Girl Scout Cookies RDWC Scrog Grow

What's up everybody, back again with a new grow. This time I've decided to construct a whole new hydro system, essentially a home built undercurrent recirculating deep water culture. Talk about a pain in the ass to setup and get running trouble free! If the holes you have to cut in the grow buckets for the 2" uniseals aren't absolutely perfect they leak, and boy did I have some leaks to start out with, but a little bit of silicone later, and we are good to go. Now for my last go I was running a straight organic soil setup, however, this time around I've decided to head back to what I know best which is hydro.

On to the details! So my setup conists of my RDWC system with 4 grow sites and one reservoir, all connected via 2" PVC pipes, with a 1/2" return powered by a 250 GPH mag-drive pump. The system is constantly monitored by a Nutra-Dip Tri-Meter which gives me constant pH, PPM, and temp readouts. Up above I've got a 6" aircooled Raptor hood and 600W Digilux metal halide (as well as a 600W HPS for flower). As you can see in the picture below I also constructed a little flood table just in case I have a catastrophic flood anytime during the grow. The strain I will be growing is Cali Connection's Girl Scout Cookies (Thin Mint pheno). Super pumped that I was able to get my hands on these as they are supposed to be phenomenal. I will be running all Advanced Nutrients (pH Perfect Sensi Grow, VooDoo Juice, Big Bud, Bud Candy, pH Perfect Connoisseur, and Overdrive) for this grow.

Not yet constructed is the Scrog screen which will be placed 1' above the plants. Not sure how long the veg will take as I will top these girls twice and let em fill the screen out to around 70% before I switch to flower. Anyway, I'm really excited about this grow, yield should be epic, and providing I get it dialed in just right, quality should be fantastic! If anyone has any questions regarding how I setup my system or the methods I prefer to use just let me know, always happy to help out a fellow grower. Naturally, I will keep this thread going throughout the entire cycle so everyone out there can enjoy some good bud porn.

Nice, good luck!

Getting a little bit bigger!

Coming along nicely...

Now,I like that looks neat ! I want to see what happens. I also want to see how that scrog works,I don't have enough room for that yet.GL

Im very interested in seeing how this grow will go. Hard to find someone who is home growing Girl Scout Cookie. I heard the strain is a low yelider but of course produces gooood ass nugz

I have also heard that the strain is a low yielder but with some TLC, topping, and of course the eventual scrog that will be setup propbably in another week or so, I hoping that the yeild will be decent. That being said, even if the yield is not ideal, its gonna be some pretty epic head stash so I'm not too worried about it. Getting close to topping the largest of the three, she has really taken off recently. The small one is finally starting to catch up to the others, roots are finally coming outta the net pot and hitting the nutrient solution, took quite a while but I think she's good to go now! P.S. if anyone is thinking about upgrading their DWC system to a recirculating DWC system and have any questions let me know! I'm more than happy to share all the steps I took to make my system what it is today. Building a DIY undercurrent isn't that big of an undertaking, it just takes some patience and some thrifty shopping. Most stuff can be acquired at lowe's or home depot while the more specialized stuff like the nutra-dip tri-meter can be found on various hydroponics websites. I've found plantlightinghydroponics.com to be absolutely THE best online hydro store, but that's just me! I built my system for a fraction of the cost of a current culture, and honestly, it's practically identical. Just goes to show, if you're into this for real, DIY is the only way to go. Build to suit YOUR needs, and have a great time doing it. Anyway, enjoy the pics, I know they're nothing uber spectacular to look at just yet but they give you a good idea where this grow is headed.

I had a couple outdoor GSC plants this last season and they really bush out with many upon many main colas. I really liked the way it spread out and not upward. I recently set up an ebb and flow flood table and I have two GSC from seed and 5 purple urkle. I'm deff ready to see how these pull thru and keeping an eye to see how yours come out! Good luck!

I've got a couple Sin City Seed GSC crosses going, and also enjoy watching the various GSC grows I come accross. The RDWC is a bit of a change from organic soil, lol hope it goes well for ya. The setup looks real nice and clean, and I also love scrogs . Good luck with the Cali Connection gear I've read some REALLY mixed reviews regarding them, but I've never ran their gear so can't say much. Have you smoked actual GSC, I havn't be able to, I ask because it will be interesting to see how these plants turn out compared to the that if you or some of your friends have.

And we are topped! Just one plant so far, the others have a little catching up to do but they won't be far behind.

I have not yet had the opportunity to smoke true GSCs. I'm an east coaster so finding west coast specialities are few and far between. That being said, I've been smoking all my own gear for quite a while now (Ice, White Widow, Kandy Kush, Blue Cheese, Sage n' Sour, Pure Power Plant, some tasty and hard hitting strains, but nothing quite like what GSCs is supposed to be). Making the move back from organic soil to this specialized hydro setup was a no-brainer for me. Especially with a strain that isn't supposed to yeild massive amounts, DWC gets some of the absolute best growth rates if you have it dialed in correctly. The biggest issue I've had with prior hydro grows is over fertilization and pH issues, but now with that Nutra-dip tri-meter that I've got rockin that should take care of those issues as I can constatly monitor and make sure all my levels are suitable. As for the Cali Connection gear, I'm on the fence. The fact that I was able to get my hands on true thin mint phenos of GSCs is fuckin awesome, so that in itself makes me happy. However, there does seem to be a lack of consistency with the seeds. Of the 5, 2 died after they sprouted, and of the remaining three, one is a champ, another isn't far behind the champ, and the third, well, lets just say she's a wee little girl. The third one took a lot longer developing it's root system as compared to the other two but now they've all rooted into the nutrient solution so growth should be much more vigorous moving forward.

For a little more detailed info regarding the current grow... Currently I'm running at 6.3 pH (a little higher than would like but I ran out of pH down the other day, getting some more today to get it back to around 5.7 pH) 490 PPM (which might seem a touch high for plants as small as these but they're lovin life so I'm not gonna starve em), and the water temp is usually around 70F with the lights on and 64 with the lights out. As far acutal grow room temps go my Sentinel environmental controller that has max/min recall shows no higher than 72.5F with lights on and no lower than 64F during lights off. My 600W aircooled Raptor is roughly 20" above the tops, I could probably get it lower as my temps are ideal, I just don't want to put any undue stress on the girls.

Mint dude! I like the set up.

Thanks Khali, it took quite a while to get it set up just right but it's rockin now and I'm expecting great things in the near future! A little update for everybody. Topped the other two ladies last night! Also got my nutra-dip tri-meter all recalibrated and accurately displaying the correct levels. Probably gonna go ahead and set up the scrog screen this weekend at some point. The big girl has slowed down a bit since her topping but she seems to be handling it quite well and should bounce back within a few days. Last pic is the smallest of the girls, looks insignificant when compared to the others, but hey, every seed is different and ya never know what you're in for. Enjoy!

Another little update. Got the Scrog screen all setup. As you can see in the pics, the girls are a little on the lighter shade of green with some yellowing, nothing too serious and no burning which to me indicates that the 400 PPM I was running at was just a little too low and they weren't getting all the nutes they needed. I bumped up the PPM to around 1000 as they are in full veg now. I'll throw in some more pics later showing the strong growth of the side branches after the topping they received. Shouldn't be long now till they're back in full effect. I don't think I'm going to top them again, I was contemplating it, but as my screen is only like 40" x 35" and I have the three girls, I don't think I'm going to need any more tops.

I am however a little worried that my nutrient meter isn't calibrated correctly. Yesterday I picked up some 1500 PPM Hanna standard reference calibration solution which is rated at 1500 ppm @ 77 degrees F. What I did not realize before purchasing this is that with temperature fluctuations, PPM changes. So, as my nutrient solution is at roughly 62 degrees F (as well as was the reference solution) the standard reference solution is really more around 1320 PPM. I adjusted accordingly. End of the story is that I ordered the nutradip tri-meter 3-pack calibration solution off amazon with the hopes that it will be a little more explained on the how-to's of calibrating properly. Either way, I'm running around 1.5 mL per liter of Advanced Nutrients Sensi Grow A & B and some VooDoo Juice. So in reality, the girls should be able to handle this 1/4 strength solution. That being said, if anyone has any experience calibrating meters let me know as I remain a tad bit unsure if I did it properly!

Color is starting to come back, I settled at around 750 ppm, I think that's a good point for them to be at and they seem to be enjoying it!

I'm growing 2 GSCs also and I run around 650-700 ppm and the plants are loving it. They're just slightly bigger than the ones you have and boy have they been getting close to flipping. I grew the same strain outdoor this season and I've never seen so many main colas, not huge but tons of them, and it's personally my favorite strain to smoke. Keep the pics coming and hope all goes well!

Good to hear from someone else who's running the same thing as myself! I've been on the fence about what my levels should be at. If I were to go by the advanced nutrients calculator, even at like 1 mL per litre of water it was running at like 1500 ppm which I feel is just too high for veg. Anyway, after doing some research I've found that the consensus is that during veg, levels shoudn't really exceed 800-1000 ppm, that is unless you have an extremely heavy feeder. As you can see in the previous pics, I was running around 400-450 ppm and the plants were a little on the lime green / yellowish side of things. To me, that means deficiency so I bumped my levels up. They seem to have really taken off now (except for the little one on the right) and recovered from their topping. I'll take a close up shot later so you can see the multiple tops I acheived, it's pretty rad. The lateral growth has really increased quite a bit, the side branches are almost even with the topped main stem, I've tucked back the large fans to allow these branches to get optimal light so they can make their way on up to the screen. Current grow stats are: 5.8pH, 750 ppm, 67 degree nutrients solution temp. Growing from seed ain't the easiest way to go, considering the lengthy time it takes for the plant to grow from seedling to full on vegetative growth, but man am I looking forward to seeing what these girls can do!

Your plants are looking amazing right now. I saw that they were a little light colored and my first thought was because of the high ppm but if they're loving it than keep it where it's at. I started my two out as seeds and they're doing great, I ran the same strain outdoor and man do I love the smoke, favorite strain so far. I keep my ppm around 550-600 with ph around 6.0. I think I'm gonna flip mine this Friday or a week from today. I'll attach a pic so you can see em. My purple is trying to play catch up.

Looking good newby, those girls look like they're lovin life. I've never tried a flood table style grow before, looks like it's working out for ya pretty well! I wish I was a week away from flippin, it's gonna be a while for me, I wanna get that screen like 70% filled out before I induce flowering, and considering they haven't even reached the screen yet, I've got a litte while to watch em grow. Good to hear that the 550-600 ppm level is working out for you. I think it's so important to have solid info from someone else that's growin the same strain as myself. I'm thinking for my next go around I'm gonna cut my setup down to 2 buckets + 1 res. I think for my space (which is a 4x4 tent) while I could pack in 4 girls, I think the space would be better suited to 2 very large Scroged girls. There's some pretty impressive pics out there of very simple 2 plant scrogs that produce massive yields. Anyway, here's another pic of the biggest girl, you really see all the lateral growth starting to break through the canopy. Current stats - 5.7 pH, 760 PPM, 67 degree nutrient solution.

They surely are, I'm flipping them today. Just did a res change and got all my bloom nutes in there. That's a good idea, they'll be some monsters when you flip em. If you went down to 2 plants would you do like a 10 week veg? I'm also in a 4x4 with my set up and it gets kinda tight sometimes but not too bad. I think 4 is a pretty solid number for your space. They're looking great! Couple more weeks till you flip?