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.

What Makes Nutrients “Good” or “Bad” for Growing in Coco Coir?

What makes Coco Coir nutrients “good” or “bad?”

In other words, why are some nutrients better than others for growing cannabis in coco coir? What kind of coco 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 coco coir growing setup?

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

Best Nutrients for Coco

• Nutrients that are specifically made for coco or hydroponics tend to be the easiest to work with
• Coco does well with either mineral nutrients or organic nutrient sources. With mineral (hydro) nutrients the plants tend to grow bigger and faster because the nutrients get delivered to the plant in the most efficient form. It’s often said that organic nutrients result in buds with a more complex smell, but organic-grown plants are a little slower to grow. Both types of nutrients produce very high-quality weed, and any differences in the final product are relatively small and often very hard to pin down. In our growing forum, the side-by-side grow tests with organic vs hydroponic nutrients have given inconclusive results as far as bud quality! The most important thing to pay attention to when growing in coco is good watering practices and paying attention to pH.
• Contains rich sources of micro-nutrients (to make up for what might have been found in the soil)
• Optimum NPK ratios (more info below)

Poor Nutrients for Coco

• Made specifically for soil, especially if you look on the back and don’t see Magnesium, Calcium, Sulfur and other micronutrients on the label. A lot of soil-made nutrient systems will work for cannabis, but they often skip out on micronutrients which would normally be found in soil, but might not be available in coco coir. If you’re using filtered or RO water, it’s even more important to use nutrients designed for hydro or coco since there will be basically zero traces of other nutrients in the water.
• Low in Calcium – Cannabis is prone to Calcium deficiencies when growing in coco coir unless you supplement with extra Calcium and Magnesium (it’s important to always add Calcium and Magnesium at the same time because they rely on each other and too much of one will cause a nutrient problem with the other). Most coco-specific nutrients already have high levels of Calcium, but it’s also really common to add a Cal-Mag supplement to your regimen when growing weed in coco coir to add extra calcium just in case. Any Cal-Mag supplement will work, but it’s always good to get a Cal-Mag supplement from the company who makes your nutrients jf available. Sticking with the same company for all your nutrients helps ensure they will be compatible with each other.

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

Optimum NPK Ratios for Coco 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).

So what are the optimum NPK values for growing cannabis in coco? It depends on the plant’s stage of life (N-P-K are the 3 numbers on the front of nutrient bottles, like this)

In order to get the best results growing cannabis in coco, 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!

The most important thing is high Nitrogen in the vegetative stage, and low Nitrogen in the flowering stage

Cannabis plants grown in soil are not that picky about P & K. As long as there is an abundance of each, the exact ratio isn’t as important as the amount of Nitrogen compared to the others. Additionally, coco nutrients should always include….

• Magnesium
• Calcium
• Iron
• Sulfur

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

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

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

• Coco 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
• Soil nutrients tend to have higher levels of Phosphorus, because microorganisms in the soil (as well as clay “colloidal” particles) can ‘steal’ some of it

When set up right with good nutrients, coco can produce some beefy buds!

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

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 coco 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 coco. 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!

At the very least, make sure pH is the first thing you check if you start seeing nutrient problems!

If you think you have the best coco cannabis nutrients, tell us about your results!

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

Table of Contents

Introduction: Perfect Setup for Beginners & First-Time Growers

• 250W HPS Grow Light
• Coco Coir
• Auto-Flowering Strains

Getting Started

• Get Supplies
• Get Set Up

Seedling Stage

• Time Germinate Your Seeds!
• Seedling Care
• Common Seedling Problems

Vegetative Stage

• Daily Care & Tips
• Plant Training for Bigger Yields (Optional)

Flowering Stage

• Daily Care & Tips to Increase Yields

Harvest Time

• When to Harvest
• How to Dry & Cure (Make Buds More Potent!)

Introduction for First-Time Growers

Hundreds of cannabis growers have written in over the years and it seems that many, many growers are looking to produce about an ounce a month. There are lots of ways to achieve that yield, but how do you do it using the least amount of time, money and effort? How can you get to harvest as fast as possible?

Today’s step-by-step tutorial uses a 250W HPS, coco coir as a growing medium and auto-flowering cannabis strains. This combination makes it easy and relatively cheap to produce 4 ounces in 4 months…or even more!

You don’t have to know anything about growing cannabis to follow this beginner’s tutorial

This tutorial will give you a green thumb even if you’ve struggled with plants in the past, or just never grown anything! Everything that needs to be done will be explained step-by-step for each stage of your plant’s life. You’ll get a list of supplies with everything you need to grow, from measuring spoons to rope ratchets to seeds to your grow tent!

I have links to every item so you get exactly the same setup and get exactly the same results as you see in this tutorial. Once you’ve completed this grow, the next ones get easier and easier!

Here’s the breakdown:

• $652 Setup – Total setup cost for 1st grow including grow tent, seeds & all supplies (cost breakdown). Your 2nd grow will only cost about $112 for seeds and supplies.
• $30-60/Month Electricity – Average Cost of Electricity (based on $0.12/kWh – $0.25/ kWh). You may pay more or less depending on where you live; 12¢ is the overall US average, 25¢ is the big city average – (electricity breakdown)
• 4-7 Ounces – Average Yield/Harvest – if you follow all the instructions on this page and get the full setup you could possibly get even better yields!
• 3.5 Months – Average Time from Seed to Bud
• 1+ Ounce/Month – Comfortably grow this much (and probably a lot more) without needing advanced knowledge or experience!

Why a 250W HPS Grow Light?

A lot of cannabis growers think they need big grow lights to get the yields they’re looking for, and for some growers that may be true! But for growers looking for about an ounce a month, a 250W HPS may be the best grow light available. A 250W HPS doesn’t get even close to as hot as the bigger HPS grow lights like the 400W and 600W, but it still gets the improved yields, density and appearance of buds grown under an HPS.

A 250W HPS can easily produce 1+ oz/month. If you follow this tutorial you can expect to harvest 4-7 oz every 3-4 months.

Example Harvest in This Setup – 6.7 ounces
(plants pictured above – view the grow journal)

Why a 250W HPS is a Great Choice for Marijuana Growers:

• Bigger Yields for the Same Electricity – For the same amount of wattage, an HPS grow light gets (on average) 10-20% higher yields than LEDs, and 25-50% higher yields than CFLs or T5s
• Longer & Denser Buds – Buds grown under HPS are usually longer and often more dense than buds from other types of grow lights
• Low Setup Cost – HPS grow lights usually cost quite a bit less to get started with than LEDs, and the cost is similar to starting with CFLs or T5s. The entire grow setup from today’s tutorial including seeds and supplies will cost less than $700, which is cheaper than many similar-wattage LED grow lights are by themselves, and similar to what you’d pay for an equivalent CFL or T5 setup (at least on this scale; small CFL setups can be really cheap!).
• Manageable Electricity Cost – With a 250W HPS and the 3 fans recommended in this tutorial, you can expect to pay around an extra $30-60 in electricity/month (electricity breakdown).

Big HPS grow lights have a reputation for getting very hot, but a small one like the 250W is a lot easier to keep cool. In fact, a 250W HPS doesn’t put out more total heat than an LED that pulls 250W out of the wall!

A strong exhaust fan recirculates and constantly replaces all the air in a sealed environment like a grow tent. This keeps a small 250W HPS grow light cool enough without ducting. This technique works with both air-cooled hoods and “wing” style reflectors

What about outside the grow space? If venting into a closet, a 250W HPS could raise the temperature by 5°F (3°C) degrees or more. In a regular size room it has less of an effect and may only raise the temperature of the room by a few degrees.

I have my grow tent in my bedroom and a window fan keep temps cool enough to almost completely mitigate the heat created by the HPS.

In my experience a 250W light will raise the temperature of a large room by a few degrees. If you use a window fan to blow out hot air, that can help keep the room cooler.

In an ideal world it’s probably a good idea to set up your 250W light with a “real” exhaust system with ducting going from your light to a fan to a window, but in a pinch you can do without and upgrade later (that’s what I did!). Every grow you can make your setup a little bit better, but in the meantime you can harvest lots of beautiful and potent bud!

Why No MH (Metal Halide) bulbs in the Vegetative Stage? Many growers start plants under a metal halide (MH) bulb while the plant is vegetating, then switch over to HPS once their plants start flowering. MH encourages short bushy growth while HPS encourages long/stretchy growth and flowering. I personally use an HPS grow light from seed to harvest because it’s easier and I like how plants grow, but it definitely works either way!

Why Use Coco Coir for Growing Cannabis?

• Feels Like Growing in Soil – Coco coir is a soilless growing medium which gives the feel of growing in soil. Plants are kept in regular containers, and growers simply water their plants with nutrient water. Coco coir can be treated basically the same as (non-amended) soil for growing cannabis.
• Great for Plant Roots – Coco coir is effective at holding onto moisture and nutrients for roots, but also has a lighter texture that lets it hold onto more oxygen. This helps prevent over and under-watering. Coco coir tends to promote healthy and fast root development compared to other potting mixes.
• Does Not Attract Insects – Coco coir does not make a good home for many garden pests that affect soil growers. As such, cannabis growing in coco coir is much less likely to be attacked by pests or bugs.
• Benefits of Hydro – Hydroponics (growing plants directly in water while pumping in air to provide oxygen) is effective at making plants grow faster because it gives oxygen and nutrients to the roots in the most easily accessible form, saving the plant precious energy. However, hydroponics takes extra preparation compared to growing a potted plant and for those looking for a hand-watered experience, coco coir gives many of the benefits of hydro. This results in a quicker harvest and bigger yields compared to growing in soil, without having to manage a water reservoir.

Why grow an auto-flowering strain?

Auto-flowering strains are like regular cannabis plants except an auto-flowering plant will automatically start making buds around week 3-4 of its life (“regular” strains need a special light schedule to make buds). Most auto-flowering plants will be ready to harvest by the time they are 3-4 months old, making them one of the fastest ways to get to harvest.

Learn more about auto-flowering strains!

One nice feature of auto-flowering buds is they tend to be more relaxing and anti-anxiety because they naturally have slightly higher levels of CBD. This is because the ancestor of auto-flowering strains produced a lot of CBD. Although the original auto-flowering strains from years ago were not as potent as regular cannabis plants, the modern strains by trustworthy breeders are as potent as any non-auto (photoperiod) plant!

Auto-flowering strains are also really neat in the way that they act exactly how you’d think a plant should act if you’ve never grown cannabis before.

You plant a seed, water the plant while it grows, and harvest after it finishes making buds on its own. This simplistic approach can help get rid of some of the complication of learning how to grow cannabis. By the time you get to the end of your first grow, you’ll be expert enough to tackle any strain!

This bud is from an auto-flowering Lemon OG Haze plant

Getting Started

Ready to start growing an ounce of bud a month? If you follow this tutorial step-by-step I can almost guarantee you will have at least 4 ounces in your hands in 4 months, and probably more!

Supplies

4 Seeds – Get Seeds for 4 Feminized Auto-flowering Plants

The most important thing about choosing strains to grow is they should excite you! Learn more about picking the right strain for your needs. Below I recommend a few breeders and strains because I know these will work for you, but don’t feel stuck if you want something else! Any auto-flowering strain will work in this setup if you follow all the instructions 🙂

Make sure to get “feminized” seeds! That means that all the plants will be female and make buds. Non-feminized seeds have about a 50% chance of being male plants which don’t make buds at all (they’re only good for breeding)! Nearly all auto-flowering seeds are feminized, so they will usually say specifically if they’re “regular”/”non-feminized” seeds. Learn more about ordering cannabis seeds online.

Auto-flowering cannabis plants thrive under an HPS grow light!

You want to get seeds for 4 plants for this setup. If something happens to one or two of them, you’ll still be on track to get a nice harvest! That being said, if you follow this tutorial you shouldn’t lose any plants.

You can grow 4 of the same strain, or 4 different strains, it’s up to you. Generally it’s easier to grow all the same strain because they tend to grow more like each other, but if you’re willing to put in a little extra effort to control any unruly plants you can easily grow 4 different strains at the same time (that’s what I do).

Get seeds for 4 plants so you can grow a forest under your grow light!

Just try make sure that each strain you choose is ready to harvest within 3-4 months. That will help make sure they all stay about the same size. Breeders always list estimates about how long each strain needs to flower before harvest.

A Few Trusted Auto-Flowering Breeders (highly rated by auto-flowering growers)

These aren’t the only great auto-flowering breeders, but I know these ones get great results every time! Each one has strains that have been refined over many generations to lock in good genetics and make sure the plant grows exactly how the breeder tells you.

• Buddha
• Dinafem
• Dutch Passion
• Nirvana

When you’re growing auto-flowering plants from a trusted breeder, you know what to expect because the plant will grow exactly how the breeder tells you it will. With lesser-known auto-flowering breeders it’s more of a gamble. Sometimes you get great plants, but unfortunately sometimes you get something unexpected that you don’t want.

A Few Suggested Auto-Flowering Strains

These are some of my favorite auto cannabis strains, but there are hundreds of great strains to choose front. Learn more about researching strains!

• Dinafem Auto Critical Jack – This is one of the prettier autos with colorful buds that become covered with trichomes, and it also has very strong mental and body effects!
• Dinafem Auto Sour Diesel – Good yields and although buds are average looking, the effects were out of this world – this is my favorite auto that I’ve grown so far!
• Nirvana Auto Bubbleicious – Buds have a sweet smell that is almost like bubblegum, plus this strain is very easy to grow!
• Dutch Passion AutoBlueberry – Purple or blue tint to buds, amazing blueberry smell and above average potency.

Growing Medium – Coco Coir

• Pre-Made Coco Coir Potting Mix – You can also mix your own with dehydrated coco coir bricks, which is a bit cheaper since it’s easier to ship
• 4 x 3-gallon Smart Pots – If you need to spend longer than a day or two away from your plants at a time, you may want to get 5 or even 7-gallon pots. Plants grown in 3-gallon containers grow a little quicker for the first few weeks but you’ll have to water them more often than a bigger container.
• Rapid Rooters – to start seeds (these can be kept in the fridge between grows)

Environment Setup – Get a Grow Tent

• 2’ x 4’ x 5’ Grow Tent

• Air Circulation: Two small clip-on fans circulating air around and over plants

• Exhaust: Can Max 6″ Fan – 334 CFM. (You can use a window fan if the room gets hotter than outside. Temps should stay around 75-85°F (24 – 29°C) in the grow tent. Ideally, the temperature should stay closer to 75°F(24°C), but some areas just don’t allow for this without lots and lots of air conditioning.

250W Grow Light

• You need a Reflector, 250W Ballast & 250W Bulb.

• Any 250W HPS grow light set will work for this setup, even super cheap ones. However, these days I’ve noticed many grow light companies have stopped carrying 250W HPS lights in favor of 315 LECs (not the same as LEDs, these are a type of HID light). LECs can be a great alternative to HPS, but they initially cost quite a bit more (usually around $500 for a kit) and need to be kept a little further away than a 250W HPS (18″ away vs 12″ away). However they perform extremely well for growing cannabis and have some other neat benefits. Learn more about growing cannabis with LECs.

• Perhaps the easiest option is to get a dimmable 400W HPS ballast and dimmable 400W HPS bulb with your reflector. Although a 400W HPS light can get pretty hot, you will be able to dim the grow light to 50 or 75% to help keep things cool. This will also allow you to follow through with the tutorial, and you can always turn up the intensity later.

Get this Reflector, 250W Ballast & 250W HPS Bulb (Premium Equipment) – The light from an HPS appears yellow or orange, which happens to be the perfect light spectrum to encourage plants to make bigger buds.

Consider a 315 LEC grow light if you want an alternative to HPS. These newly-popular grow lights are still in testing, but so far they’ve been getting really great results with cannabis!

Get a dimmable 400W HPS ballast, dimmable 400W HPS bulb and a reflector, then turn ths grow light down to 50 or 75% to follow this tutorial. You’ll be able to increase the intensity later. Click pictures for closeup of a ballast with dimming options.

Nutrients

• General Hydroponics Flora Trio

• CaliMagic (Cal-Mag supplement, essential when growing in coco coir)

• Here’s the exact nutrient schedule I use (PDF) This is basically the regular General Hydroponic coco schedule for the Flora trio, but I cut the dosages in half and converted everything to imperial measurements (tsp, etc), along with a few small tweaks for auto-flowering strains in coco. With these alterations, you can use this schedule exactly as is for growing auto cannabis plants in coco coir.

Watering Your Plants

• 1-gallon water jug

• Trays to Catch Runoff Water (put these on a slight incline so all the water pools to the front so you can easily collect it

“How do I collect the water from the runoff tray?”

• Wet/Dry vacuum
• Water transfer pump

I use the “Bucket Head” attachment at Home Depot which costs about $25 and can be attached to any standard bucket, turning it into an ultra-cheap wet/dry vacuum.

Other Random Grower Tools

• Thermometer & Humidity Monitor

• Power strip & electrical timer

• Rope Ratchets to hang light

• Measuring spoons (I got this particular set because it goes down to 1/32 tsp)

• Dropper/Pipette (for pH testing)

• General Hydroponics pH Kit

• Plant Twist Ties for (optional) plant training

Environment – Setting Up “Exhaust” 

For some people this may be a good temporary solution until a real exhaust system can be made. And for some people, this might be a permanent solution to get your grow area temps the way you’d like.

What You Need

• Grow tent in a room with access to a window. I actually keep mine right in the bedroom with me, pictured below, because I don’t have a suitable closet.

• Exhaust fan – Can Max 6″ Fan – 334 CFM

• Window Fan – I use the Holmes Dual 8″ Blade Twin Window Fan because it moves a lot of air and actually fits my huge windows, but any strong window fan will work.

The main idea is to vent hot air out of your grow tent, then get the hot air out of your room via a window fan.

When it’s just a grow tent without any ducting, it doesn’t really look suspicious in your bedroom. Only a few people have seen my grow tent and every one of them thought it’s some sort of storage or way to hold clothes, if they even notice it at all.

Here’s what to do:

1. Set up your grow tent with grow light inside

2. Install your exhaust fan at the top of your tent, blowing air out. Make sure there’s an intake hole for new air to get in. The intake hole should be bigger than your exhaust, and should be located on the bottom of the tent on the opposite side of your exhaust fan. This way, the coolest air is being pulled in and the hottest air is being exhausted. This isn’t always possible, but ensures the best results. Most grow tents already have a suitable intake hole, so this is another reason I like grow tents – less work needed on your part to make a good environment for your plants

3. Install a window fan blowing air out in the same room as the tent. This window fan will be most effective if you have an intake hole, just like your grow space. The best way to accomplish this is to simply open another window in the room, or even a window or door outside the room somewhere else in the house as long as the fan gets access to new air. This causes the fan to blow all the air out, sucking in new fresh air to replace it. The window fan listed above can also be configured so one is moving air out while the other is moving air in, which is an option in a room with just one window. It’s super important to note that the smell of your cannabis will still be an issue! More on that below…

This may not be a permanent solution, but it gets air moving through the tent and keeps the air moving out of the house.

You’re basically building an exhaust system without the ducting. It’s not as efficient as using ducting, but for a lot of growers with just a few plants, it’s all that’s needed to control temps in the grow room and tent. As long as it’s cooler outside than inside, the window fan will cool down the room.

The window fan I use is called a “Bionaire BW2300 Twin Window Fan,” but any strong window fan will work. They’re available in hardware stores, Best Buy, Walmart and on Amazon.com. They have extenders so they’ll fit any window snugly, without gaps on either side.

What about smells? All the normal techniques used to control smells will work for this system. The best option to control odors is to create an exhaust system that gives your tent good suction/negative air pressure. Then have your air pass through a good carbon filter just before going through the fan and leaving the tent. With a good strong exhaust system and a quality carbon filter, this will prevent smells in the bedroom or outside except when you actually open the tent. Learn more about carbon filters and controlling smells
Setting Up Your Coco Coir

Fill your containers about 85% full of coco coir, then water the coco coir thoroughly in their pots before you start your seeds. It can be hard to get the coco wet all the way through if it’s completely dry, and it will get you ready for when you do it for your seedlings the first time!

Place your containers on your trays. If you want, put a block of wood or something sturdy under one side of the trays in the back. This will put them on a slight incline so that when you water them, all the runoff water will pool at the front. This will make it a lot easier to collect water after it runs through your plants.

Watering Your Coco Coir With Nutrient Water Before Using It

• Fill your 1-gallon container with tap water
• Add nutrients to your water following the nutrient schedule (PDF) for seedling strength
• Check the pH of the water with your pH test kit.
• If the pH is higher than 6.5 or lower than 5.5, you’ll want to adjust it. Just add a little bit of PH UP or PH DOWN so it’s between 5.5-6.5. This tiny step takes less than 5 minutes and will make your plants grow much faster and healthier! Learn more about checking the pH.
• For now, pour the water slowly over your containers, trying to wet the entire top of the coco. Keep adding water until you get about 30% runoff out the bottom, just to make sure you got everything.
• You want the coco to be evenly damp when you germinate your seeds; this will “charge it” with some extra nutrients so your new seedlings take off in growth!

Germination & Seedling Stage

Before starting this part, make sure your entire setup is ready for your new plants! You don’t want to start them if your setup isn’t ready yet 🙂

Make sure that you’ve set up your electrical timer so that it’s on for 18 hours a day, and off for 6 hours a day. You will plug your grow lights into this so your plants get a “night” every day. All the fans should be on 24/7. The light should start 3 feet away from the tops of the containers.

Checklist before you start:

• You’ve watered your coco coir thoroughly in their pots and removed all the runoff water
• Lights are on 18/6 timer
• Fans are set to be on 24 hours a day
• 250W HPS is 3 feet away from the tops of your pots

How to Germinate Your Seeds

It’s time to get your Rapid Rooters and your seeds! This is one of the most exciting moments in every grow!

Each cube or plug already has a hole specifically for you to place your seed. Just stick your seed into the precut hole. The seed should be about a half inch away from the surface so it doesn’t get too much light before it sprouts. Don’t worry, you really can’t mess this part up 🙂 As long as the seed makes it in there, you should be good!

Stick seeds in the hole in the Rapid Rooter, and make sure the seed goes at least 1/2″ down. That’s it! It’s started!

Place your Rapid Rooters on top of your coco coir, or dig a little hole in the coco and put the Rapid Rooters inside.

Now it’s time to turn on your grow light! It should be several feet above the tops of your containers, near the top of the tent. You want your seedlings to have light to grow towards, but if you keep the lights too close it will dry out your Rapid Rooters. You’ll move the light lower after you see the seedlings appear 🙂

At this point, the inside of your grow tent should look something like this

Make sure your grow light is set so that it’s on for 18 hours and off for 6 hours each day. Choose whatever time is most convenient for you to check on the plants.

Your fans should be on 24/7, even when the grow lights are off, to make sure your plants are getting a constant supply of fresh air. Make sure not to point any fans directly at your seedlings just yet as the Rapid Rooters will dry out too fast. As they get a little bigger they’ll be able to handle a lot more wind.

Check Rapid Rooters twice a day to make sure they stay moist (but not soaking). Water with more pH’ed seedling strength water if you need to re-moisten. 

Your new sprouts should show their faces in a few days!

Seedling Care

Seeing those first few leaves is exhilarating! The very first two leaves you see will be round (called “cotyledon” leaves) but all the leaves after that will be “real” leaves with serrated edges.

After you see those leaves peak above the surface, it’s time to move your grow light down, so it’s about 2 feet above your plants.

Checklist:

• Move grow light to 2 feet above seedlings after they appear
• Watch for any signs of discoloration or drooping (refer to common seedling problems list below to fix most seedling problems)
• Make sure Rapid Rooter never dries out all the way

During these first few weeks of a young marijuana plant’s life, you want to be careful. Make sure you’re checking on your plants every day! Once you get used to growing, you can check less often, but in the beginning you will get the best results by checking on your plants at least daily. That will let you react quickly if you somehow run into any problems.

Marijuana seedlings, especially seeds from some of the most potent strains, tend to be a bit delicate and you want to make sure you’re taking care of them as best you can.

When the Rapid Rooters feel like they are starting to get dry to the touch (they should be a little moist at all times), it’s time to water your plants for the first time!

Watering Your Plants the First Time

• Fill your 1-gallon container with tap water
• Add nutrients to your water following the nutrient schedule (PDF) for seedling strength
• Check the pH of the water with your pH test kit.
• If the pH is higher than 6.5 or lower than 5.5, you’ll want to adjust it. Just add a little bit of PH UP or PH DOWN so it’s between 5.5-6.5. This tiny step takes less than 5 minutes and will make your plants grow much faster and healthier! Learn more about checking the pH.
• For now, pour the water slowly in just a little circle around the plant. Pouring slowly will help the water absorb into the coco better. You want to make sure the Rapid Rooter gets nice and moist, and wet the coco coir for at least a few inches around the edges of the Rapid Rooter so that seedling roots are getting plenty of water. You want to avoid giving too much water at a time just yet, as your seedlings can’t drink much water until they get a little bigger, and if they keep getting “wet feet” it can stunt their growth. As long as you share  the 1 gallon between all four plants, over-watering shouldn’t be a problem!

Fixes to Common Seedling Problems

Here are the 5 most common seedling problems:

   1.) Overwatering

• Symptoms:  Drooping, yellow leaves, not growing and/or damping off (dying)

   2.) Underwatering

• Symptoms:  Drooping leaves and/or wilting

   3.) Nutrient Problems

• Symptoms:  Leaves are yellow, burnt, discolored, crispy or have spots

   4.) Too Much Heat

• Symptoms:  Leaves fold in the middle so they look like canoes/tacos, leaves turn up at the edges, wilting, strange spotting, symptoms usually appear after temperature starts climbing

   5.) Light Too Close or Too Far

• Symptoms ( light too close): burned or crinkled leaves
• Symptoms (light too far): seedlings are too tall with too much space between nodes. Looks stretched/leggy and tends fall over

Vegetative Stage

The “vegetative” stage is the stage of life where you cannabis plant is growing only stems and leaves, without any buds. Once your plant has grown 3-4 sets of leaves, you can consider it officially in the vegetative stage!

When plants have a few sets of leaves (nodes) move 250W HPS to about 1 foot above plants. Place the back of your hand over your babies for 30 seconds to make sure it’s not too hot.

For an auto-flowering plant, the vegetative stage only lasts for about 3-4 weeks before the plant starts making buds. However, even after buds start forming the plants will still grow vegetatively and increase in size until they’re 5-6 weeks old.

Now that your plants are a little bigger, you should start watering your plants this way from now on:

• Wait to water plants until the top of the coco is dry up to your first knuckle
• Alternate each time between giving plants nutrient water and plain water
• Water plants thoroughly (always check pH right before watering plants even if using just plain water), until 10-20% extra runoff water comes out the bottom
• Remove all runoff water about 5 minutes later (to give it all a chance to get out)

Learn more about how to water cannabis plants
Daily Care & Tips for the Vegetative Stage

• Follow the nutrient schedule when watering plants, but make sure you’re giving plain pH’ed water every other watering. Always check the pH of water immediately before giving to plants.
• Check on plants daily – look over the plants for problems, discolored leaves, droopiness or any other symptom
• Immediately diagnose any problems and fix them as soon as possible! If you just pay attention to your plants daily and quickly respond to any problems you will get above-average results! The most common reason to see deficiencies is the pH is too high or low.
• Water plants as needed. Never let the coco coir completely dry out or it could kill your plants!
• Make sure 250W HPS is about a foot away from your vegetative plants – put your hand where the seedlings are for 30 seconds; if it’s too hot for you it’s too hot for your plants and the light should be moved up a little bit. If you have a new bulb you may have to keep your light slightly further away than an older bulb.
• The main thing is to avoid any major stress because these first few weeks are important!

Your seedlings should look something like this during Week 2 from seed

Plant Training for Bigger Yields (Optional)

You don’t need to do this part! You can skip it altogether and your plants will grow just fine. But a little plant training can help increase your yields for free, so why not?

The idea behind plant training is to manipulate your plants while they grow so they tend to grow more short and wide as opposed to tall and thin. You want to “spread out” the plants under the grow light instead of growing tall Christmas Tree shaped plants.

The main way to do that with auto-flowering plants is to watch the plants as they grow and bend any tall stems down and away from the middle of the plant. Then secure the stems in place with something that isn’t sharp, like plant twist ties. By constantly bending over the tallest stems whenever you spot them, you’ll make it so all parts of all the plants are about the same height as each other, in a flat, table-top shape.

Here’s an example of some light LST (low stress training) on a very young seedling to pull the main stems down and away from the center. This was the tallest seedling of the bunch so the grower is trying to keep it about the same height as the other plants. It’s starting the process of getting the plant to grow wider.

You can secure twisty tie to your smart pots with a safety pin

By the end of Week 2 or 3 your plants should look something like this

Around Week 3-4, your plants should be nice and flat from the training. Sometimes you’ll have plants that just grow faster than others. You can see the back right plant is much smaller than the others here, but it actually ended up yielding just as much! It just had a little bit of a slow start. As long as your plants are growing and appear green and healthy you know you’re doing good by them!

Flowering Stage

Once your plants are around Week 3-4 from seed, they’ll start showing the first signs of buds growing. The new buds will initially look like wispy white hairs at all the joints of the plant, but these hairs (pistils) will soon start turning into buds with weight to them!
Daily Care & Tips

Around week 3-4 you’ll start seeing wispy white pistils at all the joints where fan leaves meet the stem.

Around week 5 they’re still growing lots of new leaves and stems, and those “buds” are still mostly just a bunch of white hairs at the joints

Notice how from the side they have been maintained in a flat, table-top shape. By constantly bending the tallest stems down and away from the center of the plant, your plants will automatically be growing in this shape.

Here are the plants at the beginning of Week 6

A view from the side

During Week 6 you may notice the main stems look sort of “stretchy” as all the bud sites have lengthened. By this point you’re basically just watering your plants and waiting until harvest time, because there’s not much left to do. You can still gently bend tall stems down, but after week 6 your plant is going to focus primarily on buds and stop growing new stems and leaves altogether.

Up close your buds might look something like this around Week 6

Example of Training at Week 6 – Before Bending/Training

After bending – Notice how all the stems have been bent down so the plant appears flat like a table. Week 6-7 is around the last time you want to train with your plants. After this it’s mostly a matter of letting them fatten up.

Here are the buds at week 8

Patience 

The hardest part about growing (at least for me) is waiting for the plants to finish flowering and making buds. It’s exciting while the plant is still growing and changing shape, but there is going to be at least 4-6 weeks where the plant isn’t growing vegetatively anymore and all growth is just buds fattening up and gaining in potency.

It’s hard to be patient while the plant is growing buds, and it’s really easy to take the plant down early. However, if you harvest early your yields and potency will be greatly reduced!

Most autos take about 12-14 weeks from seed before they’re ready to harvest (~3 months), though some strains take a few weeks longer. When choosing strains, you can see from the breeder’s estimations how long they think this strain will take.

Most autos are ready to harvest about 12-14 weeks from seed (~3 months)

If you want to get the best yields and highest potency, it’s been my experience that your auto will usually take 2-3 weeks longer than the breeders recommendation. However, sometimes they’re right on target so it’s important to watch your plant!

You don’t really need to do much else from now on besides water your plants and just check on them for possible problems.

What if a plant doesn’t auto?

One time I grew an “auto-flowering” plant that didn’t automatically start making buds. This happens sometimes, especially with less experienced breeders. This is why it’s so important to purchase auto-flowering strains from a trustworthy breeder! I learned my lesson 🙂

Even though I lost one plant because it didn’t auto (again, make sure you always buy from a trustworthy breeder!) this setup is so effective I still yielded almost 7 ounces with just the remaining 3 plants. You can see the “hole” in the canopy where that 4th plant used to be.

If one of your plants isn’t “auto-ing” you can choose to toss the plant (that’s what I would do if you have limited space and several other plants)

Your other option is to keep it in the same tent until the other plants are ready to harvest, and then put it on a 12/12 light schedule to force it to start making buds after you’ve already harvested the other plants (you can force any cannabis plant to start making buds if you give it 12 hours of uninterrupted darkness every day).

However, if it doesn’t start making buds, that means it’s going to keep getting bigger, making more stems and leaves every day (stay in the “vegetative stage”). It may be difficult to “tame” a plant like that while your other plants have stopped growing vegetatively, but it can be done.

Despite missing a plant, there were still lots of developing buds from the other three!

Don’t want to put any auto-flowering plant that has automatically started making buds on a 12/12 schedule because it will hurt your yields. Your plants can make a lot more bud under 18 hours of light a day than 12 hours of light a day. This is one of the main reasons autos are able to yield so much bud so fast!

As buds mature they fatten and become more dense. The white hairs that used to be sticking straight out start to darken and curl in.

Harvest

Oh boy! You made it! Time to harvest your plants!

These are the same plants a little over 3 months from seed (13 Weeks)

How to Know Exactly When to Harvest

There are two main ways to determine when to harvest, either by looking at the pistils/hairs, or looking at the trichomes (“glitter”) on the buds under a magnifier.

Your plant is ready to harvest…

• After most of the white pistils (hairs) have darkened and curled in
• After most of the trichomes have turned milky white

These buds are ready to harvest
(learn more about how to harvest at the right time)

Here’s a video of the trichomes from a plant the day before harvest under a digital magnifier. Most of the trichomes are opaque and white, which means these buds are ready to harvest

The structure of one of the plants “under the hood” after it’s been harvested

Learn more about when to harvest!

Here are those 3 auto-flowering plants from above at harvest (I pulled them on 3 different days)
(6.7 oz yield in total – check the grow journal!)

How to Dry & Cure Buds for Better Potency

Now that your plant is harvested, you need to dry and cure your buds for the best results! By drying buds slowly and letting them sit for a few weeks before you smoke them, you will dramatically improve their taste, smoothness and perceived potency! Don’t skip the dry and cure because it can make up a great deal of the final quality of your buds. You’ve come way too far to give up now!

The main idea of drying and curing is to slowly dry your newly harvested buds, then let them sit in a sealed container for a few weeks for the “green” stuff to start to break down and other important chemical processes. This dry/cure process will make buds taste better, smell better, and feel more potent!

Learn how to dry and cure your buds here!

Jump to…

Auto-Flowering vs Photoperiod Strains

Plant Training for Bigger Yields

1st Grow in My Garage – Auto Northern Lights – 5.35 oz Harvest

5 Ways to Increase Yields When Growing Indoors

Cost Breakdown (Including Electricity)

Total Cost for Setup & Supplies: $652
($742 if you get all the optional stuff)

Cost for Complete Setup & Supplies First Grow: $652

Setup Cost for Setting Up 2nd Grow: $122 ($50 for new seeds and $72 for new containers and coco coir)

Most of this stuff can be purchased for cheaper if you shop around online or in person!

Seed Budget: $50

• In general you can expect to pay about $12/seed for feminized auto-flowering seeds, though some cost more or less. Generally most seedbanks will also throw in a few free seeds with every order.

Growing Medium & Containers: $85

• $40 – Pre-Made Coco Coir Potting Mix (or make your own for cheaper)
• $21 – 4 x 3-gallon Smart Pots
• $11 – Rapid Rooters
• $13 Trays to Catch Runoff Water

Nutrients: $52

• $35 General Hydroponics Flora Trio
• $17 CaliMagic

Grow Tent: $216-276

• $80 2’ x 4’ x 5’ Grow Tent
• $26 2x small clip-on fans
• $110 Can Max 6″ Fan – 334 CFM
• $60 (Optional) Window fan

250W Grow Light: $154

• $65 – Reflector
• $80 250W Ballast
• $9 250W Bulb

Random Grow Tools: $95-125

• $20 Thermometer & Humidity Monitor
• $20 Power strip
• $10 Electrical timer
• $10 Rope Ratchets (best way to hang lights, don’t skip these!)
• $10 Measuring spoons
• $5 Dropper/Pipette (for pH testing)
• $20 General Hydroponics pH Kit
• $5 (Optional) Plant Twist Ties
• $25 (Optional) Bucket Head Wet/Dry Vacuum

Total Cost of Electricity: $30-60/Month

This includes the cost of running the grow light and fans. The average electricity price in the US is $0.12/kWh, and the average price in a big city is $0.25/kWh. I’ll make estimates for both. If you have cheap electricity where you live, your amounts will be even less!

The post Grow 4-7+ oz with a 250W HPS – Step-By-Step Beginner Tutorial 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.

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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.”​

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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!

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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
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Here are cannabis plants grown with this coco tutorial: Coco 70:30 mix with Flora Trio nutrients. Strains are Planet of the Grapes, Mandarin Cookies, Zweet Inzanity.

Table of Contents

Introduction

• Pros: Why Use Coco Coir for Growing Cannabis?
• Cons of Using Coco Coir

Overview: How to Grow Cannabis with Coco Coir

• Supplies List
• Step-By-Step Coco Growing Tutorial

Coco Coir Rehydration Tutorial – Make an Excellent Coco Coir Mix at Home

• Step-By-Step Instructions

Coco coir may be my favorite cannabis growing medium (though I love them all for different reasons). Coco coir gives a hand-watered experience similar to growing in soil, but with faster growth rates and more protection against overwatering.

Grown in Coco 70:30 mix with Flora Trio nutrients: Power Plant, Peyote Critical, Critical Purple Kush

Follow the step-by-step instructions in this tutorial to for ultra fast-growing cannabis plants in coco…

Your reward? Big, fat, potent buds at harvest!

Coco also comes with many benefits of growing weed in hydro, such as fewer bugs and bigger harvests. Coco coir seems almost tailor-made for growing cannabis!

What is Coco Coir?

Coco coir is made of ground-up coconut husks and works surprisingly well as a medium for growing lots of plants, not just cannabis. Plant roots love it. As a bonus, coco is more environmentally friendly than peat moss (one of its main competitors). As a result, coco is slowly replacing peat in many soil potting mixes.

Dried and compressed coco coir. Just add water to turn into “soil” for cannabis plants..

Note: “Coir” is officially pronounced “coy-er” but I’ve noticed most cannabis growers say “kwar” (so it rhymes with “car”).

Coco offers a hand-watered grow experience similar to soil.

Coco coir is a versatile growing medium which can be used by itself or mixed with other ingredients. It’s often included in soil potting mixes to help prevent compaction and loosen the soil while still retaining plenty of water. For example, Fox Farm Coco Loco is a great choice for soil growers who want some of the benefits of coco.

Cannabis plants grown in Fox Farm Coco Loco thrive.

However, this tutorial focuses on coco growing that doesn’t involve any soil or non-inert ingredients. Growing in pure coco plus perlite (no soil) is what achieves the fastest growth.

Today, you learn how to grow with a coco/perlite mix and provide nutrients in the water. This root environment creates thriving cannabis plants.

As long as you remember to water your plants with nutrients as directed, coco plants tend to be more hardy than cannabis plants in other grow mediums. You are less likely to get bugs than in soil, or root rot like in hydro. It’s rare for a coco grower to run into major problems that prevent them from getting to harvest when they follow these directions.

Because of that, I believe coco is one of the best grow mediums for beginner growers. Plus, you’ll learn almost all the skills you need to grow in soil or hydro in the future. Coco gives you a great base of knowledge for growing cannabis that will serve you well even if you branch out to other grow mediums.

Cannabis plants produce excellent yields and bud quality in coco coir.

Pros – Why Use Coco Coir for Growing Cannabis?

• Feels Like Growing in Soil – Coco coir is a soilless growing medium that gives the experience of growing in soil. Plants are kept in regular pots, and growers simply water their plants with nutrient water. In many ways, coco coir can be treated basically the same as soil for growing cannabis.
• Harder to Overwater Than Soil – Coco coir tends to promote healthy and fast root development compared to other potting mixes. It holds onto moisture and nutrients, yet also has a light texture that gives roots access to oxygen. This makes plants less likely to experience symptoms from over or under-watering.
• Doesn’t Hurt the Environment – Coco coir is sustainable for the environment (unlike some other options, like peat moss), since it’s made of ground coconut husks. It also breaks down naturally.
• Does Not Attract Insects – Coco coir does not make a good home for many garden pests that affect soil growers. Cannabis growing in coco coir are less likely to be attacked by pests or bugs.
• Plants Grow Very Fast – Since you provide easy-to-absorb nutrients in the water, plant roots don’t have to go out and search for nutrients like they do in soil. This saves the plant precious energy, similar to growing in hydroponics. As a result, coco coir gives many of the benefits of hydro with a soil experience. You get faster growth and bigger yields than soil for the same amount of time and effort.

Cons – Downsides of Growing Cannabis in Coco Coir

• Must Give Nutrients with Every Watering – Unlike soil, coco coir is an inert growing medium with no inherent nutritional value. That means growers must provide all necessary nutrients in the water, even when plants are seedlings. On the other hand, soil naturally gives plants some nutrients (at least until all the nutrients in the soil get used up).*
• May Need to Adjust pH of Water – Although you also need to manage pH in soil to prevent nutrient deficiencies, coco plants need a slightly more acidic root environment than soil. Coco plants grow fastest with a relatively acidic root zone of 5.5-6.5 pH, while soil needs a closer-to-neutral 6-7 pH. That means unless you naturally have slightly acidic water, you typically need to add a bit of PH Down to the water to get it into the right pH range for growing weed in coco. Note: You can use a pH Kit to easily test and adjust the pH of your water. Learn more about pH for growing cannabis.
• May Need a Cal-Mag Supplement – If you’re growing with “soft” water, filtered water, reverse osmosis water, or any kind of particularly pure water, you may need to give plants a Cal-Mag supplement. Coco naturally binds to calcium, so extra Calcium may be needed, unless you have a lot of minerals in your water. If you have “hard” water, spring water, or other mineral-rich water, you probably do not need a Cal-Mag supplement.

*Don’t want to deal with nutrients? If you start with a nutrient-heavy composted “just add water” super soil, you may not have to add any nutrients at all from seed to harvest.

Coco coir holds onto a lot of moisture but also holds onto more air than similar materials, ensuring your plant roots get the oxygen they need to thrive. When coco is mixed with perlite, it provides an ideal amount of water and air for cannabis roots. Coco coir drains well so plants are less likely to get overwatered, but it also holds onto nutrients so you don’t need a ton of fertilizer.

Which Pre-Made Coco Mix is Best for Growing Cannabis?

Although you can re-hydrate coco bricks at home, a pre-made coco mix takes out all the work! If you decide to go with a pre-made mix, I highly recommend choosing one that contains both coco and perlite. A 70/30 ratio of coco/perlite works great for hand-watered cannabis plants.

Here are examples of pre-made mixes that I’ve personally tested and recommend: Mother Earth Coco Mix (70% coco / 30% perlite) was the first pre-made coco mix I ever used for growing cannabis. I’ve grown with Mother Earth at least a dozen times and always get great results. Another pre-made coco mix I’ve tried that works great for growing marijuana is FoxFarm Cultivation Nation 70/30 Coco. It’s newer but a bit cheaper, and works just as well in my experience.

Here’s what a good 70/30 coco mix looks like.

Did you know you can make your own coco mix at home? The pre-made mixes with coco coir that are formulated specifically for plants like cannabis. They’re convenient, but take up room in the house. A cheaper coco option is to buy dry coco bricks, which need to be re-hydrated with water before you can use it to grow plants. The process to use coco bricks is explained at the end of the article. It’s actually pretty easy! Another benefit is the bricks are small and easy to store, so you can make your own mix any time without having to store bags of coco mix.

Once your cannabis is in a good coco coir mix, like the options above, your job is simple. Just add nutrients, water, and light for happy plants.

Grower FirstDescent shows how he was able to get a ton of weed from a small plant in coco.

Although growing cannabis in coco coir is getting more popular, one of the problems is that there’s not enough free information to help new growers know what to do. A few simple steps ensures your coco plants stay in tip-top shape, and this tutorial will show you exactly what to do.

Ready to treat your plants to a luxurious life in coco coir? Your harvest will thank you for it!  

Overview: Growing Cannabis in Coco Coir 

This isn’t the only way to grow cannabis in coco coir, but this is what I do and it achieves fast growth, excellent yields, and top-shelf bud quality.

Which Nutrients for Coco Coir?

When growing cannabis in coco coir, always use nutrients made for coco coir or hydroponics. Many growers also benefit from adding a “Cal-Mag” supplement, which is a common gardening supplement that provides extra calcium. Learn more about which nutrients you should use for growing cannabis in coco coir.

Learn about different cannabis nutrients: https://www.growweedeasy.com/nutrients

I personally like the General Hydroponics Flora trio plus Calimagic​ (a Cal-Mag supplement) for growing in coco coir.

This is a tried and tested nutrient system for any type of hydroponic growing including coco coir. You can actually follow their nutrient schedule listed on the included nutrient schedule; it’s formulated for plants like cannabis.

​

Note: After adding nutrients (or even if you’re giving just plain water), always pH your water to 5.5-6.5 before giving it to your plants. This is important!

Like many cannabis base nutrients, the included dosage recommendations is aggressive and can burn your plants if given at full strength. No matter what base nutrient system you’re using with your coco coir, I recommend starting at half-strength nutrients at first, and only raising the dosage if you noticed plants look “hungry” for more nutrients. It’s also good to give enough water that some extra runoff comes out the bottom, to prevent nutrient buildup.

Here is the coco coir nutrient schedule I’m using right now (pdf)

Whenever using liquid nutrients, you will need a way to test pH so your plant roots are able to easily absorb all the nutrients they need. I use a simple General Hydroponics pH test kit. Learn more about managing pH here: https://www.growweedeasy.com/ph​

How much Cal-Mag should I use for coco coir? 

Here are instructions if using a Cal-Mag Supplement:

• Give Cal-Mag at full strength (unlike base nutrients, which typically should be given at half strength to start) alongside your nutrients for at least two weeks at the beginning of your grow. You may also add Cal-Mag with your other other nutrients throughout the grow, especially if you’re using soft or filtered water.
• Example of a Good Cal-Mag Supplement – One great Cal-Mag supplement for cannabis is CaliMagic by General Hydroponics. CaliMagic can be used at 1 tsp/gallon (2.5 mL per 2L).

See more coco coir nutrient suggestions.

Do you Need a Cal-Mag Supplement?

Unless you have very “hard” water that naturally contains lots of minerals, you likely need to use a standard plant “Cal-Mag” plant supplement to make sure your cannabis gets all the calcium they need. That’s because cannabis plants grown in coco coir tends to require more calcium compared to other growing mediums.

These plant supplements typically come in liquid form and contain calcium as well as magnesium. The extra magnesium is needed for your plant to be able to use the calcium properly. One great Cal-Mag supplement for cannabis is CaliMagic by General Hydroponics. CaliMagic can be used at 1 tsp/gallon (2.5 mL per 2L).

If you’re using a different nutrient company, chances are they have their own version of a Cal-Mag supplement. Whenever using any supplements, it’s a great idea to stick with the same company as your base nutrients in order to prevent the chance of unexpected interactions between two different brands.

Now that you’ve got a hand on what you need for you coco mix and nutrients, it’s time to start growing!

All Supplies Needed to Grow Cannabis in Coco

Basic Supplies

• Grow Light – I recommend using a cannabis-tested LED grow light.
• Coco Mix – Either make it yourself (tutorial – makes 10 gallons coco) or buy a pre-made 70/30 coco mix (1.8 cu. ft. of coco fills a 12-13 gallons worth of pots).
• Nutrients (base nutrients) – General Hydroponics Flora trio is my favorite nutrient option for growing weed.
  • Alternative: Dyna-Gro Superthrive Foliage-Pro & Bloom is a cheap-but-effective alternative.
• Plant Containers – I like fabric pots. They offer faster growth and less a chance of overwatering than hard-sided pots.
• Seeds – Learn where I buy seeds. Any cannabis strain can thrive in coco.

Here are some proven cannabis strains that work well with this coco tutorial:

Planet of the Grapes, Mandarin Cookies, Zweet Inzanity

Power Plant, Peyote Critical, Critical Purple Kush

Optional Supplies

• Cal-Mag Supplement – Calimagic​ is a good one. Get this if you are using RO (reverse osmosis) water, filtered water, or otherwise “soft” water without many natural minerals.
• Grow Tent – A grow tent is a good house for your plants. Learn about grow tents for cannabis.
• Solo Cups – To start seedlings (explained below).
• Seedling Plugs – I like Rapid Rooters to start seedlings. You can also plant seeds directly in the coco.

If you got my recommended pre-made mix, which contains 1.8 cu. ft. of coco, it will fill about 12 gallons worth of pots. If you followed the tutorial at the bottom of the article to make your own coco mix, you’ll have about 10 gallons of potting mix. This can be used to fill 2 x 5 gallon pots, 3 x 3 gallon pots, or 5 x 2-gallon containers.

I recommend larger containers for larger plants and to water less often. I recommend smaller containers for smaller plants, and when the grower is willing to water more often.

Step-by-Step Grow Cannabis Coco Coir Tutorial

Whether you’re using pre-made or rehydrated coco, here’s what to do to grow cannabis effectively.

1.) Fill your containers with potting mix

Don’t fill containers to the brim. Leave a little extra space inside, so that the sides of the pots act as a “fence” around the coco coir. This is useful when you start watering plants. It helps ensure all the water goes down into the coco and not spill off the edges.

2.) Prepare solo cups for seedlings (optional)

If you do use solo cups, make sure to cut holes into the bottom so that water can drain out after you’ve watered your plants. Always test to make sure water runs through cup freely. If you have a hard time filling up an empty solo cup with water because it’s running out the bottom, you have added the right amount of drainage.

3.) Germinate Cannabis Seeds (3 options)

Option 1: Germinate seeds in fresh Rapid Rooters. If you place the Rapid Rooters in a tray, making sure there’s a very shallow pool of water at the bottom to keep them moist.

Option 2: You can also place the Rapid Rooter on top of the moist but not soaking coco coir in your solo cups or plant pot. This ensures they stay moist and saves you from the step of having to plant the Rapid Rooters.

Fresh Rapid Rooters give some of the best germination rates, but of course there’s other ways to start your plants.

Option 3: Plant seeds directly in coco mix.

Some growers plant their seeds directly in the coco coir, and that works well, too.

Happy little seedlings are so cute!

Learn about other ways to germinate cannabis seeds here: https://www.growweedeasy.com/germinate

4.) Start Seedling-Strength Nutrients

After seedling grows first set of “real” (serrated) leaves, water with nutrients at normal seedling strength, and add a regular dose of Cal-Mag (Calimagic). Keep giving water until you get about 20% runoff ut the bottom of the solo cup. The first set of leaves are round, but the second set are serrated and pointy. Once you see those leaves, it’s time to water your seedling with nutrients.

5.) Nurture Your Seedlings

Some growers will put their Rapid Rooters in solo cups, while others put their seedlings directly in their final container. Either way, your job is the same. Make sure your seedlings get plenty of light while making sure that it’s never too hot for your seedlings. Place your hands where your seedlings are and wait 10 seconds, if it’s too hot for you, it’s too hot for your plants.

• Seedling Strength Nutrients – Continue to water plants at full seedling strength of the included nutrient schedule for the General Hydroponics Flora Series plus Cal-Mag.
• 2 cups (500 mL) water every 2 days – When watering seedlings, give just 2 cups (500 mL) of water every 2 days at first. Make sure any extra water can drain freely soon through holes out the bottom
  • In general, don’t give water again until the top looks mostly dry.

Water seedlings in a small circle around the base.

6.) Transplant to Final Plant Pots (If Necessary)

If you started in solo cups, you should transplant to bigger containers once the seedlings have grown grown a few sets of leaves.

Once your seedling has grown a few sets of leaves, it’s time to transplant to a bigger container!

Dig a small hole in your coco coir containers so there’s room for the new seedlings. Take a butter knife and carefully slide it all around the edges of each solo cup, then carefully transplant your seedling into your bigger coco coir containers.

7.) Vegetative Stage – What to Do

The vegetative stage is your plant’s first stage of life. Here’s your complete guide to the vegetative stage when growing marijuana in coco coir.

Your Goal in the Vegetative Stage: Maintain happy plants until they are half the final desired size. In this stage, they only grow stems and leaves. They need to get big and strong before they start making buds in the flowering stage.

Nutrients: Cannabis nutrients often recommend too high levels of nutrients for proper growth. If you’re using the custom nutrient schedule I created for you above, you can simply follow the instructions. But if you’re using a different nutrient system, I encourage you to start providing all nutrients in the water at half strength.

Watering: Water plants with vegetative stage nutrients with about 10% extra runoff. Don’t water again until the top of the coco is mostly dry. Continue to always adjust pH water to 5.5-6.5 before giving it to plants.

I use a water transfer pump. (Learn easy ways to water plants)

What to Do If You See Nutrient Deficiencies

• See yellow? If you notice the leaves are starting to yellow or turn lime green, it’s usually a sign your plants is “hungry” for more nutrients. Especially the yellowing seems to be climbing up the plant from the bottom.
  • Look at the nitrogen deficiency page for more information. If you have a nitrogen deficiency at this stage, it means your plants need higher levels of nutrients. If so, increase your nutrient levels slowly, watching closely for signs of nutrient burn (which means too high levels of nutrients).
  • Some leaves will likely turn green again once the plant gets more nutrients, but some may stay yellow, especially towards the bottom of the plant. So look at the new leaves for signs of recovery. Most important, make sure the yellowing has stopped spreading to different leaves.
  • It’s also likely that any improvement may take a few days after you provide increased nutrient levels. So don’t keep upping your dose until you’ve given your plant a few days to a week at the new level!
• Other Nutrient Deficiencies – If you have any other problems besides a nitrogen deficiency, it’s likely a pH problem. But if you’ve been giving nutrients and properly pH’ed water, yet are still seeing leaf symptoms, consult this page: Plant Doctor – Diagnose Your Sick Cannabis Plants.

If your plant is yellowing or lime green all over, it’s a sign it needs more nutrients overall.

See other leaf deficiencies? It’s likely a pH problem. If not, check the Cannabis Plant Doctor!

Optional Plant “Training” for Bigger YIelds

You can let cannabis plants grow naturally, and that works well. However, most cannabis plants naturally only grow one main buds, instead of many buds per plant. If you want to increase your yields and produce a sea of buds, these are the steps to take.

• “Top” the Plant (Optional But Helpful) – Cut off the top of the young plant above the 5th set of leaves with a clean pair of scissors. This helps cause the plants to “bush out” and produce more buds per plant. Learn how to top an autoflowering plant.
• Bend Over Tall Stems to Make Plants Grow Flat (Plant “Training” for Bigger Yields) – If desired, the vegetative stage is when you start plant training (I recommend waiting a few days after the transplant to make sure plant isn’t stressed before starting any training).

Note: If you are growing auto-flowering plants from seed, follow these autoflowering-specific training instructions.

Cut off the top of the plant above the 5th set of leaves. (Optional but helpful!)

This videos shows you how to top a cannabis plant.

This next video shows the whole cannabis topping process, in a timelapse format, showing what topping looks like in 10 days. This helps you see how the plant starts “bushing out” (the lower growth tips begin rising up). I think it also helps you see how topping splits the main stem into two stems.

Topping makes it much easier to train the plant to grow flat since you can bend each of the two new main stems down and away from the center.

Here’s a video showing what a plant looks like in the 10 days after being topped. Thanks to grower fuzzygrow for this awesome cannabis topping timelapse!

Read the complete guide to topping cannabis plants!

Whether you top or not, you should still make sure to bend over tall stems as they grow, to try to create a flat, tabletop shape.

Use bending and tying down (low stress training) to keep plants flat and wide like a table as they grow.

It doesn’t seem like much, but this process of bending over tall stems is key to getting the best cannabis yields later.

I gently bend tall stems down and away from the center of the plant, and use plant twist tie to hold them in place.

If using fabric pots, just poke a hole where you want to attach the twist tie. I use Gardening Snips (useful for plant training and trimming!)

Wrap the twist tie around the hole to give it some extra holding power.

Continue always bending over and tying down tall branches to maintain that tabletop shape.

The vegetative stage lasts until your plant is about half the size you want it to be in the end (or when they start flowering on their own). After your plant has grown half the desired size, it’s time for the next step.

• Wait Until Plants Are 1/2 the Final Size – Once plants are half the desired size, switch to the flowering stage (if you have auto-flowering plants, they will automatically start flowering after 3-5 weeks).

Why when plants are half the final size? Because on average they will about double in size during the flowering stage.

8.) Initiate Flowering Stage with a 12/12 Light Schedule (to get buds to form)

Now that your plants are half the final size, it’s time to switch to the flowering stage. With standard photoperiod plants, you do this by changing your light schedule to 12-12 (12 hours of light, plus 12 hours of uninterrupted darkness). This is done by plugging your grow lights into an electrical timer set to turn the lights off for 12 hours a day.

With auto-flowering strains, the switch to the flowering stage happens without you needing to do anything special.

Learn more about cannabis life stages and switching the flowering stage.

9.) Flowering Stage – What to Do

The flowering stage is your cannabis plant’s second (and last) stage of life. Buds are the flowers of a cannabis plant, and the flowering stage lasts until harvest. You’re at the home stretch!

Your Goal in the Flowering Stage: Keep plants healthy until they are ready to harvest. Plant care is basically the same as before, except during the flowering stage it becomes more important to control temperature and humidity than ever.

• Remember: Flowering Plants Are More Sensitive – Cannabis plants are much more finicky in the flowering stage, especially in the second half after they stop growing new leaves and focus totally on growing buds. It’s easy to trigger problems if you aren’t controlling your environment. Watch over plants closely, and make every effort to expose all bud sites to light and a breeze.

Nutrients: Now it the time to switch to “flowering” or “bloom” nutrients.

• Multi-Part Nutrient Systems – If using a multi-part nutrient system like the Flora trio (or other “trios”), then just follow the instructions to give the proper ratios for flowering. Their schedules slowly switch from vegetative to flowering nutrient ratios, with a “transition” stage in between.
• One-Bottle-Per-Stage Nutrients – If you’re using one-part nutrients like Dyna-Gro, switch to the “Bloom” bottle once you notice plants stop getting taller every day (typically 2-3 weeks after initiating 12/12). You need to give vegetative nutrients for the first few weeks because your plants will still be growing vegetatively for a while. Plants need those vegetative nutrients to grow all the new leaves and stems.

Watering: Water plants with 10-20% extra runoff. Don’t water again until the top of the coco is mostly dry. Continue to always adjust pH water to 5.5-6.5 before giving it to plants. Plants typically drink a LOT of water for the first few weeks, but slow down once they stop getting taller.

Training: You can still train plants by gently bending too-tall colas, but avoid any major training once the plant has started making buds.

Keep gently bending over any tall branches to keep cannabis plants flat and wide like a table.

This helps make tons of buds, and keeps them all the right distance from the grow light.

First, you’ll see little fuzzy white hairs growing all over the plants. These are the beginnings of buds, and will eventually fatten into hard nugs.

Cannabis buds look like bunches of white hairs at first.

If you see bunches of grapes instead of fluffy white hairs, that means you have a male plant. These should be removed from the grow space immediately or they cause all your buds to become full of seeds.

If you see little balls instead of fluffy hairs, remove the plant from the grow space! Learn more about male flowers.

Buds slowly gain both size and potency. The fuzzy hairs will eventually darken and curl in as the buds mature.

These buds are 6 weeks from initiating 12/12, but each strain develops at a different pace.

Now you’re just watering and caring for your plants until the buds are ready to harvest!

10.) Harvest Time!

Harvest buds when ready. At this point, all the hairs will have darkened and curled in. The buds should look solid.

These buds are all ready to harvest (each strain looks a little different).

This tutorial will explain everything you need to know about when to harvest your plants: https://www.growweedeasy.com/harvest

Now it’s time to enjoy the fruits!

Happy Growing!

Here are some additional nutrient suggestions for growing in coco coir:

More Nutrient Picks For Growing in Coco Coir

Often when growing cannabis in coco coir, it is helpful to supplement with extra Calcium and Magnesium as calcium deficiencies & magnesium deficiencies are relatively common in coco coir. There are many supplements that provide a boost of these nutrients, and pretty much all of them will work fine. A commonly seen one called “Cal-Mag” by Botanicare works well (and is pretty inexpensive), and so does “CaliMagic” from General Hydroponics. Coco coir is an excellent growing medium as long as you maintain the pH between 5.5 – 6.5 and make sure the plants have enough calcium and magnesium.

Any quality cannabis nutrients made for hydroponics will work well for growing in coco coir as long as you also use a Cal-Mag supplement.

I personally like the General Hydroponics Flora trio plus Calimagic​ (a Cal-Mag supplement) for growing in coco coir. This is what I use for my coco coir grow. You can follow the nutrient schedule provided by GH as long as you provide plain water every other watering. Or…

Here’s the custom Flora Series + CaliMagic nutrient schedule I use for coco coir [PDF]

You don’t need any other nutrients to grow marijuana; the Flora trio + Cal-Mag will give your cannabis plants what they need to flourish through the vegetative and flowering stages.

For the easiest coco coir growing, get a smart pot (pot made out of fabric – they work perfectly for growing cannabis and have good drainage).

IMPORTANT: Root pH Affects How Well Your Cannabis Plants Can Aborb Nutrients!

• General Hydroponics Flora Series Nutrient Trio & CaliMagic​ – Tried and tested nutrient system for any type of hydroponic growing including growing in coco coir. This version of Cal-Mag (CaliMagic) has been created by General Hydroponics, the same company that makes the nutrients. I use this combination for my grow.
  Here is the coco coir nutrient schedule I’m using right now [PDF]

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• Canna Coco A + B & Cal-Mag – This combo is a crowd favorite – many coco coir growers write in to tell us this is their favorite cannabis nutrient for growing in coco coir. From a grower: “Canna is a Dutch company and one of the best IMO. They make a great product line for growing in coco coir and test their products on real cannabis plants.” Another grower said, “Canna products are one of the only nutrient lines to be developed primarily for cannabis (and tested on live plants). They’ve been doing so for almost 30 years. Cost is a little higher than competitors but worth every penny.” A different grower added, “Canna – I have only used their coco line, but it is the the highest quality you will find.”
• Get a custom nutrient schedule from Canna or use this pre-made one [JPG].

 ​

• Fox Farms Nutrient Trio for Hydroponics & Cal-Mag – Very concentrated, less is more. This is what I used for my first few coco coir grows, and I was very happy with my results. “Grow Big” & “Tiger Bloom” provide most of the major nutrients your cannabis needs, while “Big Bloom” has many micro nutrients and beneficial compounds that help nutrient uptake and root health. This trio works extremely well by itself, just follow the feeding schedule (here’s a PDF, here’s a JPG) from Fox Farms. They offer a lot of supplements, but the only bottles you need to be successful growing cannabis is the FF trio, which is highlighted in green on the schedule. The trio tends to be strong, so use it sparingly (especially “Grow Big” & “Tiger Bloom”). Generally the Fox Farms nutrient system will prevent Cal-Mag deficiencies, but it’s good to have extra Cal-Mag on hand just in case whenever growing cannabis in coco coir.​

​

• Dyna-Gro (Foliage-Pro, Bloom) & Cal-Mag – Cheapest nutrients that work well for growing cannabis in coco coir. Use “Foliage-Pro” during the vegetative stage, and “Bloom” during the flowering stage. Just follow the instructions on the bottles!

​

• House & Garden Line-up (expensive yet remarkably effective) Coco A + B, Roots Excelurator, Algen Extract, Bud XL, shooting powder <– 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.”​

​

Make the Coco Yourself (Instructions Below) or Buy a Pre-Made Coco Coir Mix!

Mother Earth Coco Mix is a highly recommended pre-made coco coir mix for growing cannabis. However, many coco mixes work great for growing marijuana, including FoxFarm Cultivation Nation 70/30 Coco.

Coco Coir Rehydration Tutorial: What You Need

There are pre-made coco coir mixes, but they are usually more expensive than the cost to make a mix yourself. A pre-made mix is heavy like soil because it’s already been hydrated with water. This makes pre-made coco coir mixes expensive to ship, and heavy to carry around. If you’re willing to rehydrate your coco at home, you can skip paying a premium for water.

Everything you need to make your coco coir mix can be sent discreetly to your house. You just need some coir bricks and an airy bag of perlite which can be bought at any garden store. With this method, there’s no lugging a huge bag of potting mix home, or paying for shipping to have it delivered.

This tutorial will show you how to re-hydrate coco coir bricks and mix with perlite to create a rich, cannabis-friendly potting mix. I will also share some hints about growing cannabis in coco coir and how to take care of your plants for the best results.

If you follow these instructions, you will end up with 9-10 gallons of potting mix. I used this to fill four 2-gallon pots plus six solo cups, which is a good amount of soil for me to grow 4 small plants. Alternative options: Three 3-gallon pots or two 5-gallon pots.

Recap: Do you have everything you need to make your coco coir mix? You’ll need the following items to complete the tutorial above.

• 2 x 650g coco coir bricks
• 8-quart bag of perlite
• 10-gallon fabric pot
• 4 x 2-gallon fabric pots – Or any combination under 10 gallons.
• 5-gallon bucket <– Available locally (Home Depot, Lowes, etc)

The above tutorial should leave you with 9-10 gallons of potting mix.

The following tutorial makes about 10 gallons of potting mix. Double the recipe for 20 gallons!

2 x coco coir bricks (650g each)

For this tutorial, I used two bricks of a standard 650g Coconut Coir Brick. Any similarly sized bricks from a reputable company will also work.

​

I used “Nature’s Footprint” Coco Coir, but any 650g Coconut Coir Brick will work great!

8-quart bag of perlite

I have used Shultz, Espoma, Black Gold, and even Miracle-Gro brand perlite. Any 8-quart bag of perlite will work. Perlite can often be found in garden stores or the garden section of places like Home Depot and Lowes. I normally advise against all things Miracle-Gro, but their 8-quart bag of perlite is okay for this tutorial if you can’t find anything else. But remember, never use Miracle-Gro soil or their standard nutrient formula!

Any bag of horticultural perlite from any manufacturer will work for this tutorial!

10-gallon fabric container & 5-gallon bucket

I use a 10-gallon fabric container from Mad Farmer (basically a Smart Pot by a different company) because it’s sturdy, has handles and will stand up on its own after adding coco coir. ​You could use a 10-gallon Smart Pot, two pillow cases stacked inside each other, or any other fabric container that lets water through and is tough enough to hold 5 gallons of soil.

Here’s the 10-gallon fabric pot & 5-gallon bucket in a bathtub.

Note: You also need access to water and a drain for this coco coir tutorial.

Before You Get Started
(optional)

Run your finger nails over a bar of soap. This adds a layer of soap under your finger nails, which will prevent coco coir from getting stuck under your nails. Save yourself the time it takes to clean your nails after you’re all done!

See What You’re Making
(Makes about 10 gallons of potting mix_

This will make about 10 gallons of potting mix, just enough potting mix for…

• 2 x 5-gallon containers
• OR 3 x 3-gallon containers plus a little extra
• OR 4 x 2-gallon containers plus extra
• OR any setup that uses about 10 gallons of potting mix

Note: I hydrate the two bricks one at a time in the 5-gallon bucket because the 5-gallon buckets are easier for mixing in perlite, and the whole process goes by in less than a half hour anyway even if you do bricks one at a time. If you wanted, you could hydrate both bricks at once in a 10 gallon container, but that’s too heavy for me to work with 🙂

How to Rehydrate Coco Coir & Mix in Perlite

1.) Gather all materials and place everything near your tub (or wherever you’re going to rehydrate to coco coir bricks)

2.) Line inside of 5-gallon bucket with fabric container.

The inside of the bucket should be lined all the way to the top, and you need to have enough extra to be able to easily grab the top so you can lift it up later.

3.) Put the first coco brick inside the liner 

4.) Fill the bucket halfway with water.

Optimally, you can add a Cal-Mag supplement and pH this water to 6.0 before soaking. This can help make sure your coco coir has extra Calcium and also help it get into the right pH range right from the beginning.

Honestly though I often use water right out the tap. You’ll be adding Cal-Mag and setting the pH later, but the “best” way is to start supplementing your coco coir now, and it definitely may save you time and trouble later.

You’ll see the brick almost instantly starts getting soft once it makes contact with the water.

5.) Wait 10 minutes (or until the coco coir gets fully hydrated)

If you stick your hand in and there’s no more hard parts left, then you’ve waited long enough. The coco coir should feel soft all the way through the bucket. You can mix the slurry around with your hands to get it to break up faster if you’re in a hurry.

Some growers let it soak longer, especially if they’re using pH’ed water that’s been supplemented with a Cal-Mag supplement, giving the coco more time to “take in” the good stuff. But I usually wait about 10 minutes and go to the next step.

6.) Pull liner up and out, letting water drain.

First let the majority of the extra water drain out into the bucket, then place the liner in the tub or on the ground so it can continue to let water drain out slowly.

7.) Pour half the 8-quart bag of perlite on top of your coco coir

8.) Mix in perlite with hands

Make sure to mix everything thoroughly, and check around the sides too, where you’ll often find pockets of perlite or straight coco coir. It’s really easy and quick. Just stick your hands in and mix everything together until it looks even all the way through 🙂

This moving gif should hopefully give you an idea.

After mixing, your potting mix will feel light and kind of soggy. You should end up with something that looks like this.

9.) Fill your containers with potting mix

One batch makes about 5 gallons of potting mix, so it should easily fill a 5-gallon container. You could also use it to fill 3 x 2-gallon containers or 2 x 3-gallon containers, though in both cases you’ll be a little short.

Don’t worry if the mix feels soaking wet, it will dry in the fabric pots once you have a fan blowing over them in your grow tent.

10.) Repeat steps for second brick of coco coir & remaining half of perlite bag

Now you fill the rest of your fabric containers and possibly solo cups for seedlings.

Note: If you do use solo cups, make sure to cut holes into the bottom so that water can drain out after you’ve watered your plants. Always test to make sure water runs through cup freely. If you have a hard time filling up an empty solo cup with water because it’s running out the bottom, you have added the right amount of drainage.

Now you can continue directly with the above cannabis coco grow tutorial! It directly follows the tutorial above for rehydrating coco coir and creating a coir-perlite potting mix.

Jump to…

How to Grow Weed: Basics

10-Step Quick Start Guide to Growing Cannabis

Which Grow Light Should You Get?

Do I Need Special Nutrients?

The post How to Grow Cannabis in Coco Coir (Complete Guide) appeared first on Grow Weed Easy.

Which cannabis growing medium is the best for growing marijuana, and which style of growing is right for you? Will you get the biggest yields growing marijuana with hydroponics, with soil, or a hydro-soil fusion (such as coco coir or other soilless potting mixes)? Which growing medium produces the highest quality buds?

This tutorial will teach you what to expect for each type of cannabis grow medium (including pros/cons, easiness, effect on yields, bud quality, etc). Get started growing weed today!

Table of Contents

Soil Guide

• Soil Pros vs Cons
• Soil Setup
• Soil Maintenance

Hydro Guide

• Hydro Pros vs Cons
• Different Types of Hydroponics
• Don't Use These Hydro Systems!
• Hydro Setup
• Hydro Maintenance

Soil-Hydro Fusion – coco coir & other soilless mediums

• Soilless Pros vs Cons
• Soilless Setup
• Soilless Maintenance

Intro to Growing Cannabis in Soil

Growing plants in soil seems to be what many people try first when it comes to growing in cannabis. If you’ve grown other plants in soil and/or have maintained a soil garden, this may be the best choice for you because you will already be familiar with a lot of what you need to understand to grow cannabis in soil.

Note: Do not use “Miracle-Gro” soil or any soil that has “extended release” nutrients for growing cannabis. These types of soil will continue to release nitrogen to your plant roots for up to 6 months. This can burn your cannabis plants in the flowering/budding stage and reduce your overall yields.

Pros vs Cons

Soil Pros for Growing Cannabis

Many Already Have Soil Experience – Growing cannabis in soil is similar to growing plants like tomatoes or corn – soil growing may be the most intuitive option for you, especially if you already have gardening experience.

Simple – hand-water your plants in containers

Outdoor Growing – most outdoor growers choose to grow with soil. In the wild, cannabis grows in soil, so growing outdoors in soil is most like a cannabis plant's natural environment. Many people find that when growing cannabis outdoors, soil is the simplest and most intuitive way to grow. Growing with composted "super soil" gives the grower the ability to grow outside without needing to add synthetic bottled nutrients or manage the pH of the soil.

Option 1: Store-Bought Soil + Nutrients – Growers can buy soil online or at a store, and simply add nutrients throughout their grow while watering for thriving, happy cannabis plants.

Option 2: Compost or Purchase "Super Soil" – For those who don’t want to worry about soil pH or adding nutrients throughout the grow, there is the option of amending and composting your own super soil (or buying it already composted) specifically made for cannabis plants. While this option takes more time before you start growing, it can be somewhat simpler especially for those who have composted soil in the past. Note: Some growers believe growing in organic composted super soil with a rich microbial life actually improves the taste and smell of cannabis by causing plant to produce higher levels of terpenes and terpenoids.

Soil Cons for Growing Cannabis

Pests – Soil is organic material, and there are many types of bugs that can live in soil. Often, soil-growers seem to suffer more often from pests attacking their plants than hydroponic growers.

Slower Growth – Growing in soil is not as fast as growing in a soilless or hydroponic setup – hydroponic plants tend to get better growth rates, especially in the vegetative stage.

Soil Setup

Setup Cost – Basically you just need soil and a container. Common cannabis soil mixes include Fox Farms Happy Frog and Fox Farms Ocean Forest. Any high quality organic soil mix will do in a pinch. Avoid Miracle-Gro soil or anything with “extended release” nutrients! If soil seems heavy, it can be beneficial to add 30% perlite and 10% vermiculite to aerate and loosen soil. One proven soil option is to compost your own super soil, which can be made organically and gets some of the best results of any soil. Common cannabis containers include classic plastic pots, terra cotta pots, smart pots (fabric pots) and air-pots. Standard gardening pots do best with soil that has perlite added so that there’s plenty of aeration for the cannabis roots. Smart pots and air-pots each add extra air to the root zones from the sides, so they don't require much (if any) extra aeration or perlite in soil mixes.

Setup Effort – Soil growing probably has the least setup effort of any method (with the possible exception of growing cannabis in a soilless mix). The biggest effort will likely be choosing your soil and nutrients.

Learn the basics of growing cannabis
 

Soil Maintenance

Maintenance Cost – After setup, the main cost of soil growing will be replacing your soil every grow (highly recommended – reused soil often does not get great results unless you know how to amend it with the nutrients that were used during your grow). Occasionally you will have to replaced used containers that crack or break.

Maintenance Effort – Watering your plants, providing cannabis nutrients as needed, managing the pH of your root zone (you should be managing your root pH if you’re not growing in composted super soil which has microorganisms in your soil to help manage pH and make nutrients available to your plant roots).

How long until harvest? Soil has relatively slower growth rates than hydroponic methods, but a tuned-in soil grow can achieve impressive growth rates if given a great environment and plenty of bright light. Most soil grows will require 1-3 months of vegetative time (depending on how big you want your plants) plus 2-3 months of flowering/budding (depending on your strain). Learn more about how long it takes to grow cannabis here. Some growers feel that cannabis grown in organic super soil has the best smell/taste profile, though this is highly disputed among hydroponic growers. 🙂

How long can grower be away? It’s important for a grower to always remain close by for their first grow, especially for inexperienced growers. Experienced growers can safely spend more time away from the garden. Bigger containers hold more water and therefore give growers more time away, since constant watering isn’t needed. In the best case scenario it is always best to check on your plants at least once a day. You never know when a pest infestation will take hold, a plant will fall over, or some other unexpected event will happen.

How to Grow Cannabis in 10 Steps

Growing with Hydroponics

Intro to Hydroponics for Cannabis

While technically any growing medium besides soil is considered hydroponics (including growing in a soilless medium like coco coir), when most people think of “hydroponics” they think of a water reservoir.

Technically any type of hydroponics with no inert medium is called a “solution culture” to differentiate it from other types of hydroponics.

Click Here for a Short Summary of Hydroponics History

This section focuses on types of hydroponics where the cannabis roots grow directly in water and/or the grower needs to maintain a water reservoir.

In the next section we will cover soilless mediums, which are technically a type of hydroponics, but which most people consider more like growing in soil.

We believe Hydro is one of the best ways to grow cannabis!
 

Pros vs Cons

Hydro Pros for Growing Cannabis

Faster Growth – Faster vegetative growth than any other growing method, which can result in harvests that come in sooner.

Bigger Yields – Experienced hydroponic growers usually get bigger yields than experienced soil growers – given the same conditions (light, nutrients, etc).

Less Likely To Get Pests – Of all the grow types, hydroponic growers are least likely have their garden attacked by bugs or pests (though it’s definitely still possible). Many pests need soil as part of their lifecycle, and many growers accidentally introduce pests into their grow room when buying new soil.

Some Options Are Low Maintenance – Some hydro methods are relatively low maintenance, and many growers believe some options are as simple as growing in soil (learn more about different types of hydroponic setups below).

Hydro Cons for Growing Cannabis

Setup Cost – Hydroponic setups are usually more expensive to set up initially, and some types of hydroponic growing may require some DIY.

Figuring Out Nutrients – Getting the nutrients “dialed in” can be difficult for some hydro growers (especially when combining nutrients and supplements from many different companies) unless you follow a proven formula. In hydro, growers have total control over nutrients, which means hydro growers can fix nutrient problems quickly, but also that nutrient problems should be monitored and fixed as soon as possible.

Root Problems – Many unprepared hydro growers run into problems at the roots, though it’s important to remember that there are several proven steps that can be taken to ensure happy, healthy roots – such as providing plenty of oxygen at the roots and keeping water temps around 70°F (20°C).

Some Options Are High Maintenance – Some hydro growing methods are relatively high maintenance, and may take lots of checking in for the best growth rates

Growing Hydro Outdoors Can Be Difficult – While hydroponic growing can be accomplished outdoors, many people find it difficult to control all the essential variables outdoors (sterile environment, controlling heat/cold, powering pumps, etc).

Best Hydro Methods For Growing Cannabis
 

Different Types of Hydroponics Systems

Learn which ones are and aren’t suited for growing cannabis

  ○ DWC (Deep Water Culture)
  ○ Top-Fed DWC (Bubbleponics)
  ○ NFT (Nutrient Film Technique)
  ○ Ebb & Flow (Flood & Drain)
  ○ Aquaponics (Fish for Nutrients)
  ○ Aeroponics (Misted Air)
  ○ Drip System (Automatic Watering)
  ○ Hand-Watered Hydro (Soil-Hydro Fusion)

DWC – roots in nutrient reservoir that is oxygenated by bubbling air through the water. There are lots of different variations of the DWC method.

We believe DWC is one of the best ways to grow cannabis!

Top-Fed DWC (Bubbleponics) – like DWC except water is also pumped to the roots via a top-feed – fastest growth of almost any hydro system

View tutorial on how to make a Top-Fed DWC hydroponic system for growing cannabis
(this is how we grow!)

Note: What’s “RDWC”? It stands for recirculating DWC, which involves many DWC units hooked together with pumps and a “controller” to make sure all the plants get what they need. Usually only used for very big grows with many DWC units – this method allows a grower to maintain many DWC reservoirs in one place, and have the water pumped to all the plants

NFT (Nutrient Film Technique) – roots in containers on a tilted surface (often PVC piping). A water pump drips water from a reservoir to the roots of the first plant, and a shallow stream of water flows down the ramp over the roots of all the plants, one at a time. At the end, the water is usually drained back into the main reservoir to be recirculated. It is called “NFT” or “nutrient film technique” because there is a film of nutrient water flowing over the roots at all times.

Flood & Drain (Ebb & Flow) – roots in container which is flooded with water and drained on a timer – get plenty of nutrient water to roots as well as oxygen.

Aquaponics – fish are raised in a tank, and their poop is used to provide nutrients for your plants. In return, plant roots help filter the water for the fish. This is all accomplished by building a colony of bacteria known as a "biofilter." The bacteria transform the fish waste from ammonia (which is toxic to fish and unavailable to plant) into nitrogen that the plants can use.

Learn more about growing cannabis with aquaponics!

Aeroponics – roots in misted air – this method gets more oxygen to roots than almost any other system. Can be difficult to get setup if you want to DIY (do it yourself) but there are lots of already-made aeroponics kits for growers interested in this style of hydroponics.

Drip system – Basically an automated watering system – can be used full hydro, with a soilless medium or even with soil. Plants are provided water via top-feed from a reservoir of water. There’s lots of variation on drip systems. For example, sometimes these systems are re-circulating, and sometimes the water is discarded after being dripped through the roots. Sometimes the water feed in on a timer, and sometimes the water flows constantly.

Soilless Mediums (Hand-Watered Hydro) – While growing with cannabis roots directly in a soilless medium like coco coir is technically considered hydroponics, I will go over it in the next section because as far as the grower is concerned, the experience of growing in soilless mediums is more like a fusion of soil and hydro compared to most other hydro techniques.

These Hydro Methods Are NOT Suitable For Growing Cannabis

Raft System – Only meant for small plants like lettuce, raft hydro systems keep plants on a "raft" floating in a nutrient reservoir.

No tiny hydro systems like ones made for growing herbs! These hydroponic systems are far too small for a plant like cannabis. They don't have enough room for roots, or enough light to get cannabis to properly produce buds in the flowering stage. Don't use an Aerogarden (Aerogrow)! It is a struggle to get cannabis to grow in one of these, and you will get a lot better results using almost anything else (never mind the fact that they're expensive).

Never Use an AeroGarden for Growing Cannabis!

Hydro Setup

Setup Cost – many hydroponic setups are very inexpensive, especially if growers are willing to DIY and build their systems from scratch. Most of the parts for hydroponic systems are readily available at the hardware store and usually aren't terribly expensive. The more complicated your system, generally the more it costs. So if you need lots of pumps, tubing and special pieces you may spend quite a bit to get everything. Luckily, these days there are many companies that sell kits with everything included, and often these kits are comparable in price to building everything yourself.

Setup Effort – When it comes to setup, you will benefit greatly from doing your homework. I highly recommend finding a grower with a proven setup already (a grower who has at least one grow journal showing a successful harvest), and copy them for your first grow. Many already-made hydroponic kits can be found online, and these are often easy to put together. Certain setups that use a timer usually take some tinkering to get everything to work the way you like (example Flood & Drain, certain Drip systems, etc). For aquaponics, the grower must also consider the time and effort it takes to set up a tank that can support fish.

Learn the basics of growing cannabis

Hydro Maintenance

Maintenance Cost – Once your grow is setup, the majority of your maintenance costs usually go towards your nutrients and your grow lights. Learn about hydroponic nutrients. Learn about different grow lights. However, you will need to replace tubing, pumps and air stones every few grows or as they wear out.

Maintenance Effort – Your first grow will likely take a lot of maintenance as you get a feel for how everything works together. As long as you do your research beforehand, you will avoid common growing hydro problems like root rot and figuring out your hydroponic nutrient schedule. The amount of long-term maintenance depends quite a bit on which hydro setup you choose. A dialed-in DWC setup with a relatively large reservoir can take as little as a half hour each week to maintain the reservoir. Most hydro setups are relatively low maintenance as long as the grower has grown in the setup before. Some hydroponic setups take inherently more maintenance, for example aquaponics (growing with fish) and aeroponics (growing in misted air – take a bit of maintenance to make sure spray nozzles are always working properly).

How long until harvest? All hydroponic grow styles generally achieve faster growth than growing in soil, especially when it comes to speed of vegetative growth. The fastest growth rates are achieved when roots have constant access to both nutrient water and lots of oxygen. That means that growers get the fastest cannabis growth by adding more bubbles and dissolved oxygen into their water, or exposed always-moist plant roots directly to air (like aeroponics). While vegetative growth is often faster with hydroponic setups, growing hydro does not reduce the time a plant needs in the flowering/budding stage – that’s determined mostly by genetics.

How long can grower be away? Depends on the setups. It’s important for a grower to always remain close by for their first grow, especially for inexperienced growers with DIY setups. You need to be there if there’s a leak, or something stops working properly. With safe & professional setups, experienced growers can safely spend more time away from the garden. Bigger water reservoirs (or bigger pots for soilless mediums – anything that holds more water at a time) give growers more time away, since constantly adding water isn’t needed. Highly tuned setups like aeroponics tend to need more constant checking in, while simple and direct setups like DWC can be left alone for quite a few days. In the best case scenario it is always best to check on your plants at least once a day. You never know when a bulb will go out, a plant will fall over, or some other unexpected event will happen.

Hand-Watered Hydro – Coco coir & other soilless mediums

Intro to Coco Coir & Other Soilless Potting Mixes

While technically any growing medium besides soil is considered “hydroponic”, growing in coco coir or other types of soilless mediums can feel a lot like growing in Soil.

Pros vs Cons

Soilless Pros

Faster Growth – Soilless growing mediums tend to achieve faster vegetative growth than growing in soil.

Less Likely To Get Pests – Soilless growers are least likely have their garden attacked by bugs or pests, but it’s definitely still possible.

Easy – Hand-water your plants in containers, just like soil. Many growers believe that growing in a soilless medium requires about the same effort as growing in soil. If your soil setup involves feeding nutrients in the water, growing in a soilless medium will be nearly the same experience.

Soilless Cons

Not As Fast As Full Hydro – Growing in a soilless medium will get faster growth rates in soil, but cannabis plants will not grow as fast as a hydroponic medium that is able to get more oxygen to the roots.

Figuring Out Nutrients – Getting the nutrients “dialed in” can be difficult for some soilless growers (especially when combining nutrients and supplements from many different companies) unless you follow a proven cannabis nutrient formula for your specific growing medium.

Soilless Setup

Cost – Soilless potting mix and container. One of the more common soilless mixes used for cannabis is “coco coir” which is made from coconut husks. Usually a soilless mix contains many different inert components to achieve just the right amount of aeration and water holding properties. I don’t recommend making up your own soilless mixes until you have some experience as it’s easy to make a mix that either holds too much or not enough water.

One proven soilless mix is to hydrate coco coir bricks and add 30% perlite and 10% vermiculite  to aerate and loosen the mix.

Common cannabis containers include classic plastic pots, terra cotta pots, smart pots (fabric pots) and air-pots.

Classic pots do best with a lighter soilless mix with plenty of aeration for the cannabis roots. Smart pots and air-pots allow for heavier mixes that hold more water, since each of these types of pots add extra air to the root zones from the sides (which adds more oxygen to encourage faster root growth, but also means potting mixes tend to dry out faster).

Setup Effort – Growing with a soilless mix has very little setup – just get the mix and your container. The biggest effort will likely be spent choosing your soilless mix and nutrients. Remember, a soilless mix is technically a hydroponic setup, so it’s important to get nutrients that are either specifically formulated for your mix, or formulated for hydroponic growing. Nutrients that are formulated for soil usually do not work well for growing in a soilless setup.

Learn the basics of growing cannabis
 

Soilless Maintenance

Cost – The main cost of soilless growing is replacing your potting mix every grow (highly recommended, reused potting mixes often contain a buildup of nutrient salts that are difficult to properly rinse out). Occasionally you will have to replaced used containers.

Maintenance Effort – Watering your plants, adding cannabis nutrients, managing the pH of your root zone (you should be managing your root pH if you’re not growing in a soilless mix in order to make sure nutrients are readily available to your plant roots).

How long until harvest? Soilless mixes has relatively faster growth rates than growing in soil, and a tuned-in soilless grow can achieve impressive growth rates when given a great environment and plenty of bright light.

How long can grower be away? It’s important for a marijuana grower to always remain close by for their first grow, especially for inexperienced growers. Experienced growers can safely spend more time away from the garden. Bigger containers hold more water and therefore give growers more time away, since constant watering isn’t needed. In the best case scenario it is always best to check on your plants at least once a day. You never know when a nutrient deficiency will take hold, a plant will fall over, or some other unexpected event will happen that needs your attention.

Learn how I grew my first cannabis plants in coco coir

Jump to…

Composted Super Soil Tutorial – Grow Organic Cannabis!

Simple Hand-Watered Hydroponic Cannabis Grow Guide

High-Yield Bubbleponics Cannabis Grow Tutorial

Grow Cheap and Stealthy With a $100 Space Bucket

The post Is it better to grow cannabis in soil or hydro? appeared first on Grow Weed Easy.

I'm having a major problem. I'm useing 3 CFLs (6500k, bright white colored) and as you can see, they're barely growing. (sorry for the low-quality cell phone pic, they're actually green in real life…)

Additional info:

I've had these plants for 4 weeks now and they are only 3 and a half inches tall. They've barely grown out of the soil…

I've trimmed them down and lollipopped them or whatever you call it and they just aren't doing good. I need some professional help.

Is it the pH level or is it the food/nutrients? When I first got the plant I was using Miracle Grow but I've just read online that it's bad.

I started them from seeds I found in this killer shake which was sticky and smelled amazing.

As you can see from the picture, they are so small, but also keep in mind I just trimmed them.

Do I need a bigger pot? I have 10 liters of perlite and also vermiculite. I need help, what should I do? Is it that the pot is too small or maybe the soil?

I also kept an extra seed just in case. Should I just start over and mix the vermiculite / perlite with new soil and maybe just keep these ones as practice?

I want to make a plant with like a ounce of bud and I just cant seem to make this happen.

About 2 years ago I had a 400 watt metal halide light with ballest and all but still didn't work. It was way too hot in my closet but yet the plants still were growing as slow as these ones.

I just cant seem to figure out what I'm doing and what I did wrong? Please if u r a professional, help me with all the tips you can give me.

My babys need help!

Answer: Your plants need more light.

Light is like their "food" and your plants are starving.

Move your CFL bulbs closer. CFL bulbs should be as close to your plants as possible without burning them. You can hold your hand next to the plant for 10 seconds to test if it's too hot. Keeping CFLs 2-4" away from the tops of the leaves is perfect.

Once your plants get more light, they'll start growing faster.

Learn more about growing marijuana with CFLs: https://www.growweedeasy.com/growing-marijuana-with-cfls

As far as the problems you had while growing with the Metal Halide, heat will also stunt growth. Plants need a lot of light, but also a nice room temperature to grow well. You can't give marijuana plants one or the other, they need both to thrive.

You'll see your plants start growing when you move the CFLs closer.

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The post Growing with CFLs and plants are growing sooooo slow… What do I do? appeared first on Grow Weed Easy.

Additional info: Grown in coco coir with Fox Farms nutrients. Have been growing this plant from a seed and was in veg state growing very well with CFL lights (6500k) 24/7. Very full and bushy plant with many leaves and smelled nice.

Switched to the flowering stage by changing the lights to 12/12 (2700k). Two days later, the plant leaves were drooping, curling inwards, drying out and tips were turning black. Other leaves were a bright green and now almost yellow.

During veg stage plant was getting PH’d water and a mixture of Grow Big and Big Bloom. On 5/9 plant got a mixture of Tiger Bloom and Big Bloom. Plants have always been watered with PH’d water but noticed as of recently it wasn’t drinking as much. As of 5/11, I have flushed the plant with PH’d water 3 times in case there was salt buildup. I have also hand sprayed the plant hoping it would help the very dry leaves that were close to dying. After all this, the plant looks worse today and hoping I can still save. Not sure what has caused it to start dying but please help.

Answer: This plant is showing classic signs of root problems like root rot. The fact that your plant is drinking less than normal also seems to indicate that there’s a problem at the roots. When the whole plant seems to just “deflate” overnight, it’s often caused by root problems. Heat can be a trigger (root bacteria love warm temps) and will also make this problem worse.

Root problems often hit growers in soil or coco coir soon after the flip to the flowering stage, especially with less powerful lights like CFLs. This is because plants use a lot more water when they’re receiving 24 hours of light a day. When you flip to 12/12 light for the flowering stage, it’s easy to overwater plants if you continue watering them on the same schedule.

It’s important to user proper watering practices throughout your grow.

What to do:

If you think you may have root problems, there are two easy ways to deal with this.

1.) You can purchase Hydrogen Peroxide in 3% – 35% strength.

Mix 1 cup of 3% Hydrogen Peroxide with a gallon of water. For 35% strength Hydrogen Peroxide, mix one tablespoon to a gallon of water.

Water your plants with the mixture to kill any bacteria living in your root area. Unfortunately, hydrogen peroxide also kills good bacteria, which can protect your plant from future infections.

2.) (My preferred method) Conversely, you can start adding Hydroguard to your nutrient-water when you feed.

This will build up colonies of good bacteria that out-compete the bad bacteria and actually promote plant growth.

In addition, the beneficial bacteria will offer protection for those times when the temperature of the grow area rises at a time when you can’t control it. When I first got started with bubbleponics, I had a few tough bouts with root rot.

Over the last few years, I’ve tried many “good bacteria” products including the ($$$) Great White and Subculture B additives, but no product has ever worked 1/4 as good at maintaining healthy roots as super cheap, readily available Hydroguard.

My soil/coco coir / growing medium seems to stay wet no matter what

If the plant medium seems to stay wet no matter what you do, you may need better drainage. It may also help to move plants to a smaller pot until they get bigger and start drinking more.

Make sure that water drains freely from the bottom of your container (it’s recommended that you provide enough water to get at least 20% extra runoff every time you water your plants). You should see water coming out the bottom within a minute or two after watering. Then don’t water your plants again until the soil is dry up to your first knuckle.

For soil/coco coir grows, you generally only want to water the plant when the soil feels dry if you press a finger in it. You can also use the “lift the pot” method to decide when to water your plants (basically wait until your pot feels “light” since the plants have used up all the water). For other growing mediums besides soil, your watering method will vary, but if your plants are drooping and you’ve been feeding them a lot of water, it’s a good idea to cut back and see if that helps.

If your plants are already overwatered, you can try to increase airflow to help the water evaporate more quickly. You can also use a pencil to gently poke some air holes into the growing medium to provide extra aeration and oxygen to the roots. Some growers will even replant a heavily overwatered plant, to get some oxygen immediately to the roots.

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The post Why is my whole plant wilting, curling, with tips turning black and leaves turning yellow? appeared first on Grow Weed Easy.