I love almost every aspect of growing cannabis, but my least favorite part is testing the pH of runoff water (to prevent deficiencies). Enter hydroponics. In a “DWC” (deep water culture) hydro tub like this one, pH is the easiest part of growing. You just dip a PH Pen in the water, and you’re done.

Growing cannabis in hydro is surprisingly easy when you start plants right.

Yet it’s the results of growing cannabis in hydroponics that makes you feel like a “mad scientist”. This outrageous Purple Ghost Candy plant approached a pound by itself.

My favorite part of growing weed in a big hydro tub is how little time and work it takes from day to day. In some ways, it takes even less work than “just add water” soil because you don’t need to water plants every few days, and testing the pH is faster and easier.

A quick peek “under the hood” of a DWC hydroponic reservoir. Look at those roots!

Learn how to grow cannabis in a hydro tub like this (step-by-step tutorial).

For those who are already growing hydro (or want to start), here are some insider secrets from an experienced hydroponic cannabis grower. These tips prevent common problems in hydro, while saving you significant time and effort.

7 Secrets to Healthy Cannabis Plants in a DWC Hydro Tub

If you’re thinking about growing cannabis in hydro, or perhaps you already have, this section will make all the difference for you. Simply follow these suggestions and you’ll avoid 99% of the issues cannabis hydroponic growers run into.

1. Leave the roots alone – Don’t touch the roots, especially when they’re babies and the roots still look “feathery” and fragile. If you touch them or pick up the lid and move them around, they can easily twist up, which kills the roots below the twist point. When the roots look thick and sturdy, they’re way less sensitive and won’t twist anymore.
2. Don’t change the water for first 30 days, or at least not until plants have solid looking roots. Pumping out and replacing all the water (or otherwise disturbing the roots) is one of the most common triggers of root rot (dying roots), especially with plants under 30 days old. At first, just top off with new water to maintain the proper water level.
3. Use a root supplement – I personally use Hydroguard. This adds “good” microorganisms to the water that not only protect roots from pathogens or root rot, but also just helps them be more healthy overall. Hydro growers without a root supplement are way more likely to run into issues with unhealthy roots.
4. Don’t let light beam onto the tub or get into the reservoir. Both the light and the heat cause things to grow. If you see anything green growing in the reservoir, chances are light is getting in. Cool, totally dark hydroponic reservoirs are the best performing reservoirs.
5. Don’t let roots live in heat. The plant itself can be as hot as any plant, but without the protection of soil, if you heat up the water the roots get hot, and plants don’t like hot roots. If you happen to be an outdoor grower in the sun, if you have potted cannabis plants, put them into an even bigger pot. The extra layer of air between the roots and the sun’s beams makes plants much much more resistant to heat and overall stress.
6. Keep an air gap (don’t fill the reservoir too high) – Make sure there is an air gap under the net pot. This greatly increases root health. The air bubbles will be bursting, so that the roots are constantly getting a mist of water. But if you fill the reservoir so that it’s actually touching the net pots, it causes roots to get unhealthy, and then the base of the stem starts rotting.
7. Pump in plenty of bubbles – Hydro growers use an air pump with airstone to pump tons of bubbles into the water reservoir. This is key to root health as roots need oxygen to survive. It also fights pathogens like algae. I use an Eco Air 2 with 3/16″ ID tubing to connect to a large airstone to provide tons of air for up to two reservoirs.
8. Manage the pH (5.5 – 6.5) to prevent deficiencies. Learn how to check and adjust the pH. Make sure to get a pH pen so you can stick it straight in the reservoir and immediately know the pH. I use an Apera A1209 pH pen (it’s very accurate, measures the pH in seconds, and only needs to be calibrated every few grows). But even the cheapest pH Pen works well as long as you calibrate it regularly. One of my favorite things about growing in hydro is that it’s so easy to test and adjust the pH compared to soil or coco. I don’t particularly enjoy testing the pH in soil and coco (you need to test the input, the runoff, etc.) But with hydro testing the pH takes 1 second, is more accurate, and makes me feel like I’m doing science.

Roots are fragile at first, especially when they still look like “feathers”. Don’t move them like this grower did, or roots might get sick.

But once roots ‘harden” they’re extremely tough. You can move them around and they won’t even notice.

If you see green roots, it usually means light is getting into the reservoir. In this case, the lid was so thin it was letting in light. The grower covered the top of the lid with aluminum foil, and light stopped getting to the roots.

Make sure your air pump is making tons of bubbles in the water!

How to Make Hydro Life Even Easier

Here are some bonus tips and tricks to make your life as a hydro grower easier.

Make it easy to move water (Save your back!)

I never pick up my water container. It sits in front of the tent. I use the hose from the bathroom sink to fill it up, add nutrients, then use a water transfer pump to pump it into the reservoir.

• Faucet hose adapter – Stop lugging water around! Get a hose faucet adapter to use a garden hose from the faucet to get water to your grow space.
• Water transfer pump – Use a battery-powered water transfer pump to get your water from in your container to your reservoir. These are also awesome for watering plants directly at the roots (way better than a watering can!).

Use a faucet hose adapter to get water from your sink to your grow space.

Then use a water transfer pump to get water into the reservoir. Never carry water again!

Never worry about spills

• Grow in a grow tent, because they have a waterproof tray at the bottom which can hold many gallons of water. That means if something happens and there’s a spill, none of it will get on your floor. Bonus: if you get a grow tent you can also control smells and you get bigger yields because reflective walls bounce more light onto your plants

10-Gallon Tub or Bigger

For your hydroponic reservoir, use a tub that’s at least 10 gallons or bigger. Considering that you have to leaves several inches of air under the lid, a 10-gallon container holds about 5 gallons of water, which gives the roots tons of room to expand, and you won’t need to add water very often.

A 10-gallon tub or bigger makes your life way easier

• Faster-growing plants and healthier roots
• PH and nutrient levels tend to stay more stable
• Fill up the reservoir less often

Curious to learn more? Let me go a bit deeper into why I recommend bigger tubs for your hydro cannabis plants.  Specifically, some of the most popular DWC hydro kits sell you 5-gallon buckets, which can only hold about 2.5 gallons of water, and that’s before your roots get big enough to start displacing the water.

Why a bigger hydro tub instead of pre-made DWC buckets?

When you have the black buckets, they don’t hold enough water, plus you can’t easily test the pH. So you have to take a sample of water from within the bucket, which often involves moving the roots, which you want to avoid if possible

Big hydro DWC tubs like this don’t take much time or maintenance.

In the hydro tub you can easily adjust the pH without moving the plant. You simply need a second port to access the reservoir. That lets you look at the roots, take samples, use your PH or PPM pen, add or remove water, make adjustments, etc. WITHOUT ever having to move the plant.

Extra ports make it easy to check on roots and access water without moving the plant.

Cannabis plants in 5-gallon DWC buckets tend to produce less weed overall. But the real issue is that they don’t hold much water, and by the time plants get bigger, growers often find themselves refilling the buckets daily (or even more often!) to keep the plant from drinking themselves dry.

Cannabis plants in buckets tend to stay smaller.

But the main headache for a cannabis grower is that a 5-gallon hydro bucket doesn’t hold much water and needs to be refilled constantly. There is also no way to easily access the reservoir without having to move the whole plant, and moving roots on a plant is one of the most common triggers for root rot, especially younger plants before their roots “harden”.

This grower moved these plants to bigger tubs because they were drinking the entire reservoir of water in hours.

But don’t these buckets hold 5 gallons? Isn’t that enough?

Even though these are “5 gallon buckets” they cannot be filled to the top. You need to keep the water levels several finger widths below the bottom of the net pot. Then the roots themselves displace the water so you can add even less.

As a results, you can often only add a few gallons of water to these buckets, especially as the roots get bigger.

Check this picture: Notice that the list with the “basket” (called a “net pot”) goes deep into the bucket, and then you have to leave an air gap below that. That doesn’t leave much space for water.

You can only fill up a 5-gallon with a few gallons of water if you want to leave an air gap under the net pot for the fastest, healthiest growth.

10-gallon tubs hold up to 5 gallons of water at a time.

All that root space lets you grow monster DWC cannabis plants!

This Purple Ghost Candy plant produced almost a pound in hydro under a HLG Diablo 350.

But can you grow cannabis plants in little hydro tubs?

Yes, just make sure you can access the reservoir, and keep plants to an appropriate size (not too big).

But just remember, the bigger the tub, the easier your life will be. The smaller the tub, the more time you spend tending to the plants, on average.

Sirius grew this plant in a tiny reservoir under a Spider Farmer 100W LED grow light.

But by harvest, the plant was drinking so much he had to add more water every morning and night.

The small root space, and an early switch to 12/12, ensured the plant stayed small.

A fun project!

Ready to start growing hydroponic weed the DWC way? Check out the full tutorial!

The post Why Hydro Feels Like Cheating (Plus 7 Tips) appeared first on Grow Weed Easy.

GrowWeedEasy.com teaches you how easy it is to grow weed. Growing weed can be easy when you know what to do, but most “how to grow marijuana” tutorials make it seem like you need a degree in horticulture.

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Even first-time growers produce great harvests when they follow our tutorials.

Who Made GrowWeedEasy.com?

Grow Weed Easy.com was started in 2010 by home growers Nebula Haze and Sirius Fourside. Together, they built a free online “encyclopedia of cannabis home grow” with 650+ expert home cannabis cultivation tutorials about every aspect of growing weed.

GrowWeedEasy.com is now the biggest and most comprehensive source of free home grow information in the world.  We show you how easy it is to grow your own marijuana at home.

The GrowWeedEasy.com Ethos

Our Goal: You grow as much top-shelf weed as possible, with as little time and effort needed to grow your desired yields and cannabis bud quality.

Whether you’re a total beginner who wants to start growing cannabis indoors for the first time, or an experienced grower who wants to upgrade your skills to Pro level, this website was built for you.

Looking for a complete harvest system?

If you want dense, beautiful, great-smelling weed, our new digital book gives you our complete harvest system. Follow the straightforward instructions and massively upgrade your results every harvest. A few small changes can make all the difference.

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🌟 $200 Off Special Offer: Enroll today in Home Grow Masterclass!

If you’re reading this right now, you want to grow great cannabis at home.

Cannabis plants isn’t a regular house plant, but learning how to grow isn’t as complicated growers make it seem. We’ve spent the last 16 years breaking down the home grow process so anyone can learn it.

The key to consistent harvest results is simple: follow a proven system developed for home growers.

You could waste an entire grow learning through trial and error…

Or take the shortcut and harvest a sea of fat, dense, beautiful buds that smell great. At home!

Follow our 5-week course and get walked through each part step-by-step. Build by experienced home growers and honed with hundreds of students since 2019, we ensure you achieve great results on your very next harvest.

Learn How To Grow Top-Shelf Weed at Home!

Start Your First Class TODAY!

You may be asking yourself these common growing questions:

“How do I grow marijuana indoors?”

Read this guide on how to grow marijuana indoors. Or check out this article to learn what materials you need to get started growing your own marijuana!

Luckily, it’s really easy to get a cannabis seed to sprout!

“How much money will it cost to get started?”

If you’re considering growing weed, it costs as little as $300 to get started growing or a bit more for a semi-automatic, high-yielding bubbleponics grow system. See examples of yields to expect, electricity use & startup costs for different setups. Read this article to see even more growing styles with different price ranges.

“Where can I get marijuana seeds?”

Check out our How to Buy Marijuana Seeds Online Guide (with delivery to every state of the USA) to safely get your hands on good genetics. Starting with good seeds lets you choose the looks, smell, and effects of your buds!

Learn where it’s safe to buy cannabis seeds online (2026 update).

What do good cannabis seeds look like?

Learn about the best marijuana beginner strains and how to research and find the right strain.

Cannabis buds are generally green, but can also be pink or purple with certain strains.

“How much will electricity cost each month?”

If you’re just growing a few marijuana plants for personal use, it will cost you $20-$100+/month for electricity, depending on what grow lights (electricity) and nutrients you use. On average, I’d say a hobby-size grower might pay about $50/month to grow, but it depends greatly on your setup and local electricity costs! How much will electricity cost each month?

“How can I increase my marijuana yields?”

We have quite a few techniques to choose from or combine! See some of our most popular pages:

• Super Cropping – A simple technique to bigger yields
• Simplest Guide to Growing Short & Bushy Marijuana Plants
• LST (Low Stress Training) – Training your plants can easily double your harvest!
• Or check out our page on the controversial defoliation technique

Even More Ways to Increase Cannabis Yields

1. Increase Light Intensity (plus choose right light for desired yields & possibly add CO2)
2. Manipulate How Plants Grow (a free way to yield more bud indoors)
3. Provide Right Nutrients (low Nitrogen in the flowering stage, and remember sometimes less is more!)
4. Control Growing Environment (let the growing environment work for you)
5. Harvest Plants Properly (most importantly, don’t harvest early!)
6. Lastly, it’s important to remember that the strain has a major effect on yields!

Two small cannabis plants can yield several ounces of premium weed!

“How can I grow weed privately?”

Read guide on growing weed indoors without anyone knowing. But remember the most important factors to stealth growing: “No tell, no smell, no sell.” Never tell anyone, not even your best friend, that you’re growing. Be on top of preventing smells, and never ever sell cannabis. Breaking one of those 3 principles is how 99% of growers get found out!

“What if my plants get sick?”

The most common issue a grower runs into is a pH imbalance. Barring that, your marijuana plants likely either have a nutrient deficiency, heat or light stress, or are being attacked by some sort of marijuana mold, pest or bug. Whether you call it weed, cannabis, sinsemilla, skunk, pot, marijuana, or something else, the plant known as Cannabis Sativa is a hardy weed in the wild and can actually be easy to grow indoors at home when you know what to do.

Growing Medical Marijuana

“Medical marijuana” has become a household name. The body of evidence for medical marijuana in the treatment of cancer and other illnesses is growing every day. And for those who need medical marijuana, growing weed indoors is the perfect way to ensure a safe, regular supply of buds, for cheap.

In fact, when you grow weed indoors for personal use, you often end up with way too much. If you catch the growing bug like I did, and if you start enjoying the process of tending your cannabis garden just for the sake of gardening, you’re going to have to find a way to press, cook, freeze, and concentrate all your extra buds. 🙂

As you probably know, both medical marijuana and recreational cannabis have been decriminalized or legalized in many places around the world and weed is becoming legal in more places every day! Yet there still aren’t many simple indoor “how to grow weed” guides for beginners (even for those who legally grow, such as medical marijuana users and those who live in places where marijuana is legalized for personal use).

If so, I know how you feel. It can be hard to weed out all the bad information on the internet and find well-researched, free tips or instructions on how to grow your own cannabis. That’s why Grow Weed Easy.com aims to be a simple online resource that explains from start to finish what you need to do when growing cannabis so you can learn how to grow cannabis with great yields and potent buds, even if you only have a small grow space like a closet or even a computer case.

We’ve grown cannabis out of closets and have gotten ounces of buds and you can too. Grow Weed Easy.com covers many popular cannabis cultivation topics, including:

• A comparison between different cannabis grow lights including experience-based information about LED grow lights
• A page that teaches you the basics of how to grow weed
• Detailed how-to weed growing tutorials
• How to start growing weed tomorrow  (simplest cannabis growing guide!)
• Grow 4 oz with a 100W LED <– An Easy Way to Start Growing!
• Our famous grow guide that teaches you how to grow weed using bubbleponics (hydro).

Start Growing Weed Today!

Grow Weed Easy is run by a panel of experienced cannabis growers, including the founders Nebula Haze and Sirius Fourside, who originally teamed together to bring you GrowWeedEasy.com. Due to the demand for more marijuana growing information, we’ve also started an inbox magazine all about how to grow weed, with additional tutorials, tips, and tactics sent to you each week. Simply sign up to start getting free expert growing articles delivered to you! All the information available at GrowWeedEasy.com is completely free and we regularly update the site and make new additions.

Looking for a growing book?

If you are interested in doing a bit of reading or would like to know more about the science behind marijuana hydroponics or horticulture, I strongly recommend viewing our page of Marijuana Grow Book Reviews. Read reviews of marijuana grow books. We would love to hear about your experiences with growing cannabis. Whether you are a pro grower already or are just starting your first plant, we have learned so much from our readers both beginners and masters! If you have any suggestions, comments, concerns, or just want to ask some questions about your marijuana grow, please contact us!

Happy Growing!
Nebula Haze & Sirius Fourside

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The post Grow Weed Easy – Learn How to Grow Cannabis Tutorials appeared first on Grow Weed Easy.

Fail-Proof Guide to Germinating Cannabis Seeds in Hydroponics
Plus, How to Care for Hydroponic Seedlings…

We have a cannabis seedling germination page which has everything you need to know about all the different germination methods, but this tutorial is different. In this hydroponic seedling tutorial I’m going to share exactly how I do my seeds from beginning to end in a DWC/bubbleponics setup!

Just follow these instructions and you’ll end up with healthy, fast-growing marijuana plants that germinate in just a few days. It’s pretty much fail proof!

Learn How to Start Seedlings So You Can Grow Hydroponic Cannabis Plants Like This!

Supplies Needed

• Seeds
• Hydroponic System (learn how to germinate in soil or coco)
• Rapid Rooters

1.) Get Cannabis Seeds

There are a few different ways to get cannabis seeds, with the most common being ordering seeds online and growing seeds you find in weed that you buy. Learn how to research and find the right strain.

If you’ve found seeds, learn how to tell if they’re good to grow.

Here’s a picture showing several healthy and viable cannabis seeds

2.) Germination for Hydroponics

I’ve tried a bunch of different germination methods over the years, and the technique I prefer is for hydroponics is starting with the “Paper towel method” to germinate, putting the germinated seeds into Rapid Rooters, and installing the Rapid Rooters directly into reservoir. Lots of other germination methods as well, but this has worked best for me!

Paper Towel Method

This method is hard to mess up if you follow the instructions!

1. Place your seeds inside a folded wet paper towel, and place it between two paper plates (or regular plates) so that they don’t dry out.
2. Check on your seeds every 12 hours but try not to disturb them. When they’ve germinated, you’ll see the seeds have cracked and there are little white roots coming out.
3. They should germinate in 1-4 days, though some seeds can take a week or longer (especially older seeds).
4. Keep them warm if possible. One thing you can do to get seeds to germinate a little faster is to keep them in a warm place (75-80°F). Some people use a seedling heat mat but in most cases that’s unnecessary.

These seedlings were sprouted using the paper towel method!

3.) Place Germinated Seed in a Rapid Rooter

The Rapid Rooter should be cut open lengthwise

Gently place the germinated seed inside, root down

Most seedling plugs will go back into place easily, and you’ll barely be able to tell it’s been opened 🙂

4.) Prepare Hydro System for Its New Guest

If you haven’t put your hydroponic system together yet, now is the time! Make sure your pumps are all running, and that you’ve made a reservoir with seedling-strength nutrients. You need a home to put your new plants!

Learn how to set up a Hydroponic System

Hydro Tips & Hints

• Air bubbles – have lots and lots of bubbles in your water reservoir. That means your air pump needs to be on all the time for the full grow. The main benefit of hydro is your plant roots are getting an unlimited amount of both water and oxygen. This is achieved by dissolving a lot of air into the water via an air stone and air pump. In order to get the fast growth, you want a lot of bubbles! A highly-oxygenated tank is also far less likely to get root rot, or suffer from other unwanted organisms growing in the reservoir!
• Hydroguard – This supplement contains a specific bacteria that was first found in rice paddies in Japan in the 40s! It’s been common in Asia for years but only in the last several years has it been available in the US from a company called Botanicare. I highly recommend, even insist, that all hydro growers get this cheap-but-effective supplement to keep plant roots healthy!
• Add seedling level nutrients from the beginning. A lot of growers, especially soil growers, will tell you not to add any nutrients for the first few weeks of the plant’s life. That makes a lot of sense in soil, because there are lots of nutrients contained in the soil itself for your young cannabis seedling, and giving more right at the beginning can end up giving way too much for such a young plant. However, in hydro, the only nutrients your seedling gets is what’s in the water, plus what little was contained in the seed itself. Because of that, I highly recommend giving seedling-strength nutrients to your plants from when you first fill your reservoir. Seedlings grow a LOT faster with light levels of nutrients than if you only give plain, pH’ed water at first.
• Always check the pH from the beginning of your plant’s life to end the of your plant’s life

5.) Install Rapid Rooter and water the seedlings until roots reach the water reservoir – Turn on light to keep seedlings warm for best results!

Make sure to always keep the Rapid Rooter moist but not soaking wet.

If you have a top-feed, place the tube near the bottom of the net pot so the water isn’t soaking the seedling’s roots. You just want water dripping out the bottom so the root can use it for oxygen and water until it’s fully established in the reservoir.

Add your Rapid Rooter(s), and fill around the edges with extra clay pellets to hold each one in place.

Since your seed has already sprouted and been in placed into the right growing position, it’ll often pop its head out within just 12-24 hours! Sometimes you see just the leaves, but occasionally you actually see the seedling push the shell above ground. I keep the grow light on even before the seedling appears. It helps keep it warm and guide it toward the light.

When this happens the shell usually falls off on its own as the seedling grows!

The Rapid Rooter in this picture is a little too wet, which makes the seedling prone to “damping off.”  If you ever notice the Rapid Rooter actually looks wet or shiny, it’s too much water. Try turning the top-feed off every few hours, or hand-watering the seedling at first. Too much moisture can kill!

Don’t use a humidity dome on seedlings unless it’s very dry where you live. If you do use a dome, consider keeping a vent open and watching the humidity. A young seedling doesn’t require high humidity, and they tend to get “wet feet” and stop growing in constantly wet conditions.

Now that your seedling in in the tank, it’s time to learn how to….

6.) Take Care of Hydro Seedlings

Here are tips for taking the best care of hydroponic marijuana seedlings:

• Leave roots alone as much as you can with young seedlings in a hydroponic setup. It takes them a little while to get all established in the tank, almost like a fish, and during that time seedlings are much more sensitive to their roots being touched or being moved around. If at all possible, try to let the seedling grow in the same place without being moved for at least a few weeks until you put them in their final home, or even just start them in their final home!
• Avoid reservoir changes for a few weeks if you can – Going along with what I said before about leaving the roots alone, I’ve found that young seedlings often don’t respond well to reservoir changes. Instead of changing the reservoir, just top off with pH’ed vegetative nutrient water until the plant is at least 3-4 weeks old. It won’t be using enough nutrients to mess with the ratios, and as long as you maintain the pH and use Hydroguard your young plant will be fine with the water being topped off instead of replaced.
• Check the pH daily to prevent nutrient deficiencies
• Warm but not hot temperature – I recommend hydro growers aim for 75°F, and try to stay between 73-80°F.

This is a time-lapse video of cannabis seedlings in hydro sprouting and growing over 13 days.

Get Answers to Common Questions About Growing Marijuana in Hydroponics or DWC

Cannabis seedlings just getting their bearings. Try to avoid moving or disturbing cannabis plants in hydro until they are growing fast, with new leaves every day!

These big cannabis plants are ready to switch to the flowering stage. Remember, most cannabis strains about double in height after initiating flowering, so don’t wait too long!

I thought hydro cannabis plants liked it cold?

Just like in soil, cannabis plants in hydro tend to grow faster in relatively warm temperatures. This is a somewhat controversial statement because a lot of hydro growers prefer to keep their temperature lower in the grow space to help prevent root rot. In fact, there are some growers right now who are reading this and shaking their heads at me.

There’s good reason to believe that hydro plants would grow better with a cool reservoir. For example, the bad microorganisms that make root rot don’t survive well at lower temperatures. Additionally, water can physically hold more oxygen at lower temperatures, which seems like it would be great for faster plant growth. Because of this, lots of growers will AC their room to 60°F, and/or get a water chiller to cool their water reservoir to a similar temperature.

I do agree that if the temperature is above 80°F, your plant is a lot more likely to get root rot. However, I personally have not found that cool temperatures are adequate to prevent root rot. Even if the temperature is 60°F, you still need lots of bubbles and a “good bacteria” supplement like Hydroguard to prevent root rot in many cases.

I’ve seen several growers buy a water chiller and still get root rot. So I personally don’t believe cold temperatures are the best way to go to keep roots healthy.

The other reason I recommend to keep it warmer is because the plants just grow faster around 75°F in hydro. If your roots go from 60°F to 75°F, you’ll see the plants start growing faster in just a day or two, just like how plants in soil grow faster when it’s warm!

Just like in soil or coco, cannabis plants in hydro grow fastest when it’s a little warm, around 75°F!

Although there may be more oxygen dissolved in the water at lower temperatures, at least in my grow tent that apparently isn’t the limiting factor to growth, because plant growth speeds up at warmer temperatures.

I’ve found that if the grow space feels cool to you, it also feels cool to your plant most likely, and it may not be growing to its full potential. Some Sativa strains are particularly sensitive to the cold, though some Indica strains from cold climates will still thrive at lower temps.
Autopsy: Why Aren’t My Seeds Sprouting?

If your seeds still aren’t sprouting and growing properly, consider the following factors.

If there’s no germination at all…

• Temperature may be too hot or cold – aim for 75-80°F
• Too wet – seeds and seedling roots should always be moist, but should not stay wet
• Too dry – if a root dries out the seedling can die!
• Bad seeds – It might not be you, it could be the seeds themselves! How can I tell if seeds are viable?

If seeds sprout, but then stop growing…

• Temperature is too hot or cold – aim for 73-78°F
• Too wet – even though your plants are growing with root directly in water, new seedlings don’t like “wet feet”. They don’t like for it to be too wet near the seed for too long, so make sure your Rapid Rooter or growing medium nevers looks shiny or muddy, as that means there’s too much water! Young roots that stay too wet for too long start to get mushy and die. For this reason, it’s also usually recommended to avoid using a humidity dome with seedlings unless your air is dry. Although clones love humidity domes (they need water from the air because they don’t have any roots to get water), seedlings like it a little more dry or roots tend to get mushy.
• Too dry – less common unless you live in a very dry area, but sometimes your medium dries out too fast if you’ve got a heavy-drinking, fast-growing seedling!
• Too much light – if the seedlings get blasted with high levels of light right away, it can shock them. They may need some time to adjust to higher light levels. Simply starting your grow light a little further away that normal is usually enough.Think sunny window at first, and start ramping up after a week of healthy growth.
• Not enough light – if seedlings are growing long and stretchy without growing new sets of leaves, it means it wants more light.
• No light for more than a day – if the sprouted seed doesn’t get light within 24 hours after sprouting, it may die. Once seeds are sprouted, get them in a Rapid Rooter and under at least some amount of light as soon as possible!
• Roots damaged – If somehow your roots got damaged, it can sometimes stop the seedling from growing

Unfortunately sometimes you will never know why certain seeds just don’t thrive! It’s all part of nature 🙂

The post How to Germinate Cannabis Seeds in Hydro appeared first on Grow Weed Easy.

A Complete Tutorial on Bud-Based Flowering Stage Defoliation

What is cannabis defoliation, and why/how does removing leaves from a cannabis plant increase yields?

This THC Bomb cannabis plant was defoliated according to this defoliation tutorial.

The point of defoliation is to “hack” your plant’s natural processes in the early part of the flowering stage to cause it to grow its buds and colas differently.

You’ll notice in the picture examples that the defoliated plants seem focused purely on bud development. Growers achieve this by removing fan leaves from healthy marijuana plants during early bud development. As a result, plants put more energy on growing buds rather than leaves.

Defoliation is the only way to achieve plants that are ALL buds, like this Aurora Indica plant.

Blue Dream is another strain that responds especially well to defoliation.

Growing auto-flowering plants? Use this defoliation tutorial instead.

In the wild, your plant will spend some amount of energy on buds, as well as some amount of energy making and maintaining leaves. However, if you defoliate your cannabis plants early in the flowering stage, you change the plant’s natural growing patterns.

Without as many leaves at the moment buds are first forming, your plants puts more energy into making colas, and the colas will be longer, thicker, and go down further into the plant.

Theories Why Bud-Based Marijuana Defoliation Works…

• Wind-pollinated plant – Cannabis plants are wind-pollinated, and therefore don’t fatten any buds that lack access to wind. Defoliation exposes more buds to a breeze.
• Buds get more direct light – Cannabis buds grow fatter when exposed to strong, direct light. Defoliation exposes buds to more light.
• Energy diverted to buds – A defoliated cannabis plant focuses on bud sites during the initial part of flowering. It simply doesn’t have leaves to put energy into!

Did You Know? There are other commercial crops, like cotton, which also need to be defoliated early in the flowering stage to produce the best quality and yields!

Whatever the reason, defoliation works to dramatically increase your cannabis yields and bud quality when you do it right!

Only buds that get exposed to direct light ever get a good size. If your plant is very bushy like this one, you are losing out on potential yields because the hidden buds stay small. The buds would have been longer and bigger further down into the plant if it had been defoliated in the early flowering stage.

A non-defoliated plant – buds are smaller than they could be.

Here’s another example of cannabis plants that would have benefited from defoliation. Notice how short all the buds are. They end where the bushiness begins. If the grower had exposed the colas, they would have fattened much deeper into the plant!

A non-defoliated plant – buds are small and don’t go deep into the plant.

Many growers write in to tell us how defoliation was the secret sauce they needed to take their growing skills to the next level. In our growing forum we have some growers that are conducting defoliation and have taken the technique to new heights!

Ready to learn how to incorporate defoliation into your own cannabis garden?

THC Bomb plant grown by Ricky (a first time defoliator!)

Step-by-Step: How to Defoliate Cannabis Plants to Increase Yields

It’s pretty well-accepted in the cannabis growing world that defoliation can increase yields in some situations, but what’s the “best” way to defoliate? That’s a common question without an easy answer.

The truth is that many growers have their own ideas about the best way to defoliate. If you ask 10 different growers, you could possibly get 10 different answers! And you’ll probably find at least one grower who claims it doesn’t work at all.

Today, I’ll share my own personal defoliation timeline and tactics which I’ve developed over the last several years.

Note: Some equatorial Sativa and Haze strains naturally grow tall and “leggy” with thin leaves and lots of exposed stem. These strains may never produce enough leaves to get bushy even in the best environment, and may look like they’ve naturally defoliated themselves. When this happens there’s no need to defoliate plants further. However, many (if not most) strains produce some amount of leafiness that needs to be removed for optimal growth indoors.

You may not need to defoliate if you see lots of stem and bud sites are already exposed. Some strains naturally grow leggy enough that they don’t need much, if any, defoliation to expose bud sites or increase air circulation!

Step 1: Vegetative Stage Defoliation

I don’t remove leaves in the vegetative stage to the same extent I do in the flowering stage.

Most defoliation in the vegetative stage is used to thin out the plant if it starts getting really bushy. Making sure there’s always airflow through the middle and under the bottom of the plant will help plants grow better. Good airflow also prevents White Powdery Mold (WPM), a common problem when you have leaves laying on top of each other.

In my opinion, if you can’t see through the plant, and/or there’s no light getting through to the bottom, it’s too bushy for proper airflow!

These vegetative stage plants are too leafy! Notice how the floor is in shadow? They’re ready for a haircut!

When it comes to plant training, the focus in the vegetative stage is on getting the shape of the plant correct (flat and wide like a table), and making sure there’s multiple main stems/colas under the grow light.

When I’m growing my own cannabis plants, I don’t start defoliating aggressively until I’m in the flowering stage.

Step 2: Flowering Stage Defoliation

Right before the switch to the flowering stage, I remove any leaves and tiny growth tips on the bottom parts of the plant that aren’t getting light anymore (sometimes called “lollipopping” the plant).

It is important to do right this before the switch to flowering so the plant is putting all its effort into the top bud sites instead of the lower bud sites that will never grow into big buds no matter what you do.

Some growers call the technique “lollipopping” because you’re making the bottom bare like a lollipop stick 🙂 Though some growers also remove bud sites while lollipopping, for you first grow, I recommend removing all the leaves below the line, but leaving the bud sites (growth tips at the base of each leaf) alone. This helps ensure you have as many places to make bud as possible. I’ve found that leaving extra bud sites doesn’t seem to reduce your yields as long as you’ve defoliated the plant properly, but removing too many bud sites definitely hurts your yields!

This grower stripped all the buds sites from the bottom of the plant while lollipopping, resulting in shortened colas. I’ve done this, too! His yield would have been bigger if he’d allowed those bud sites to continue further down on each stem!

To prevent the problem with the plant above, avoid removing or damaging future bud sites whenever defoliating. It’s easy to accidentally damage bud sites when they’re just tiny pre-flowers like this one, so be extra careful when removing leaves!

After you’ve stripped all the leaves from the bottom your plant, it’s time to remove most of the remaining biggest fan leaves (though you’re not going to completely strip the top part as much as before). You’ll be leaving any small fan leaves as well as the top few pairs of big fan leaves of each cola completely untouched. After this step, the plant will be almost all “bones” and bud sites, with few big fan leaves except at the top.

Flowering Defoliation #1 (Immediately Before Switch to 12/12)

Before Defoliation

After Defoliation

I leave a few extra full size fan leaves at the top of each cola because I believe it helps power the growth of the colas during the flowering stretch so they get as long as possible. Make sure to remove only leaves during defoliation, but not bud sites! I have found after trying it both ways that removing bud sites while lollipopping/defoliating often hurts your yields!

Flowering Defoliation #2 (Last Major Defoliation) – Week 3 of Flowering Stage

This is what that plant looked like 3 weeks later. I didn’t remove any leaves in that time. The plant has gotten far taller due to the flowering stretch, and is completely covered in leaves again!

Usually by around week 3, a bunch of budlets have formed. At this point I remove all of the major fan leaves one last time. You’re forcing the plant to focus on the buds during this crucial phase of their development!

After that, I’m done with the majority of defoliation! From week 3 and on, I only remove leaves if they’re covering a bud site (and I can’t tuck the leaf away) or if the plant starts getting too bushy through the middle and bottom. Each leaf provides energy to the plant, and I cherish them… unless they get in the way! 🙂

Step 3: Harvest

Wait until buds have matured and appear ready to harvest. Then it’s go time!

7 Weeks Later I Harvested This!

Each bud dwarfed my hands!

The above pictures featured a single plant but I’ve used the same technique successfully with dozens of cannabis plants in soil, coco coir, and hydro.

More Examples of Defoliated Cannabis Plants

Here are examples of other harvests where I utilized this defoliation technique.

Grown in coco coir

I probably could have defoliated these ones a bit more, but results were still great.

Grown in soil

These are auto-flowering plants that were defoliated. Get instructions on how to use defoliation with autoflowering plants to increase yields. It’s pretty much the same, but in that defoliation tutorial I included some extra explanation on exactly when and how much to to defoliate considering you don’t have a specific day that you initiate 12/12 like with photoperiod plants.

These two hydro plants also utilized the manifolding technique in addition to defoliation to increase bud size.

Bonus Tips for Successful Defoliation

• Always use nutrients alongside defoliation – Defoliation works best when you’re providing cannabis-friendly nutrients in the water. Supplementing with nutrients help the plant replace nutrients lost in the leaves. If you’re growing in a “just add water” super soil setup (where you’re not adding extra nutrients), it’s recommended to avoid much defoliation. If you remove leaves without adding more nutrients, it increases the chance the plant runs out of nutrients early, starving it of precious nutrition during bud formation.
• Light should hit the floor – Defoliation is most effective if the plant is so leafy that light isn’t making it through the plant. If the floor underneath is in shadow, that’s a sign that no air or light is getting through the plant. After defoliation, there should be some amount of light getting to the floor under the plant.
• Err on the side of taking fewer leaves – You can always take more leaves, but you can’t put them back. Especially as a beginner defoliator, it’s recommended to remove fewer leaves than you might think, and see how the plant responds. Even a little defoliation can make a significant difference to yields.
• Only defoliate healthy cannabis plants – You should never defoliate a plant that is sick or unhealthy. If a plant has nutrient deficiencies, or otherwise seems stressed, “tuck” leaves to expose buds instead.
• Tuck leaves to expose buds – The goal of tucking leaves is to ensure they don’t cover any buds from the grow light. If the plant is not particularly leafy, showing signs of stress, or you’re not adding nutrients in the water, you can still achieve a lot of the benefits of defoliation simply by tucking big fan leaves out of the way.

If you want to copy the results for yourself, refer to the following quick summary!

Nebula’s Bud-Based Defoliation Technique (Quick Summary)

So basically, my (personal) cannabis defoliation technique could be summed up like this:

Vegetative Stage

• Plant Training – Train plant(s) to grow into a generally flat and wide shape, so they fill your grow space like a table. This makes it so you have multiple colas located at the top of the plant and close to the light. Or choose a Sea of Green setup (growing many small plants) and skip the training!
• Defoliate the middle and bottom of your plant(s) whenever you can’t see light coming through them. When the middle is completely dark it means the plant is too bushy.

Right Before Switch to 12/12 – What about autoflowering strains?

• Do this step when plant is about half the final desired height (since it will about double in size after the switch to 12/12)
• Lollipop the plant (completely strip the lowest leaves on the plant that will never get light, leaving the bud sites intact)
• Remove big fan leaves on the upper part of the plant (making sure not to damage bud sites) until plant is not leafy. If you can easily see your plant’s stems it’s a good time to stop.

Week 3 After Switch to 12/12

• One Last Defoliation at Flowering Week 3 – Now that you’re three weeks into the flowering stage, do another major removal of just about all the fan leaves. Make sure to especially take any big leaves with long stems, or leaves that are covering bud sites! Again, avoid removing or damaging any developing buds!

After Week 3, I only defoliate huge fan leaves that can’t be tucked away. Otherwise I just wait until harvest and reap the rewards!

Defoliation is a technique, but it is also an art! The above instructions should get you started but cannabis plants are like big bonsai trees and you’ll eventually learn how to defoliate without hesitation. It’s fun to try to alter the growth patterns of cannabis plants and I encourage you to experiment with your own plants and develop your own particular defoliation style and rhythm!

Defoliation done right makes big, dense, potent marijuana buds at harvest!

Have you tried defoliation on your cannabis plants? Send us pictures!

You Might Be Interested in One of the Following Cannabis Plant Training Tutorials…

• Simplest Plant Training Guide Ever!
• Complete Plant Training Guide
• How Can I Train an Auto-Flowering Plant?
• 7 Unfortunate Plant Training Mistakes

Detailed Breakdown of Training Techniques​

• Low Stress Training (LST) Tutorial
• Topping vs FIMing Tutorial
• LBH’s Famous ScrOG Tutorial
• Supercropping: Simple Secret to Bigger Yields
• Sea of Green (SoG) Tutorial
• 12-12 from Seed – Flowering Plants Early
• Nebula’s Manifold Tutorial
• How to Manifold Clones
• Alternate Defoliation Tutorial ​
• What is Re-Vegging / Monstercropping?

Diagnose Your Sick Plant!

The post “Defoliation Deep Dive” Cannabis Yield Multiplier appeared first on Grow Weed Easy.

The following symptoms are for when your cannabis leaves are “clawing” or curling up or curling down. Sometimes known as “The Claw”. I’ll give a short explanation with pictures of each problem, plus links to the solutions! Fix this common (but hard to diagnose) marijuana problem today!

Nitrogen Toxicity

A Nitrogen toxicity is the result of the plant getting too much Nitrogen (usually from too high levels of nutrients overall, or by using a Vegetative nutrient in the flowering stage). It causes dark green leaves and curled tips (“the claw”).

One of the main symptoms of a Nitrogen toxicity is curled tips (“the claw”)

A plant with a Nitrogen toxicity tends to be dark green all over

​

Learn more about a cannabis Nitrogen Toxicity

Wind Burn

Caused by too much wind. You’ll notice that the leaves further from the fan don’t have symptoms.

Example of too much wind on your leaves

Learn more about cannabis wind burn

Bad Soil / Overwatering / Underwatering

You can help prevent over and under-watering your cannabis plants by always starting with good soil or coco coir.

Bad Soil

Bad soil is usually thick and muddy. Plants in poor soil will droop (often with unhappy curly leaves) no matter your watering practices.

Avoid thick soil that stays wet for a long time and doesn’t drain well

Overwatering

Overwatering makes leaves fat with water, and they tend to curl down and droop

Overwatering (especially when combined with heat) can also cause leaves to curl up

This plant was grown in muddy soil, and the curling, unhealthy leaves kept getting worse and worse over time!

​

Underwatering

Underwatering causes symptoms that often look like overwatering, but you’ll know it’s underwatering if the plants perk up each time after you water them.

Root Problems

Although often caused by overwatering, once the roots are sick you’ll see symptoms for a little while even after you start watering your plants properly.

Unhealthy roots can cause all sorts of problems including curling and clawing!

Unhealthy Roots in Soil/Coco

This plant’s roots were damaged from being overwatered and too hot for several days. As a result, the leaves took on a strange, blistery appearance.

This plant suffered from heat combined with overwatering for several days. This damaged the roots and gave it this odd leaf curling.

Learn more about root problem and symptoms

Root Rot

Root rot is something marijuana hydroponic growers can suffer from if pathogens attack the roots. It is often triggered by heat and/or lack of bubbles near the roots.

Root rot can cause curling leaves and brown patches as well as sometimes other nutrient deficiencies

Rootbound

If a plant stays in the same container for too long, the roots will eventually start wrapping around the edges of the pot. This is known as being “rootbound” and causes symptoms similar to other root problems.

A rootbound plant has been in the same container for too long. Roots wrap around the edges and “choke” the plant.

Rootbound plants often droop, appear yellow, get nutrient deficiencies, and stay small. Even if you’re caring for them perfectly!

If you see tons of white roots when transplanted, that means the plant was in that container too long

When this happens, the main solution is to transplant the plant into a bigger container. Another solution is to grow in fabric pots or air pots. These types of pots let air in from the sides, killing the circling roots (“air-pruning” them) and prevents the plant from getting rootbound for months.

To help a rootbound plant, transplant to a bigger container with fresh potting mix

Or start with air pots or fabric pots in order to prevent plants from getting rootbound at all

Heat Stress

If plants are experiencing a lot of heat, it can make leaves droop and/or curl. Some strains can handle a lot of heat, while other strains tend to droop when it gets warm.

Heat can cause leaves to curl up

Read more about heat and growing weed:

• Cannabis Heat Stress Guide
• Air Circulation and Exhaust Tutorial
• 5 Ways to Deal with Heat While Growing Cannabis
• 3 Proven Supplements that Help with Heat Stress

Light Burn

Plants can get light burn (sort of like a sunburn) even if the temperature is completely under control. The symptoms are usually concentrated close to the grow lights. Sometimes this can cause leaves to claw and curl downwards.

Light burn can cause the leaves closest to the light to turn yellow

Learn more about light burn

Bugs & Pests

Often a bug infestation caused general plant unhappiness, but these are some of the most likely to cause curling or clawing leaves.

Broad Mites

Usually, you can’t see broad mites because they live inside the plant. The main symptom of an infestation is strange leaf curling that is specific to this pest, as well as “wet” looking leaves.

Hemp Russet Mites

Hemp russet mites can also cause drooping and other strange symptoms, but the bugs are so small many growers don’t realize what they’re dealing with.

Hemp russet mites cause drooping and yellow mold-like growth on the tops of plants

A closeup of the hemp russet mites

Learn how to get rid of hemp russet mites!

Fungus Gnats

Fungus gnats look like tiny flies buzzing around your topsoil. Although a few fungus gnats won’t really hurt your plants, a big infestation can damage the roots, causing symptoms similar to other types of root problems.

Learn about other types of bugs and pests that can attack your cannabis plants!

Jump to…

7 Step Fix to 99% of Cannabis Growing Problems

Pictures of Marijuana Plant Problems

What does pH have to do with nutrient deficiencies?

10-Step Quick Start Guide to Growing

The post Why are Leaves Curling or Clawing? (“The Claw”) appeared first on Grow Weed Easy.

Table of Contents

Emergency Ideas for a Power Outage

• Grow Lights Go Out
• Temperature Drops
• Hydroponic Air Pump Stops

Backup Sources of Power

There are many things you can do to help your cannabis plants during a power outage even if you’re totally unprepared. There are also lots of ways to prepare so things go even more smoothly next time!

What can I do for my cannabis plants when the electricity goes out?

Emergency Ideas for a Power Outage (and how to prepare for next time!)

Of course it’s best to have alternative sources of power, but here’s a list of things you can do right away during an electrical outage, even if you don’t have a backup generator or other source of electricity.
1.) What to Do When Grow Lights Go Out

The most important thing when grow lights go out is to make sure your plant is getting some amount of light during its regular light period.

A plant left alone completely in the dark for more than a day starts deteriorating quickly, but you’ll slow this process down by giving them even low levels of light!

During your plant’s normal “Lights On” period, try to give at least a little light to your plant

Although it’s best to have a constant source of light, even periodically flashing a flashlight over the plant for a few minutes every hour or two can help plants maintain their regular light cycles!

Your plants will obviously do better with full lights on, but your main goal is to prevent them from being in the dark for long stretches of time during their “day” period. With all the other stress that may be happening, you want them to think it’s a cloudy day, not the end of the world!

A single small light during the “day” period is enough to maintain your plant’s inner clock

Don’t forget to turn the light source off before the plant’s regular “dark” period, especially in the flowering stage! You most likely won’t have a timer so you must remember to shut lights off manually (or take the plant away from the window) before their dark period begins.

• If your plant is in the vegetative stage, it’s better to give extra hours of light as opposed to too little since your plant needs long days to stay in the vegetative stage.
• If your plant is in the flowering stage, it’s better to give extra hours of darkness if you have to choose between the two, since the plant needs short days to stay in the flowering stage.

For those wondering if vegetative plants will start flowering after a day of darkness, don’t worry, one day isn’t going to cause it to start flowering! But when the power goes out you want to try to cover all your bases as best you can to minimize stress by maintaining constant light cycles. Why not help keep the plant as happy as possible? 🙂

Prepare For a Future Emergency

Get extra sources of battery-powered lights! This is a good idea even if you don’t have cannabis plants to care for. No one wants to be left in the dark when the power goes out!

As far as things to get ahead of time to prepare in case you need a little extra light in an emergency, some ways to provide light without electricity include…

• Strong Flashlight (either left on continuously or used in intervals for a few minutes every hour or two; this one lasts 24+ hours on a charge)
• Battery-Powered Lantern
• Battery-Powered Christmas Lights
• Flameless Candle
• CFL bulb connected to a battery or other power source

Have more than candles on hand in case the power goes out!

2.) Temperature Starts Dropping

A common reason for the electricity to go out is winter weather, and this often comes along with freezing cold temperatures.

When your heat and grow lights go out, your cannabis plants may be exposed to cold temperatures. Each strain is different, but most cannabis plants start showing symptoms when the temperature reaches 50°F and lower, and freezing temperatures can be lethal!

When you’ve lost power, the name of the game is heat conservation since producing heat generally takes a lot of electricity. If possible, try to insulate the plant in some way while it’s still warm from the lights. Even throwing some blankets over the tent can help.

Do whatever you can to help keep plants warm!

Make sure plants are not sitting directly on a cold floor (like concrete), because if you can keep the roots a little warmer the plant will be more resilient to the cold. Just like with the rest of the house, avoid opening and closing any doors to the outside so you let as little cold air in as possible. Try to limit peeking so you can so you don’t let out heat from the grow space.

Keep cannabis plants away from cold windows if the power goes out. They want warmth, just like you.

Prepare For a Future Emergency

When it comes to helping plants stay warm, you generally have the same options you do as for humans. Unless you have a backup source of heat, there’s not a lot you can do other than to do the best you can and hope the plant comes out okay. You might be surprised at what conditions cannabis can come back from!

3.) DWC / Hydro Growers – Air Pump Stops Working

The main problem when the power goes out in a hydroponic / DWC setup is roots die from lack of oxygen.

You normally have air being bubbled through the tank but when the air stone shuts off, the root’s source of oxygen is gone!

The first step if the power goes out for more than an hour is to temporarily lower the water level to about half the normal level to help your plant roots get more oxygen with the top half of the roots.

If the plant is starting to droop after a few hours, drain all the water from the tank, then slowly pump it back in again. This gives your roots a huge dose of oxygen!

If the electricity stays off for more than a few hours, drain out all the water out and then put it back in, like doing a reservoir change without actually changing the water. I use a battery-powered water transfer pump (pictured above) but you should do whatever you normally do!

This will provide a lot of oxygen to your roots as the water is drained, as well as temporarily oxygenate the water as it gets pumped or poured back in.

Repeating this process every few hours while the electricity is out will help roots survive quite a bit longer!

If it’s getting really cold and you have access to a wood stove, you might consider heating up just a little of the water before you add it back, to help keep the water temperature above 55°F.

Avoid Letting Reservoir Water Get Really Cold!

You can use a wood stove or fireplace to heat up water if the temperature starts dropping dangerously low. Keep reservoir water above 55°F (13°C).

Note: Never add hot water directly to tank; mix in with cold water before pumping back into tank!

If the roots stay warm it will help the plants survive even if the air is cold. Although it’s important to provide oxygen, never, ever let any part of the roots dry out, as that will kill your plant a lot faster than no oxygen!

Prepare For a Future Emergency

If possible, try to invest ahead of time in a battery-powered air pump (originally meant for shipping fish) and a pack of D batteries.

A battery-powered air pump (comes with tubing and air stone) oxygenates water for up to 24 hours with a pair of D batteries

These battery-powered air pumps/stones provide your plant’s roots with air for up to 24 hours per battery charge, which means they’ll last as long as you have batteries for them. This way you don’t have to do manual reservoir changes every few hours to keep your plants alive.

Alternative Ways to Get Power

Inverter

Inverters that plug into the cigarette lighter on your car can be a good backup source of energy, but you need to be able to reach your grow space from your car with an extension cord, and they only provide up to about 250-300W of power. If you have a garage or carport with direct access to your grow space, this could be a great choice to temporarily run pumps or a small backup light.

Uninterrupted Power Supply (UPS)

An Uninterrupted Power Supply (UPS) is a great choice for protecting your computers during a power outage, but isn’t as great for your plants. A UPS is meant to give you enough time to safely turn off your computer/electronics after a blackout so they don’t lose power abruptly, but they’re incredibly expensive if you want one that supplies enough electricity to last a long time.

A UPS doesn’t last long or hold a big charge. They’re best for protecting equipment and computers, and aren’t that great as a backup power source unless you’re willing to spend a lot of money on a big one!

Gas-Powered Generator

Gas-powered generators are another way to power things until the electricity comes back. If you live in an area where the power goes out a lot I could see how a generator could be almost necessary.

Portable Power Supply + Bulb

These are intended for recharging phones or laptops on-the-go or while camping, but portable power supplies are strong enough to run a small lightbulb for quite a few hours, so you’re not leaving your plants in the dark.

This portable power supply holds 250W. Plug a 9W LED bulb into the power supply with a hanging light cord (or other light fixture you have around the house) and get continuous light for over 24 hours. You can even plug a timer into it to maintain a 12/12 light schedule.

Portable power supply (250W)

Plug in a light fixture or hanging light cord

Screw in an energy-efficient light like these 9w LED bulbs

Don’t give up until your plant is dead. Speaking from experience, you might be surprised at what they can survive.

Learn how to prepare your grow room for other kinds of emergencies!

Jump to…

12 Cool Growing Tools You May Not Know About

10 Odd Realities (With Pictures) About Growing Cannabis Plants

Teach me the basics of growing weed

Plant Problems Picture Guide

The post How to Help Cannabis Plants in a Power Outage appeared first on Grow Weed Easy.

What makes hydroponic nutrients “good” or “bad?”

My favorite hydroponic nutrients for cannabis is the General Hydroponics Flora trio (just use at half strength what’s on the bottle) But… why are some hydro nutrients better than others for growing cannabis? What kind of hydroponic nutrients need to be avoided when growing marijuana? Do you need expensive nutrients to get good results, or will cheap nutrients get the job done?

With all the different bottles of marijuana nutrients out there, how do you know which one is best for your hydroponic setup?

When it comes to choosing hydroponic nutrients for growing weed, there are a few considerations that are really important!

Best Hydroponic Nutrients

• Made specifically for hydroponics
• No organic matter (nutrients are provided via minerals)
• Mineral nutrients are “chelated” (easier for plant to absorb at a greater range of pH levels)
• Contains rich sources of micro-nutrients (to make up for what might have been found in the soil)
• Optimum NPK ratios (more info below)

Worst Hydroponic Nutrients

• Made specifically for soil
• Contains a lot of organic matter (guano, worm castings, fish emulsion, blood meal, etc) – this stuff can completely mess up your reservoir and cause unexpected and unwanted bacteria/root problems. If it seems cloudy with lots of material floating in the water, don’t use it for hydro!

You can learn a lot about nutrients by looking at the label!

Optimum NPK Ratios for Hydroponic Cannabis Nutrients

N-P-K stands for Nitrogen-Phosphorus-Potassium, which are the three most important plant nutrients. These are what the 3 numbers listed on the front of all nutrient bottles stand for (Potassium is represented by “K” because chemists use the symbol K in the periodic table for potassium).

In order to get the best results growing cannabis in hydroponics, it’s important to give the right ratio of these crucial nutrients so the plant gets what it needs at the right time. For example, if you give too much Nitrogen in the flowering/budding phase, it actually surpresses bud production and reduces your yields even if the plant is completely healthy! You don’t want that!

So what are the optimum NPK values for growing cannabis in hydro?
(N-P-K are the 3 numbers on the front of nutrient bottles)

Additionally, hydroponic nutrients should always include….

• Magnesium
• Calcium
• Iron
• Sulfur

Nice but not necessary micro-nutrients (contained in most water sources, but if using RO or very soft water you want these in your nutrients to prevent possible deficiencies)

• Boron
• Cobalt
• Copper
• Manganese
• Molybdenum
• Zinc

The main difference between NPK ratios for hydro and soil are….

• Hydro nutrients usually contain more micro-nutrients (in trace amounts), to make up for what the plant would have been able to find in the soil
• Hydro nutrients tend to contain higher levels of Nitrogen, which is abundant in soil but not in most water sources.
• Hydro nutrients tend to have lower levels of Phosphorus, because Phosphorus is more “available” to the plant in a hydroponic setting. In soil, there are microorganisms (as well as clay “colloidal” particles) which can ‘steal’ some of it, and soil nutrients compensate by adding more Phosphorus.
• Hydro nutrients rarely use organic sources of nutrients. Soil nutrients often contain organic material, which can can make it easier for bad stuff to grow in a hydroponic reservoir. Organic sources of minerals also usually need to be broken down by microorganisms before the plant can absorb them, which doesn’t happen as well in a soilless environment.
• Hydro nutrients are often made up of chelated minerals which have been specially treated so they are easier for the plant to absorb.

What are Chelated Nutrients? Manufacturers actually “wrap” the nutrients inside an organic molecule that is less affected by pH, making it easier for the plant to absorb even if the pH is too high or too low.

When set up right with good nutrients, DWC / Hydroponics can produce some incredible yields!

Optimum pH of 5.5-6.5 <—- Sooooo important in hydro

No matter which nutrient brand you’re using, even with chelated nutrients, cannabis roots are better able to absorb some chemical forms of nutrients than others. This is where pH comes into play. When the pH at the roots is too high or too low, it actually changes the chemical form of the individual nutrient compounds, making it more difficult for your plant to absorb the nutrients it needs.

With hydroponic cannabis nutrients, they’re designed to be most available to your plant when the pH is between 5.5-6.5. If you let the pH get higher or lower than this, you will start getting nutrient deficiencies even if literally everything else is dialed in!

Learn how to adjust your pH to prevent nutrient deficiencies
(It’s easy! It’s kind of like a supplement you add to your reservoir to get better growth)

Stay skeptical of companies that say their nutrients will “automatically” adjust the pH of your water. Although some nutrient systems may be better than others at stabilizing pH, you still need to check the pH regularly if you want to get the best results in hydro. Seriously, this is really important!

Depending on your starting water, “PH Perfect” nutrient systems sometimes aren’t able to correct the pH to the right levels, at least not consistently throughout the grow.

This could happen for various reasons. For example your source water likely contains minerals and other “stuff” that will change the pH of your water. If you start with highly purified water instead of tap water, it can actually make pH swings worse because there is no “buffer” in pure water to stabilize pH.

Plus, the amount of nutrients you use changes depending on your plant and its stage of life, and changing the nutrient levels will almost always change the pH, too!

If you check the pH and it’s in the right range, that’s perfect and there’s nothing else you need to do. But don’t skip checking the pH just because the bottle says you don’t have to! Or at the very least, make sure pH is the first thing you check if you start seeing nutrient problems!

Recommended DWC Nutrients & Supplements

These hydroponic nutrients systems are not just great as far as cannabis yields and quality, they won’t break the bank either! There are lots of great nutrient systems out there, but the truth is that you don’t need incredibly expensive nutrients to get incredible marijuana!

The following nutrient systems have proven to thousands of growers, big and small, that they have everything needed to produce star-quality cannabis!

General Hydroponics Flora Trio Lineup 

• Flora Trio
• CaliMagic
• Hydroguard

Note: These are the nutrients I use with my cannabis plants grown in hydro. Highly recommended for excellent bud quality and growth.

General Hydroponics Flora Series Nutrient Trio <– Recommended for Beginners.

This is the cannabis nutrient system I have been using to grow hydroponically for more than half a decade. General Hydroponics is a trusted nutrient company and their Flora Trio works very well for beginners and advanced cannabis growers.

One cool thing about the General Hydroponic Flora trio is it contains tons of micro-nutrients in trace amounts that often aren’t even found in other hydroponic nutrients. That makes this a great choice as a complete nutrient system for growers using RO (reverse osmosis) or very soft water that doesn’t naturally contain many common minerals. The GH Flora trio will work for just about any setup with just about any water.

Feel free to check out a grow journal where we pulled in over 20 ounces from a single 600W tent using just the Trio plus Hydroguard for the roots (pic below). We didn’t use anything else for the whole grow and were very happy with our results.

Here’s my custom DWC cannabis schedule for the GH Flora trio [PDF].

These plants grown using just the GH Trio + Hydroguard (formally known as Aquashield)
Feel free to check out the complete grow journal (over 1 lb harvest!)

General Hydroponics Flora Duo Lineup

General Hydroponics FloraDuo (Bottle A & Bottle B) <– From a grower: “This is a great choice by GH if 3 bottles from the Flora Trio seems like too much to deal with. You have less complete control, but it can be a better way to get a “sense” of what the plants need at each stage, since you’re only using two bottles.” Another grower said: “Flora Duo are foundation tools in my eyes. If you’re new and you really want success early on, a simple line like the Flora Duo is going to be good. Less bottles to play with, super simple feeding schedule, and you learn. People pick up on the fact that bottle A is high nitrogen, you use a lot of it the first half then it switches to bottle B that has more Phosphorus and Potassium. So you gain some understanding as to WHY you need both, and what different things do for the plant.” Here’s the FloraDuo Nutrient Schedule from General Hydroponics [PDF]

​ 

Hydroguard (formally known as Aquashield) – prevents and treats root rot.

 ​

House & Garden DWC Kit Lineup

Warning: H&G Products have been difficult to find online lately

The House & Garden line-up is expensive yet remarkably effective. Aqua Flakes A + B, Roots Excelurator, Algen Extract <– Get a custom nutrient schedule directly from the people at House & Garden via their free online nutrient calculator.

From a grower: “H&G was started by a top researcher from Canna. They are right outside of Amsterdam and because cannabis is legal there, so both Canna and H&G are able to do R&D using cannabis. I don’t know about Canna, but I know that House and Garden makes all their own nutrients in house and they work great.”​

​

Hydroguard (formally known as Aquashield) – prevents and treats root rot. No need for extra Cal-Mag with the Aqua Flakes line as it already comes with plenty!

 ​

The post Best Hydroponic Nutrients for Cannabis? appeared first on Grow Weed Easy.

Table of Contents

1. Choose an Easy Setup
2. Get Gear to Make Things Easier
3. Re-Arrange the Grow Space
4. Grow a Time-Saving Strain
5. Train Plants the Right Way

Are you thinking about growing cannabis for the first time, but are afraid it will take too much time? Or maybe you have been growing for years, but feel like caring for your plants is too time-consuming.

Every single growing style has its pros and its cons. There are ways to grow cannabis that take a lot of time tending the plants, but there are setups that do a lot of the work for you so you don’t spend as much time on them day-to-day.

Even a few small adjustments can make a big difference!

As you go through this article you’ll realize that you can’t do all of these things at once, but this list will give you several ideas on how to shave off time depending on your personal grow style!

In addition to this article, you may also enjoy Sirius Fourside’s guide to saving time during your grow!

1.) Choose a Less Time-Consuming Setup

Your responsibilities as a grower change quite a bit depending on how you set up your garden in the beginning. I’ve included some info (and the pros and cons) for cannabis grow setups that tend to be the least time-intensive for growers.

Grow Outdoors

Growing outdoors is pretty much guaranteed to take less of your time each day than growing indoors. When you’re growing indoors, you take the place of mother nature, which means you have to maintain the perfect environment and tend to your plants regularly. No matter how efficiently you do it, maintaining a growing environment indoors is going to take more time than letting nature do it for you.

When growing outdoors you’ll still get the best yields and results by checking on your plants regularly, but once every week or two can be more than adequate for many outdoor growers. Some outdoor growers will spend weeks between visits to their grow sites.

Grow with Super Soil

“Super soil” is a term sometimes used in the growing cannabis community to describe amended & composted soil. Super soil is formulated to give cannabis roots an environment where you don’t need to worry about pH or nutrients.

In a lot of ways, growing with super soil is what people “expect” growing cannabis in soil to be like. You put your seeds in a pot with the soil, and water your plants when they’re thirsty. Other than that the soil takes care of providing nutrients to the roots.

Why super soil? Cannabis plants have unique nutrient needs and use such high levels of nutrients that you will quickly start seeing nutrient deficiencies when using other growing mediums (like regular potting soil or coco coir) unless you provide nutrients with your water and regularly check the pH (which makes nutrients more available to your plant). Measuring out nutrients and checking the pH can take several minutes every time you mix up your water.

With super soil, instead of adding nutrients to your water, you pack the soil with natural sources of nutrients that slowly break down over the course of your grow, feeding even the voracious nutrient appetite of a cannabis plant. Instead of managing the pH so nutrients are able to be absorbed by your plant, the composting process enlists the help of microorganisms in the soil to do that work for you.

Learn more about growing with super soil

Grow Hydroponically

Super soil and hydroponics are very different from each other. In fact, you could say they’re pretty much on complete opposite sides of the spectrum when it comes to grow styles. Yet they have one thing in common; they are both good at doing a lot of the work on their own so you don’t have to, even if they save time in completely opposite ways…

In hydro, the cannabis roots are grown directly in a reservoir of nutrient water

When growing in a container, even with super soil, your plant roots enjoy wet/dry spells, and do best being watered every few days. (Learn how to water your plants perfectly every time) Each time you water your plants, you ideally need to wait for extra runoff water to come out the bottom, then remove the runoff so your roots aren’t sitting in it. For me, that can end up taking 10 minutes or more if I have a couple of plants (I’ll share some tricks below on how to make that process go faster).

With a hydroponic setup your plant roots live in a water reservoir so you never have to worry about runoff water, and because a water reservoir can hold a lot of water at once it means you can go long periods of time without having to water your plants. There have been times in my life where I only tended to my hydro plants on the weekends (which I don’t recommend, but life happens!), which would be tough to do with a container-grown plant.

With hydro, a large reservoir can hold enough water to last for days, or even weeks in the early stages of a plants life. Some days, all that’s needed is just a quick visual check-in if anything at all!

Additionally, if you make up big batches of water each time, you can often go a long time between having to mix batches. That way when your reservoir water does get low you can simply fill it up again with your “reserve” nutrient water. I’ll talk about this a little bit more below, but the type of non-organic nutrients that are used for hydroponics can be pre-mixed with water for several weeks without any problems. This lets you focus on caring for your plants and training them instead of worrying about mixing up new water all the time.

As a bonus, plants grow faster hydroponically than any other grow style, which means you spend less time waiting for harvest time!

Learn how to grow hydroponically

Get Nutrients That Let You Mix Water Ahead of Time

When you need nutrient water for your cannabis plants, it can take several minutes to make up a new batch every time you water.

Instead, as mentioned earlier you can make a lot at once and only use it as needed.

But how long can you store pre-mixed nutrient water?

• Nearly all nutrients can last at least 1 week after being mixed with water without any negative effects on your plants

• For nutrients comprised solely of inorganic ingredients, your pre-mixed nutrient water can last for 2-3+ weeks without a problem even if the nutrient water is just sitting in the container.

How do you know which is which? Look at the label of your nutrients where it says “Derived from”

All the ingredients in the above picture are inorganic minerals and “chemical salts.” They all have “molecular” sounding names. When it comes to hydroponic nutrients, you will almost always see these types of ingredients specifically because they will not cause reactions or problems even when sitting in water for long periods of time.

But it’s not just hydro! Lots of soil and coco coir nutrients also use the same sources of nutrients because these specially derived mineral sources don’t need to be broken down and are available to your plant immediately.

As long as you don’t see any organic ingredients on the label, you know your nutrient water can be premixed for 2-3+ weeks. If you do spot organic ingredients on the label (like “seaweed extract” in this next example) then you probably shouldn’t let your nutrient water sit as long because organic material tends to start up biological processes. Ultimately this could cause things to grow in your water, possibly altering the nutrient content or even introducing some nasty microorganisms to your plant roots.

If you see any organic ingredients listed, like “seaweed extract,” don’t let your mixed nutrient water sit for longer than a week.

Learn more about different types of cannabis nutrients

Note: No matter what nutrients you’re using, make sure any pre-mixed nutrient water gets stored in a cool, dark place!

2.) Get the Right Gear

When you choose the right gear it can help you save minutes here and there, which really starts to add up!

Get a Bigger Plant Container So You Water Less Often

One way to get away with watering your plants less often is to grow them in a bigger container. This is because your growing medium can hold more water at a time, so it takes longer for your plant to drink it all before needing to be watered again.

Some things to keep in mind: When growing in big containers, you’ll get the fastest growth by starting your plants in smaller ones first, then transplanting them to bigger ones as they grow. But that also takes time. It’s much easier to start your seeds directly in big containers from the beginning so you can skip transplanting altogether. The one downside to that is seedlings tend to start a little slower at first in big pots (why?), but once your plant gets going they grow just as fast as any other container-grown plant and you’ll still get the benefit of watering less often.

Read the full article about plant containers

Avoid Smart Pots & Air Pots

If your goal is to water less often, avoid using a fabric pot (Smart Pot) or a container with holes on the sides (air pot). Although cannabis plants tend to grow faster in these types of containers, the pots dry out much more quickly since the soil is getting air from the sides. This means you end up needing to water them much more often than a similar-sized “traditional” plant container.

Learn more about Smart Pots & Air Pots vs Regular Pots

Get the Right Grow Lights

If saving time is your main goal, you most likely want to go with an LED or MH/HPS grow light. These lights are powerful enough to grow your plant from seed to harvest with great yields, and don’t take a lot of adjustment on your part. You basically just hang the lights over your plants and forget about them, only needing to adjust the height of them a handful of times during your grow.

What you really want to avoid is time-consuming fluorescent lights. CFL and T5 grow lights used to be a great choice for a lot of growers, for example, if you were growing in a really height-limited space, or if you wanted to get started growing as cheap as possible. That means for many growers they were the perfect option for getting started growing, but they did end up taking more time and vigilance on the grower’s part compared to other grow lights. This is because fluorescent grow lights need to be kept within just a few inches of the plants. As a result, you needed to watch your plants closely and adjust your lights often to keep bulbs as close as possible while also preventing your plants from growing into the CFLs.

Fluorescents can be cheap and easy grow lights, but they are more time-consuming than LED or HID grow lights. Even in a setup like the one below, a grower will still spend extra time making sure the bulbs are within the 4″ (10cm) range.

In comparison, LED or HPS grow lights are kept a foot away from your plants or more, which gives you a lot more wiggle room if you need to spend some time away from your plants.

Learn more about different types of grow lights

Don’t DIY Everything

Although doing things yourself can save you a lot of money, having to make your own tools for the job almost always ends up taking more time. It’s like if you decided to use a rock to drive nails into wood instead of a hammer. You wouldn’t have to invest money in a hammer, but using a rock is going to take you a heck of a lot longer and not do as good a job!

One simple example when it comes to growing marijuana is using plant ties, which are a tool specifically made for bending and securing stems for plant training. Plant twisty ties unwind from a spool and an attached cutter lets you easily cut each tie to the perfect length in seconds. They are made to be strong enough to hook onto your plants and secure stems where you want, but not strong enough to accidentally hurt them.

Save time by using specially made plant twisty tie to secure your stems, not some random item around the house like wire or pipe cleaners!

If you wanted to save some money, you could skip getting plant ties altogether and just find something from around the house to secure your stems, like pipe cleaners. They both accomplish the same thing in the end, but with pipe cleaners you would likely have to tie several of them together each time you need to secure a stem. An extra minute here and there starts to add up after a while!

In addition to the time savings, DIY stuff often doesn’t last as long or work as well as tools made for the job. For example plant twisty ties are made of smooth plastic that is unaffected by water, while pipe cleaners are “hairy” and can easily start molding or running into other problems from being exposed to moist conditions. Unexpected malfunctions with DIY stuff can cause problems that take time away from your busy life!

Other handy tools specifically made for growing purposes include plant yo-yos (for holding up falling plants), a convenient grow tent (easier than building a grow space from scratch), and rope ratchets (adjust lights up and down with a few clicks). Each of these grow room accessories are cheap but can shave off a few minutes when you’re tending to your plants!

More growing tools you might not know about

3.) Optimize the Grow Space

Some of these ideas are little things and may only take a few minutes to set up, but can end up saving you so much time and frustration during your grow!

Make Sure You Have an Easy Way to Get Water

When it’s hard to get water, not only are you less likely to make up your water on time, it ends up taking more of your time.

• Learn how to get water from a too-small sink. If your grow space is near a sink, but you can’t fit your water container under the faucet, you can install an easy-release adapter that lets you easily “snap” a hose onto your sink. In my house, the only suitable place to fill up water is a little ways from my grow space, but with this adapter, I can use the bathroom sink on the same floor so I never have to lug water up a flight of stairs.

• Get a good-sized water container to mix up nutrient water. If you’re making up several 1-gallon containers of water at a time, consider getting a bigger container so you can make more at once.

• Don’t try to carry too much water at once. This doesn’t necessarily save time, but will save a lot of effort. If you can’t use a hose to get water directly to your grow space, try to think about how much water you’re expecting yourself to carry on a regular basis. I used to use a single 5-gallon jug to make up water for my plants because I wanted to make a lot of water at a time. The problem was that  I had a hard time carrying a jug with 5 gallons of water in it. I switched to using two 3-gallon jugs because they’re easier to carry/handle than a single 5-gallon jug and that works a lot better for me!

Make It Easy to Dispose of Water

When watering cannabis plants grown in containers, you want to give your plants enough water every time to get 20% extra runoff water out of the bottom. Making sure to water your plants thoroughly each time means you have to water less often, and cannabis plants grow faster when they get wet/dry cycles.

But in order to prevent soggy roots and plant drooping, you also want to make sure to remove that runoff water right away so your plants aren’t sitting in it. Sometimes that’s easier said than done!

If you’re growing with containers and each one has its own saucer, you have to physically pick up the plants every time you want to empty the saucers of runoff water. If you only have one smaller plant it’s not really a big deal, but the more plants you’re growing at a time and the bigger your plants get, the bigger of a pain this is.

You don’t want to have to empty each saucer one at a time after you water your plants

One solution is to put all your plants on a tray that will catch water, and put something small like a block of wood under the tray opposite you to make an incline. This makes it so all the runoff water drains to the front of the tray.

These trays are on a slight incline so runoff water immediately pools to the front

At this point, you can take something like a wet vac (I like this bucket vacuum attachment which hooks onto any 5-gallon bucket to make an ultra-cheap wet vacuum) to quickly suck up all the runoff water without having to move the plants at all.

Easy Access to Plants

This may seem simple but when it comes to making sure you pay enough attention to your plants without having to spend a lot of time on them, it’s super important to make sure you can easily access your plants. Every extra obstacle between you and your plants is going to cost a little extra time. So whenever possible try to make sure you have a clear path to the grow space, and that you have an easy-to-open grow tent, closet, or grow box.

The main idea is to make it so when you decide to check on the plants it only takes a second. That being said, don’t make your grow area easy to access for other people!

Make Sure the Tools in Your Grow Space Are Easy to Reach

You might not realize you’ve been wasting time going across the room every time you need to get your nutrients or a pH pen. When possible, you want every tool you use (measuring spoons, nutrients, pH testers, eye protection, grow journal, camera, etc) to be within arm’s reach so you don’t have to get up or move while tending your plants.

Taking a little time on a lazy afternoon to really think this one through and set things up right will save you a surprising amount of time and effort in the long run!

4.) Choose the Right Strain

Each strain grows and produces a little differently. Some strains may be better than others for your purposes!

Choose a Hardy Strain

Many strains have been specifically bred to be able to handle a wide range of conditions. These “easy to grow” strains can handle heat, cold, high humidity, and watering problems better than other strains. When you start with a known hardy strain, you can provide less-than-ideal conditions and care, but still get really great results. I’m not recommending you don’t care for your plants properly, but a hardy strain will let you get away with more without suffering as many consequences!

If you’re looking for suggestions, one highly recommended strain for first-time growers is Northern Light. It’s an award-winning strain that is easy to grow, potent, stays short, quick to harvest, and mold-resistant. It’s the first strain I ever grew and those plants went through a lot but still made it to harvest!

I Put This Northen Light Plant Through a Lot But It Stayed Healthy!

That’s one popular example, but there are tons of strains that are great for this purpose. When researching strains, the breeder will usually mention in the strain description if a plant is particularly hardy.

Learn more about researching to find the right strain. Also here are a few hand-picked heat-resistant strains and mold-resistant strains to help get you started.

Consider Growing an Auto-Flowering Strain

With auto-flowering plants, there is simply less for the grower to do. There’s little to no plant training (which can take quite a bit of time, more info on that below). There’s no light schedule to worry about and your buds will be ready to harvest in about 3 months without needing any special environmental conditions.

Another nice bonus is you have the ability to access your plants 24 hours a day (as opposed to flowering photoperiod plants that need 12 hours of complete darkness every day in order to make buds). This makes it so you can check on plants when it’s convenient instead of waiting for the lights to come on!

The one downside to auto-flowering plants is they can become stunted if they run into major problems during the first 3-4 weeks of life. So if you do go with an auto-flowering strain, you definitely want to try to make sure you keep a close eye on your plant until the first month is over. You may not have to do any extra work, but you still should be on the lookout for possible problems. If possible, choose an auto-flowering strain that is known to be hardy!

Learn more about auto-flowering vs photoperiod (“regular”) strains

5.) Plant Training

Growers train their plants because it’s a free way to dramatically increase yields indoors, sometimes up to 40% or even more compared to untrained plants. But although training increases yields, it does take time.

In my opinion, the best way to train your plant to get increased yields without wasting a lot of time is by using a technique known as manifolding.

Note: Manifolding adds extra time onto the length of your grow, but will minimize the amount of time and effort spent training your plants (while still ensuring exceptional results).

Example of a “Manifolded” Cannabis Plant With a Wide, Flat Shape & Many Colas

Why Manifolding?

All types of indoor cannabis plant training have the same goal – to create a wide and flat plant, with an even canopy like a table. This helps the plant get the most possible amount of light from the grow light. But there are many ways to accomplish this table-top shape, from simply bending stems (Low-Stress Training) to using screens (ScrOG).

Manifolding is one way to accomplish the table shape, and there are a couple of reasons I think it’s the best way to train your plants without needing a lot of time:

1. There’s less guesswork on your part compared to many other training techniques. You just follow the instructions exactly and it’s very clear without you having to think about anything.

2. It only takes two sessions to make your manifold, which takes just a few snips of the scissors.

3. After that, you’re pretty much done. As the plant grows, your only job is to arrange colas to make sure they all stay exposed to the light and none of them gets taller than the others.

Read the full manifolding tutorial

Note: Manifolding can only be done with photoperiod plants, not auto-flowering strains (why not?).

Or don’t train at all…

You might consider just skipping training altogether because you can still get great yields with untrained plants if you do it right.

Some growers use a technique called SoG (Sea of Green) to get the biggest yields without doing any training. Basically, the idea is to just grow a few or many untrained plants, and get them to make buds right away so you get a “sea” of plants with one main bud each. This can be a good choice for both photoperiod and auto-flowering strains, and in addition to taking no time training, harvest time comes quick!

SoG in action – This technique uses many small plants to create that flat shape with many colas, but without any training at all

One last tip…

Research before you start growing!

You can just put a cannabis seed in regular potting mix and deal with problems as you go along, and honestly, that’s how a lot of people start growing, including me! But doing it that way definitely ends up taking more time (and often money) because you end up running into problems or realizing along the way that you need to change up your setup.

I know this may be easier said than done, but if your goal is to grow cannabis without needing to spend much time each day caring for your plants each day, the best thing you can do is take the time to research before you even get your seeds!

Here’s a list of research topics to help you get started!

Jump to…

Growing Cannabis with Super Soil

How to Use Coco Coir as a Growing Medium

Top-Fed DWC (Bubbleponics) Tutorial

How do I produce top-shelf buds every time?​​​​​​​

The post 5 Time-Savers for Busy Cannabis Growers appeared first on Grow Weed Easy.

In addition to the search bar, this link guide helps you navigate through the Grow Weed Easy website. Learn about growing topics you won’t find anywhere else! This is a shortened list of all our cannabis growing tutorials, as the website has over 500 articles and tutorials!

Full List of EVERYTHING on GWE  ← Over 500 Articles & Growing Tutorials!

Start Here – Beginner Grow Guides

• Complete Beginner’s Guide
• How do I start growing my own weed indoors? (get help choosing your setup)
• How to Grow Weed in 10 Steps
• Simplest Cannabis Grow Guide Ever!
• How Long Does It Take to Grow Weed? (Marijuana Growth Timeline)
• 3 Steps from Beginner to Legendary Grower
• Complete New Grower’s Shopping List

Cannabis Life Stages

• Germination
• Vegetative Stage (Getting Bigger)
• Flowering Stage (Making Buds)
• Harvest

Choosing…

• Best Type of Nutrients
• Choosing the Best Grow Light
• Soil vs Hydro
• How Many Plants Should I Grow?
• What Part of the House Should I Grow In?
• What Setup Should I Get?
• Best Strains for Beginners
• Where to Get Seeds (including the U.S.)

Common New Grower Topics

• How Much Will Electricity Cost?
• Stealth Growing: How NOT to Get Caught Growing Weed
• What Equipment Do I Need?
• Germinate Your Seeds
• 7 Things I Wish Someone Had Told Me When I First Started Growing Weed
• How to Save Money When Growing Weed
• How to Store Weed Properly (so it never loses smell or potency!)
• Ask Questions & Get Answers From Real Growers! (In Our Free Growing Community)
• Cannabis Grower’s Glossary

Problems & Symptoms

• Cannabis Problems Guide
  • How to Help Yellow Seedlings
  • How to Fix Yellow Cannabis Leaves
  • How to Fix Curling and Clawing Cannabis Leaves
  • What Causes Dry or Crispy Leaves?
  • What Causes Brown Spots on Cannabis Leaves?
  • What Causes Bananas (“Nanners”) on Cannabis Buds?
  • Is This Nutrient Burn on My Marijuana Plant?
  • What causes red stems in cannabis plants?
• Diagnose Your Sick Plant
• Bugs & Other Cannabis Pests
• How to Prevent Nutrient Deficiencies
  • Which Nutrient Deficiencies are Caused by pH? (picture guide)
  • How to Stop Flowering Stage Nutrient Deficiencies
• 7 Reasons Why Cannabis Plants Grow Slow
• 5-Step Remedy That Fixes 99% of Grow Problems
• All-Natural Pesticides – Safe Up to Harvest!

Plant Training (Indoor Tricks for Bigger Yields)

• Simplest Plant Training Guide Ever!
• How to Control Height of Indoor Cannabis Plants
• Complete Plant Training Guide
• Breakdown of Techniques​
  • Low Stress Training (LST) Tutorial
  • Topping vs FIMing Tutorial
  • LBH’s Famous ScrOG Tutorial
  • Supercropping: Magic Technique to Control Cannabis Plant Height
  • Sea of Green (SoG) Tutorial
  • 12-12 from Seed – Flowering Plants Early
  • Nebula’s Manifold Tutorial
  • How to Manifold Clones
  • Nebula’s Bud-Based Defoliation Tutorial
  • Alternate Defoliation Tutorial ​
  • What is Re-Vegging / Monstercropping?
• How Can I Train an Auto-Flowering Plant?
• 7 Unfortunate Plant Training Mistakes

Grow Mediums

• What’s the Best Growing Medium?
• Soil vs Coco vs Hydro
• Basic Soil Guide
• Organic Soil Compost Guide (Super Soil) – Just Add Water!
• Coco Coir Guide
  • Coco Coir: The Most Flexible Cannabis Grow Medium
• Hydro/DWC/Bubbleponics Guide
• “True” Organic Growing vs Just Using Organic Nutrients
• Can You Use Miracle-Gro?

Nutrients

• Which Nutrients Are Best For Growing Cannabis?
• Soil Nutrients
• Coco Coir Nutrients
• Hydroponic Nutrients

Grow Lights

• 5 Best LED Grow Lights 2025 (Yields, Speed, & Bud Quality)
• Compare Types of Cannabis Grow Lights
  • Fluorescents (T5s) – Good for Seedlings Only (not powerful enough to produce potent buds or big yields)
  • CFLs (Spiral Bulbs) – Not Recommended (LEDs are much better)
  • LED Grow Lights – Recommended for Most Home Growers
  • MH/HPS Grow Lights – Good Alternative to LEDs, But Run Much Hotter
  • CMH / LEC Grow Lights – Good Alternative to LEDs, But Run Much Hotter
  • Plasma / Magnetic Induction Grow Lights – Not Recommended (poor cannabis growth)
• How Does Light Spectrum Affect Marijuana Plants?
• How Far Away Do I Keep My Grow Lights?
• You Can Actually Give Plants Too Much Light?!
• Grow Light Upgrade Guide: Yields & Potency Explained
• Cannabis Grow Lights: What’s the Best Size?

Best LED Grow Light Articles

• 5 Best LED Grow Lights 2025 (Yields, Speed, & Bud Quality)
• LED Grow Lights: Too Much or Not Enough Light?
• LED Grow Journal: Mars Hydro TSL-2000W vs Spider Farmer SF-2000
• LEC vs LED Grow Lights: Side-by-Side Cannabis Grow Journal
• Nebula’s Auto-Flowering Grow Journal (Topping vs Natural) – cannabis plants are grown under LED grow lights

Environment

• Create the Perfect Growing Environment
  • Temperature Tutorial
  • 5 Secrets to Heat Control
  • Control Humidity for Better Buds
  • How to Use Reflective Walls to Increase Yields Indoors
  • How to Make Plants Grow Faster with CO2
• Where’s the Best Place in the House to Grow Your Plants?
• How to Control Odors
• How to Set Up an Exhaust
• How to Set Up a Grow Tent for Better Yields (and Stealth)

Plant Care Tutorials

• Cloning
  • How to clone weed in a cup of water (easy!)
  • How to make cannabis clones with an aero cloner
• Intro to Plant Training for Bigger Yields Indoors
• How Often to Water Plants
  • The Easiest Way to Water Plants & Remove Runoff
• How (and When) to Transplant Cannabis
• Male vs Female Plants
• When to Harvest?
• Drying & Curing

How to Improve…

• Yields
• Bud Quality
  • 7 Environment Effects on Bud Quality
  • The Secret to Excellent Bud Quality
• THC Levels
• CBD Levels
• Smell/Taste
• Density
• Bud Color (How to Grow Pink or Purple Buds)
• Glitter (Make Buds Sparkle with More Trichomes)
• Bonus: What Determines Yields?

Buying Seeds

• Where to Get Seeds
• How to Find the Right Strain
• What are “Feminized” Seeds?
• Which Breeders to Trust?
• Photoperiod vs Auto-Flowering Cannabis Strains
• Bag Seed vs Hype Seed: Is it worth it to buy cannabis seeds?

Recommended Strains

• Best Autoflowering Cannabis Strains for Yields & Potency
• List of Sugar-Dusted Strains (Heavy Trichome Genetics)
• 10 Cold-Resistant Cannabis Strains
• 14 Heat-Resistant Cannabis Strains
• Which cannabis strains stay short? (Best strains for small spaces)

Auto-Flowering Strains

• Nebula’s Guide to Cannabis Auto-Flowering Strains (Photoperiod vs Auto-Flowering)
• Should I “Top” or Train an Auto-Flowering Plant?
• What’s the best light schedule for auto-flowering strains?
• Nebula’s Auto-Flowering Grow Journal (Topping vs Natural)

Edibles

• Decarboxylation: How to Decarb Your Weed (crucial step for just about every edible recipe)
• Best Weed Butter Recipe
  • How to Make Great Brownies with Weed Butter
• Canna Caps
• How to Make Cannabis Gummies (Weed Gummy Bears)
• How to Make Cannabis Tinctures
• How to Make Hash Oil (aka Cannabis Extract Oil, Rick Simpson Oil, or RSO)

Extracts (No Solvents Used in Any Recipe)

• Solventless Extraction Showdown – Bubble Hash vs. Dry-Ice Hash!
• Dry Ice Hash (Made with Dry Ice)
• How to Make Bubble Hash (Made with Ice Water)
• How To Make Your Own Homemade Rosin (dabs)

And Lots More!

• How Long Does it Take to Grow Weed?
• Vegetative vs Flowering Stage (Long Days vs Long Nights)
• Germination & Seedling Mistakes
• Simple Guide to Plant Training
• What’s the Best Pot / Container?
• Perpetual Harvest
• What Determines Yields?
• 5 Time-Savers for Busy Growers
• Breeding Techniques
• 7 Gift Ideas for Cannabis Growers
• Grow Journals
• How long can I store nutrient water?
• What is High-Frequency Fertigation?
• Where is it legal to grow weed in the USA?
• See EVERYTHING on the Site!

Safety & Preparation

• Fire Protection in the Grow Room
• Electrical Safety Tips & Tricks
• Prepare Yourself for Growing Emergencies
• Stealth Growing Indoors: How to NOT get Caught Growing Weed

Just for Fun

• Weird or What? Cannabis Mutations & More!
• Creatures on Cannabis (Cute Photo Gallery)
• 10 Gift Ideas for Cannabis Growers

Submit Pics

• Submit Trophy Pictures of your Plants!
• How to Take Better Plant Pics
• How to Fix Yellow HPS Pics

Want More?

• Complete List of EVERYTHING on GWE  ← Full List (Over 500 articles & growing!)

Thanks for visiting! We hope our website helps you find the growing tutorials you were looking for. We’ve written hundreds of growing marijuana articles and unfortunately we can’t fit them all on this page, so we encourage you to use the search bar on the right side (or top of the page for mobile users) to search for articles you don’t see here.

Happy growing!
Nebula & Sirius

Use this “Navigation” page to find the pot growing topic you’re interested in, or click here to see every single page on the website!

The post Link Guide to Growing Cannabis Tutorials appeared first on Grow Weed Easy.

Table of Contents

What is Aquaponics?

3 Major Obstacles to Growing Cannabis in Aquaponics

Tactics for Growing Marijuana and Aquaponics

Introduction: What is Aquaponics?

In order to get high yields with aquaponics, a cannabis grower needs to familiarize themselves with the basics of how an aquaponic system works. To grow cannabis successfully in aquaponics, the system must be configured to produce the high levels of nutrients needed by a plant like marijuana, and that takes a little extra know-how!

Aquaponics is the art of combining aquaculture (growing fish in tanks) with hydroponics (growing plants in water). It’s sort of like organic hydroponics!

In an aquaponic growing system, fish are raised in a tank and the nutrients they produce (contained in their poop and produced by their gills) gets converted by bacteria into nutrients for the plants. The plant roots help clean the water before it is re-circulated back to the fish tank, completing the cycle.

Aquaponics creates a tiny ecosystem – fish make nutrients for cannabis while cannabis cleans the water for the fish!

Although fish are the most common species used for aquaponics, other aquatic creatures like shrimp, crayfish or prawns can also be used. Both edible fish and ornamental fish can be used successfully in an aquaponic system. Generally you want to pick a species that is hardy and can tolerate crowding. Tilapia is an edible fish that adapt very well to aquaponics, and koi or goldfish are great choices for ornamental fish since they are nice to look at and can thrive in sub-optimal environments.

Aquaponics may be the most efficient way there is to cultivate both fish and plants at the same time because combining them together reduces the cost of farming each one individually! In big commercial operations, aquaponics is used to produce profitable combinations like tilapia fish and lettuce. In smaller setups, aquaponics is a sustainable, low-technology and efficient way to create food even with infertile land and low resources – aquaponics dramatically reduces the amount of water needed for raising fish, while producing high-nutrient plants at the same time!

You feed the fish, they feed the cannabis!

When it comes to growing cannabis in aquaponics, one of the big goals is to set up a system that produces high levels of available nutrients. Growing cannabis plants gobble up nutrients, especially in the flowering stage, so you need to ramp up an aquaponics system to optimize it for high nutrient output! That means that you need to make sure you have a high density of fish, as well as a really great bacterial colony to convert all that fish poop into nutrients for your plants!

Life Cycle Inside a Cannabis Aquaponics System

Fish

The Rearing Tank / Aquarium is where the fish or other aquatic creatures live. These creatures produce waste containing nutrients that are vital for plant growth. Common fish used in aquaponics include tilapia, koi and goldfish, but there are many other hardy species that can adapt to an aquaponic environment including blue gill and catfish.

Plants

Your system will have a Hydroponic Sub-System, which is basically the tank or reservoir where cannabis plants grow with their roots in the water. In many ways, you grow your cannabis plants in aquaponics just like you would with a traditional DWC/hydro setup. The main difference is the fish produce nutrients instead of you having to add them!

Bacteria

Bacteria make up your Biofilter, the “heart” of your aquaponics system. The bacteria biofilter is the missing piece that allows you to run a symbiotic relationship between the fish and the plants like in nature. When you create a nice home for the bacteria, they work hard to convert fish waste into usable nutrients for the plants. The biofilter can be its own separate component in the system, or you can cultivate a biofilm of bacteria inside the actual fish tanks and hydroponic reservoirs. Without a colony of bacteria, your plants will be unable to use the nutrients in the water from the fish (and fish will die from too-high levels of ammonia)!

The Secret to Success with Marijuana & Aquaponics is Patience

The secret to any successful aquaponics system is patience! You need to create a balance between the fish, bacteria and plants, and this takes time. Unfortunately, there’s not necessarily a lot of ways to speed things up while your bacteria is being colonized.

It’s like growing a cannabis plant in a way, you can do things to get the plant to grow faster, but no matter what you’re still going to have to wait for the plant to grow until you get to harvest. You can help your bacteria grow, but they need time to build up their numbers and form a robust colony.

That means in a young/new aquaponics tank you have to spend time cultivating your bacteria, and in the meantime you may have a lot of adjusting to do to maintain a balance that will keep both plants and fish alive: adding nutrients, changing the water, testing nutrient levels, managing pH and possibly adding/removing fish.

But as you create more of a balance, and your tank becomes more mature, you will have a lot less to do. In fact, over time you can set the system to do most of the maintenance by itself!

3 Major Obstacles to Growing Cannabis in Aquaponics

1.) Cannabis Has High Nutrient Needs

Growing cannabis in aquaponics is similar to hydroponics, except fish and bacteria make the food! Your plants can’t use nutrients directly from the fish. Fish waste actually has to be converted to a usable form by the bacteria in your biofilter. Building a robust colony of bacteria for your biofilter can take 6 months or more, which means that additional nutrient supplementation by natural sources will likely be needed to grow a cannabis plant in aquaponics for the first few months.

The appetite of a cannabis plant for nutrients is especially voracious during the budding/flowering stage. When your plant is making buds, it’s sucking up nutrients like there’s no tomorrow! Fruiting plants with similarly high nutrient needs to cannabis (like tomatoes) have been successfully grown in aquaponics, but it’s much less common than growing something with simple and low nutrient needs like lettuce or herbs.

While “getting your feet wet” with aquaponics, don’t beat yourself up if you run into nutrient problems!

2.) May Need Separate Vegetative & Flowering Chambers

Vegetative and flowering cannabis have different nutrient needs for the best growth. So in order to completely optimize an aquaponic system for cannabis it may be necessary to maintain different tanks.

It may be possible to simply supplement your tank with extra nutrients during the flowering stage, but it can be harmful to fish to add an excessive amount of extra nutrients unless the plants use most of it up before the water is re-circulated back to the rearing tank! Extra planning and water testing may be needed to manage which nutrients are currently available.

3.) What to Do with Extra Fish

Aquaponics is spectacular at producing fish and plants at the same time. If a cannabis grower would like a constant supply of fish to eat or sell, an aquaponic system simply can’t be beat!

But if a cannabis grower does not want to actually harvest their fish, they need to plan on what to do with the extra fish as they die and need to be replaced. In order to maintain the equilibrium of your aquaponics system, it’s a good idea to regularly be adding new young fish as old ones mature and die.

Tactics for Growing Marijuana with Aquaponics

How to Produce the Nutrients Needed by Cannabis

Even after your biofilter is established, you may still need to supplement with extra calcium, iron, potassium and possibly phosphorus to keep up with the needs of your cannabis, especially during the flowering stage.

Luckily there are natural sources to get extra nutrient supplementation without seriously affecting your fish. For example Maxicrop is a common nutrient additive made out of seaweed that works well in an aquaponics system to add potassium and trace minerals without hurting your fish.

Other common additives include cycling calcium hydroxide (hydrated lime or builder’s lime) and potassium carbonate (bicarbonate), which add calcium and potassium to the system while also raising the pH (since low pH is common in an aquaponics system that’s not well-established).

No matter what, when dialing in your aquaponic system it’s important to test your water throughout the process to see what nutrients are currently available. This lets you know where you’re running into nutrient problems, and also will help you know what to do to fix it. Not only will this help you take better care of your plants, it will also help you take better care of your fish!

Want to create a complete ecosystem with basically no input from you?

Some growers will introduce a worm farm (vermicompost) to the system to supplement nutrients naturally while breaking down the solid waste from fish which can’t be processed by bacteria. This is one way to actually “complete” the cycle inside the system.

Normally in aquaponics, these extra solids are filtered out and thrown away, but worms can liquefy it while providing an extra source of nutrients that can help bridge the nutrient gap and make sure cannabis is getting everything it needs without any extra supplementation.

At this point your main input into the system would just be fish feed. If you want to get even more sustainable, you could grow duckweed or another plant that fish eat and you wouldn’t even have to buy fish feed anymore! As the system gets more and more balanced, nearly all the energy input to the system can come from the sun or grow lights, producing a food/plant generating machine!

Ready to start growing cannabis with aquaponics? The following incredibly high-rated book will teach you everything you need to know so you can get started today!

Learn how to grow cannabis with aquaponics with Aquaponics Gardening: A Step-By-Step Guide to Raising Vegetables and Fish Together available on Amazon!

By following the tutorials and setting up your system to grow high-nutrient, flowering plants plants like tomatoes or corn, you will be giving your cannabis plants everything they need to succeed!

Jump to…

How to grow cannabis in hydroponics

Which plant nutrients work for growing cannabis?

Beginner’s Guide: How to Grow Weed Indoors

Where can I find seeds that deliver to me?

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