plants the light can't penetrate the canopy and give the mids and bottoms the intense light that Chemdog needs. That leads to nice dense top buds and less dense mids and bottoms but the quality is still there. I would say that if you had 36" plants or less, light above the plants would be fine for top quality dense nugs if you were using 1000's and your other environmental factors were in line. Because I grow 55" bushes, for every 2,000 watts of horizontal lighting, I add 2 x 600 watt bare bulb vertical per side. The bare bulbs don't stay on for the full 12 hours of flowering. The first row comes on for 4 hours and when those shut off the next row turns on and so on. This additional lighting is to dense up the mids and bottoms more without wasting more watts than I have to.

Yep, I agree, but I only use 600w lamps because watt for watt they produce more lumen, and run cooler.
So I'm left with about 24" of penetration before the PAR simply drops off low enough where the light is really not usable.

Well Chemdog is at least a 5' plant, most of the time 6' +...
I first lollipop'ed them and got nice coke bottle buds, but I wanted to improve yield, so I tried LST, which worked great, but then the buds were so heavy the LST'ed stems could not hold the weight, and then I ended up with strings all over the place tying up the buds so they do not supercrop themselves...

Then I tried just let them grow on their own, no LST, or Lollipop, and everything 28" below the tops ended up being used for oil extraction.
So it's just a personal opinion, I just think Chemdog grows too tall unless you're running secondary lighting, which I'm not...
Or a vertical open bulb.....


Like Greenhouse Seeds, sure the video says it was grown under a 600w, but they do not say how much secondary lighting they're pushing inside their chambers, because I'm SURE their chambers are not just running 600w per chamber.. Stick a plant in a 3x3 with just a 600w and you'll get maybe 30" of useable bud, after that, the bud is just to lose for my taste... So the Greenhouse Seeds plants are getting secondary light from the other hanging bulbs and I bet their secondary lighting PAR is way up there too...



I have all the equipment to do it, I just do not have the space...
We're working on building a house now and plan to have it completed by Oct. 2014

 

[NIMMAJEKAJ]

20 Days Veg

20 Days Veg

20 days Veg
I rearranged the plants under the screen yesterday and Chemdog is filling the screen, but Sensi Star is just reaching it...
Again the screen is 10" from tops of the buckets and 12" from soil line..


Nutrient Change......

Heavy 16 VEG
Organic B1
Orca
Rapidstart
Cannazym
Stopped feeding the mycorrhizae with the Nirvana and dropped the magnesium boot with the Epson Salt.

1050ppm (1.5ec) @ a 5.8 pH.
Runoff 750-850ppm (1.1 to 1.2ec) @ 6.2 pH
Watering 2 times a day and the 8 plants are using about 4gal water/nutrients per day..


3 of the Chemdog (veg day 20 from seed) are around 16-18" tall, and the 4th one is 12" (just hitting the screen).
3 of the Sensi Star (same 20 day veg) are about 10" and the 4th is about 8-9" tall...



I'll start flowering in 10 more days is the screen is not filled before then...

 

[NIMMAJEKAJ]

25 Days VEG

25 Days VEG

OK, it's 25 Days Veg and I totally was not expecting the growth rates of Chemdog..
I was hoping to get a 30 day veg out of them before flowering, but looking at this screen, I better flower now or the screen is going to become over full, and hurt the yield almost as much as under full... Like with the Sensi Star side of the screen... lol

Sensi Star is not that good for SCRoG, unless coming from clones, but straight from seed like I did, personally I would not do it again...


Hard to get height measurements under the screen... BUT.......
If I had to guess, Chemdog is around 28" and Sensi Star is about 16-18"es..




Nutrient Change for Flowering......

Heavy 16 BUD (basic NPK nutrients)
Organic B1 (Vitamins B1, B3, B5, and B7)
Orca (concentrated liquid mycorrhizal)
Nirvana (this contains a whole list of organic compounds, and in my personal opinion, Nirvana or Liquid Karma is an essential)
Rapidstart (is just a basic rooting hormone containing plant extracts and amino acids)
Cannazym (enzymes which aid in breaking down of matter again in my opinion, essential to growth rates)
Sweet (is just that... a few different forms of sugars and supplies carbohydrates to the plants and mycorrhizal)
Silica Blast (silica is used by plants strengthen cell walls and also does SO MUCH MORE for your plants)
Bud X Factor (the active ingredients are Chitosan and Salicylic Acid, also contains a Harpin Protein, and what these elements do is trigger the plant's Systematic Acquired Resistance)


WTF is Systematic Acquired Resistance you ask?????
There are many, many, many Scholarly Articles for systemic acquired resistance which have been wrote over the years......
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q...a=X&ei=BaX-UeDRGOffyQGJsoC4Cg&ved=0CCsQgQMwAA

In short, the Systematic Acquired Resistance (SAR) is triggered and promoted in plants through a complex series of reactions. This Resistance is elicited through the foliar and/or root zone application of a variety of additives which create a phantom pathogen invasion - a sort of alarm signal is then sent throughout ALL of a plant’s cells. This alarm heightens the natural defenses; creating defensive enzymes, antibiotics, proteinase inhibitors...In the process it actives oxygen, increases growth hormones, increases nutrient uptake, and in general speeds up a plant’s metabolism. This response is because the plant is preparing for an attack. ..This phantom enemy does NO harm to the plant, and we the growers reaps the benefits of the plant's heightened internal systems.


Now why Silica????
There is a very good write up about Silica, how, and why it's needed by plants...
http://aob.oxfordjournals.org/content/100/7/1383.full
Silica plays a vital role in the health and well being of the cannabis plant, it has been well documented by botanists and materials scientists alike, so the use of silica is not my personal opinion, and yet another essential for the health of your plants....



Going to start the flowering with the following levels....
1050ppm (1.5ec) @ a 5.8 pH.
Water 2 times a day with one gallon of nutrient per plant..



25 Days Veg........................... (screen is 12" from soil line)

Starting Flowering tonight after a 25 day veg.....

 

[NIMMAJEKAJ]

 

[VolcanicDirt88]

yea buddy keep up the good work what is your feeding schedule since its 66 percent hydro