How To Setup An Indoor Cannabis Grow Tent – A [DIY] Guide by Reefertilizer

In this article, we are going to go over the basic grow tent setup for cannabis or any other vegetable or plant. Growing your own cannabis is an amazing experience, and using products like Reefertilizer can make it much simpler and foolproof.

I’m going to explain all the set up and tools required for a smell free and safe grow whether you’re growing one plant or twenty. Make sure to bookmark this page for future reference.

Now, let’s get started!

1 plant: a 2’x2’ grow tent will be sufficient and flourish with some cropping and low-stress training. A spacebucket is another option if you have very limited space available.

2 plants: a 3’x3’ grow tent will fit two small cannabis plants, like autoflowers.

3-4 plants: 4’x4’ should be good for 3-4 plants.

5-6 plants: 4’x6’, 4’x8’, or 5’x5’ sized grow tents will hold 5-6 plants.

10 or more plants: At this point you might want to build a dedicated growing room instead of a huge tent. The biggest tent I’ve seen is 8×8 feet on amazon.

Two Tent Setups: Since cannabis has two distinct growing phases controlled by lighting, some growers might opt for a veg tent and a flower tent. This opens up the possibility of a perpetual grow.

Draw up a diagram of your room and tents and think about how you want to arrange everything.

Keep in mind that these recommendations are given assuming that you are growing each of your plants to around “average” size.

If you are going to do a Sea of Green (SOG) or grow some really big plants, make sure you plan accordingly.

Once you know what size tent you need for the plants you want to grow, there are a few more things you should consider.

For one, don’t forget that the plants aren’t the only thing you need room for in your grow tent setup.

You also need to fit in grow lights (with enough distance between the lights and your plants’ canopy that the plant doesn’t get burned), ventilation equipment to keep air flowing and smells under control, and the tools you use in the grow room.

There are few options when it comes to light. Three of the most common light sources are fluorescent, sodium, and LED.

They each have their pros and cons when it comes to price, power usage, and energy emitted. All grow lights are trying to emulate the sun as much as possible. They will never come close to matching the energy of our sun, but they will be able to give plants enough energy for an impressive harvest.

Do your research to find out what’s best for you. You will want to use a timer for your lights to emulate the day and night cycle. This also eliminates the need for you to have to switch the light on and off twice a day. I’ve never met anyone who does that, but I figure everyone is a beginner at some point, and might not think to use a timer. The amount of light you need is directly related to the area squared of your tent.

The absolute minimum wattage per square foot is 30 watts, a more optimum level would be between 50 and 80 watts.

So let’s say your tent is 4′ x 2′, its area is 8″ squared.

8 x 30 watts = 240 watts.

So, 240 watts is the minimum light requirement for a tent that size. The amount of power your lights are emitting will have a direct impact on the amount of bud you plant will produce. The more lux, the bigger the buds.

• CFLs for gardening purposes are like the CFLs you’ll see overhead in a school or office building, but smaller. They’re cheap, efficient, and easy to find, but there are some downsides.

  For one, the light they emit is good for the vegetation stage, but isn’t sufficient during flowering. And, their relatively low power means your plants are going to have a small yield.

Extractor Fans For Max Airflow

Grow tent fan kits usually come in three sizes: 4″, 6″ or 8″ They also are rated by the amount of air they can move. This value is called CFM, which stands for Cubic Feet per Minute.

The size of your grow tent will determine the size requirement for your fan. To keep your plants healthy you will have to replace the entire volume of air in the tent once every minute. So you have to calculate the volume of your grow tent. That number will be your minimum CFM rating. A 4″ fan is rated around 200CFM A 6″ fan is rated around 440CFM A 8″ fan is rated around 740CFM So a 4′ x 2′ x 5′ tent would have a volume of 40 square feet. A 4″ fan would be perfect for a tent this size. Even though it can exchange much more air than the volume of your tent, this is ideal.

Your fan also helps cool down the environment inside the grow tent. Lights can generate a lot of heat, having a strong fan will help blow out the hot air. Your fan will likely be sucking air through a carbon filter inside your tent, this reduces the efficiency of the fan slightly, another reason for a strong extraction fan. Many fans have a speed control, giving you much more control raising or lowering the temperature of your grow tent.

Oscillating or standing fans

You will also want a blade fan to help move air inside your grow tent setup.

Cannabis plants absorb C02 from their leaves and will release oxygen from the bottom of their leaves. By moving this air with a fan you will allow more CO2 to be available to your plants. The rule of thumb with air flow is that you want to see your branches dancing, just like they would outside in nature.

Carbon Filter Set Up

If you don’t want your entire house or garage to smell like dank weed, a carbon filter for the grow tent’s air exhaust is a crucial part of equipment. This filter will be hung inside your tent and will be connected to your extractor fan. You will need to find the same size filter as your fan. You will need to connect some vent tubing to the filter and fan with and a worm clamp or some duct tape. Basically, your fan will be sucking air from inside your tent, through the carbon filter. Your fan then pushes the carbon scrubbed air outside. A carbon filter will last you several grows but after a while it loses efficiency and you might want to replace it.

Grow Tent Humidity Controls

Every tent should have a tool that measures the temperature and humidity.
Each phase of growth requires the tent to be within a certain range of temperature and humidity. Monitoring your heat and humidity are crucial to a successful crop. Large temperature leaps will slow your plant’s growth and stress them unnecessarily.

Depending on your geographical location, you will either need a humidifier or de-humidifier. You will want to keep your humidity levels at around 50% for your grow. Over the plant’s life, you will want to humidity to go from high to low.
Sprouts like high humidity around 70%.
For growing plants, it should be between 50% and 70%.
For flowering plants, 40% to 50% relative humidity is the optimum range.

Air humidity levels higher than 50% could facilitate mold or bud rot in the flowers.

Grow Tent Temperature Control

Temperature is another factor that will depend on your geographic location. You will want to keep the tent temperature between 19 and 29 degrees Celsius. By keeping it lower at night time it will help simulate the temperature drop in the evening outdoors. Sometimes a heater isn’t required, but if your tent is set up in a basement, it might get colder at night. Having a small heater with a thermostat that can turn on if the temperature drops under a certain value might be required.

Your lights will also produce heat. High-pressure sodium lights produce much more heat than LEDs. If your lights are raising the air temperature too much, you will have to increase your fan speed to help push out the hot air and suck in cooler fresh air. Having a temperature that’s too hot will stress your plants causing all sorts of problems like cat-tailing, and reduced potency.