Indoor Marijuana Culture - Tips & tricks for your in-house set up

Want to grow your own weed? DIY grow tents are easy to build and give you complete control over your plants' growing environment so you can produce top-tier bud! as you may know, the legalization of medical and recreational marijuana across several states has enabled many consumers to become accustomed to purchasing cannabis from a dispensary. Even more intriguing though is the opportunity that legalization has created for adults and medical patients to cultivate cannabis in their own homes.

The first step to setting up a grow room begins with finding a space that is out of the way with no traffic.

You will need to know how many plants you are planning on, what types of growing mediums you plan on using, the lighting that will be utilized and how to supply the electrical needs to the grow room(marijuana grow tent) are the important factors to consider. Having a well thought out plan will save you money and time.

Indoor growing relies on providing plants with light from artificial sources. There are several types of grow lamps available to choose from. Here is what you need to keep in mind before you make your choice.

The most cost-efficient solution for indoor grow lighting is CFL (Compact Fluorescent Lamp). Compared to MH (Metal-Halide) lamps, CFL lamps consume less energy, and you will also need to change bulbs less often. However, if you plan on having numerous rounds of crops per year, the difference may not necessarily be significant, especially since the use of MH lamps is much more beneficial to vegetating plants.

HPS (High Pressure Sodium) lighting, often chosen for flowering plants, provides a higher level of heat. This may or may not be an advantage depending on what your installation looks like; if your grow space is limited in terms of height, you may want to reconsider in order to ensure your plants will not suffer if too close to your lighting equipment.

If you would prefer to invest in something more expensive in order to secure functioning hardware that will not need replacing or upgrading for several seasons, LED (Light-Emitting Diode) lamps are a good way to achieve long-term savings. But beware! In this case, cheap is not necessarily a wise option. Read plenty of customer reviews before making your choice

Budget is one thing, but also ensure you will not be disappointed by your purchase. CFL is the basic option; consider it the “rice and beans” of grow lighting. Beyond this, you will need to seriously consider what type of quality you expect from the final product: LED is known as somewhat of a revolution in grow lighting, so assuming the product you choose is at least in the mid-range category, your seedlings would be guaranteed a proper light cycle that is actively beneficial to plants’ growth and health. A full spectrum LED grow light can help your plant better growth.

A reflector is a piece of equipment that bounces light emitted by your grow lamps towards your plants, as opposed to the (empty) sides of your grow space. It promotes brighter, more powerful lighting without any increase in consumption of electricity, or number of lamps/bulbs. Since we are aiming for a *basic* indoor grow setup, you may skip this step if  the number of plants grown is low and/or proportional to the total coverage of your basic lighting equipment.

Many a grower uses CFL or MH lamps during the vegetation period, and HPS lamps during the flowering period. This is a sound choice if your budget allows it. If it doesn’t, cater your hardware purchase for the flowering period, and use it during your plants’ entire lifecycle.

Certain types of setups certainly improve the quality of your harvest, but any kind of lamp will make your plants grow and produce buds.

So don’t be scared to start from the bottom: it will give you a point of reference for your future, more advanced indoor grow setups. It will also teach you the basics of tweaking said setup, and of troubleshooting. Regarding reflectors, this does not necessarily have to be a conscious choice: look for “veg lighting kit” and/or “flowering lighting kit” for complete packages.

There are three more important environmental factors you need to consider when you're managing your grow room; temperature, humidity, and CO2. Here are few climate manager tools you can use:

• Humidifiers


• Dehumidifiers


• Humidistat


• Thermometers


• Fans(inline duct fan)


• CO2 drips/CO2 generators

Temperature and humidity will vary significantly depending on the climate in your region.

CO2 should be the last of your concerns as a new grower. Industrial-scale grow operations may supplement CO2 once all other conditions are ideal or as close to ideal as possible. The most important things to do correctly as a new grower, are to establish sufficient ventilation, temperatures, and light conditions (amount of light and sealing the grow space from leaks), and to avoid over-watering and over-fertilizing.

If you are on a tight budget, this means you’ll want to prioritize your tent, lights, and set up ventilation fans/ducting and air conditioning if necessary. By the way, if you are a beginner, a marijuana grow kit may help you more.

It would be a good idea, after finalizing the grow room, to test out the climate inside your grow room for at least a couple of days, the temperature, humidity level and lights before you put your cannabis plants and start growing, and adjust accordingly. Lights are too hot, you can add a fan.

Adding fan however may cause dryness, and in that case you will need a humidifier. Trial and error until you get the optimal combination of lights, temperature and humidity.

At first, preferably, your temperature should range between 65 and 80°F (18 to 26°C). But as you start growing, each growing stage may need different temperature and humidity level.

Young plants, such as seedlings and cuttings (clones), will prefer higher temperature and humidity. As plants mature through vegetative and eventually flowering stages, they will prefer slightly cooler temperatures (rarely below 65 F) and lower humidity (rarely below 40% relative humidity).

If you plan to have many seedlings, such as for a sea of green setup, or a mother plant from which you will take many clones, you may want to consider a heating pad and/or aeroponic cloning setup.

The first thing you need is a room — an unused bedroom or closet does the trick. If you don’t have a suitable room, consider putting up a grow tent (or grow box) in an open space in your home, basement, or garage. You can buy a grow tent or build your own. Your grow room or tent must have the following features:

• Sufficient space for the number of plants and size of plants you want to grow. The space also must be tall enough to accommodate the plant height and hang a grow light far enough above the plant to prevent it from burning the plant. A three-feet square, six-feet tall area is sufficient for growing one or two plants.


• Light sealed. No outside light should penetrate the walls. If you close yourself into the room during the daytime or when lights are on in surrounding areas, the room should be pitch black inside. (This isn’t as important for auto-flowering strains.)


• White or reflective interior walls, floor, and ceiling. If the interior isn’t reflecting light, it’s absorbing it, which is a waste of light. You want all light to be reflected back into the room, so that your plants can absorb it.


• Floor drain or waterproof tray. You need something in place to catch anything that drains off from the plants.


• Openings for ventilation fans. The room needs at least two openings, typically one near the bottom at one end of the room and another near the top at the opposite end of the room.


• Outlets for plugging in lights or fans or an opening for power cords and other wiring.


• Some type of framework near the top for hanging the grow lights and other equipment.

At the risk of sounding like your mother, we encourage you to keep your grow room clean. A dirty grow room provides the ideal environment for bacteria, fungi, and pests. Here are a few guidelines for keeping your grow room clean:

• After each use, wash and disinfect plant containers, grow trays, irrigation hoses, and pumps. Use soap and water followed by isopropyl alcohol or a bleach solution (one part bleach to three parts water). Then, carefully rinse everything with plain water.


• Keep your grow room free of any dead plant mater and debris. This is where many pests and pathogens can get a foothold in a garden of healthy plants.


• Watch for common pests such as aphids, fungus gnats, spider mites, and thrips. If you see even one of these nasty critters, identify it and find an effective pesticide. This is where your friendly garden store or grow store staff comes in handy.