10 Cool Cannabis Growing Tools You Might Not Know About

Last updated Nov 08, 2023

by Sirius Fourside

One of the toughest parts of becoming good at growing cannabis – or pretty much any other skill for that matter – is learning how to improvise. At some point in every grower’s career, they will run into a problem that needs a custom-tailored solution. When there’s nothing available that can easily rectify a problem, being able to improvise a solution that makes both you and your plants happy is the next best thing.

This article shares 10 helpful yet unexpected or unusual tools for cannabis growers!

A representation of your growers toolbox.... Learn about 10 helpful tools for growing cannabis in today's tutorial! Made with Dall-E 3.

But the goal of this article isn’t to teach you improvisation skills, in fact, we’re going to do the opposite. We’re going to show you how to make it so improvisation isn’t even necessary in the first place.

Today, I want to show you some weird/cool tools I’ve found that can solve some of the unique problems we pot growers run into. Although being able to improvise is a must-have skill, it’s just as important to know when to use the right tools. No one wants to spend lots of time and effort to fix a problem when there is a $1 solution that can do the job more effectively. So let’s get to those tools.

Click here to jump straight to the supplies list!

 

ScrOG Net for Your Grow Tent

When I started growing, if you wanted to use a net or screen (known as Screen of Green or ScrOG) to control the height of your cannabis plants and support big buds, you typically had to build something at home. No more!

Smart growers came up with the idea of making pre-made ScrOG nets that hook directly to the poles of your grow tent. These make it extremely easy to install a net and adjust it as your plants grow. On top of that, they’re cheap.

A stretchy ScrOG net to help with growing a wide flat canopy.

Growers use these in their grow tent to help gain control over plants and grow them flat and wide, so they make lots of buds like this.

Example of a "sea" of cannabis colas which have all been trained to grow the same height so all the buds are "top buds" and close to the grow light

Plant Yo-Yos

Cannabis plant yo-yos, also called marijuana "Plant supports"

Plant yo-yos (also sometimes called “plant supports”) are one of those tools that you would never think of until they’re suggested. Once you’ve needed a plant yo-yo and experienced their usefulness, there’s no going back!

A 'before and after' example of yo-yos in action!

A plant yo-yo in use by Nebula

Essentially, plant yo-yos provide a way to have the top of your grow tent to support the weight of your buds. Some heavily trained cannabis plants (such as with manifolding) can produce long colas that are so heavy that they fall over from their weight. When this happens, you can support them from above with string or wire, but it’s messy in addition to feeling clumsy.

Plant yo-yos use a small plastic hook to gently grab onto a piece of stem, so they support the plant while touching as little bud as possible. They also extend and retract via a spring; so once they’re installed at the top of your tent, adjusting them takes only a few seconds.

Cola with yo-yo plant supports

If you have problems with your buds falling over from weight, this is the best solution I’ve seen so far.

Plant yo-yos are also helpful for hanging cannabis buds from the inside of your tent during drying.

Yo-yos make it easy to adjust as needed to keep all the buds spread out so they dry evenly.

Get some Plant Yo-Yos

 

Ski / Snowboarding Goggles

There are a few different types of eye protection available to growers these days. We started out years ago with the high-priced Method-7 glasses (version for HPS, blurple LEDs, or full-spectrum LEDs). Later we tried the similar, but much more reasonably-priced Apollo Horticulture glasses (version for MH/HPS version and LED version). These days, we’ve been using ski/snowboarding goggles since they’re comfortable, they cover your entire eye-area and block 100% of UV rays which is nice when you’re growing with high-UV lights like MH and LECs.

Keep in mind that these are mostly for protecting your eyes. If you’re looking for glasses to correct the yellow light of an HPS, or the purple/red light of some models of LED, you’ll need the corresponding pair of glasses (listed above). Other types of lights appear “full color” like some LEDs and LECs. These don’t need as much color correction so specialized glasses aren’t necessary.  If you’re growing using T5s, LECs, or mostly-white LEDs, snowboarding goggles will provide great protection while being comfortable to use. Also, they look cool!

After over a decade of indoor growing, my eyes have gotten pretty sensitive to grow lights. These days, I always put on my goggles before checking on the plants when the lights are on!

Get Ski/Snowboarding Goggles

 

Liquid/Water Transfer Pump

A liquid transfer pump (also called a “water transfer pump” or “battery-operated siphon liquid transfer pump”) is typically used to empty aquariums or transfer gasoline between containers and a vehicle. If you’re growing cannabis in a DWC (Deep Water Culture) or similar setup, this type of tool can turn the often laborious job of changing your reservoir water into a quick 5-minute task.

Water transfer pumps make it easy for people who grow hydroponically to empty/fill their reservoir without having to do any heavy lifting. A crafty grower could potentially empty their reservoir, mix new nutrients, and then refill their reservoir without ever having to lift a single cup of water.

They can also help water your plants or any time you need to move water between different containers.

A transfer pump is great for watering plants. I mix my nutrient water in 3 or 5-gallon containers, and this pump makes it easy to water plants directly from the tub

A battery-operated water transfer pump is a really easy way to water your cannabis plants

The hose is relatively short so it will only reach about two plants deep, but for small grows this is much more convenient than a watering can!

Watering the plants with a liquid transfer pump

Get a Water Transfer Pump (plus two D batteries) to water cannabis and remove runoff.

Plant Twist Tie

Twist tie almost directly translates into larger yields when used properly!

Twist ties are what Americans formerly used to close up trash bags. Nowadays they’re used for pretty much everything except closing up trash bags! When it comes to growing cannabis indoors, twist ties are a welcome guest in our home and they are one of the cheapest and most efficient tools available for LST (low-stress training) and other methods of cannabis training.

Plant twist tie is great for training young cannabis plants and it’s equally great at training new growth on growing plants. Twist ties can also damage stems that grow too big if they’re twisted on too tight. Make sure to not secure twist ties by twisting them around and around a branch. Gently wrapping the twist tie is a better method because it will pop off before it ever starts “choking” stems.

Don’t twist these on a bunch of times because it can “choke” your plants! Gently wrap twist tie around stems like a hook like this, and attach the other side to your container.

The best way to use twist ties is to gently "hook" them around the stems

What to attach the twist ties to?

In hard-sided pots, there’s usually a “lip” you can use to hook the twist-tie.

In DWC/hydro, I recommend hooking to the edges of net pots or the lip around the edge. Whatever you do, make sure it’s attached to the lid directly (as opposed to the floor or a pole in the tent) so that you can easily take the cover on and off without disturbing the plants.

This plant has been tied down with twisty tie to the lid and under a net pot

When it comes to fabric pots, hair clips work on small stems but will come off as plants get stronger. Some growers use binder clips, which are more sturdy but can still pop off. Another option is a pack of safety pins, which work excellently and won’t come off but rust over time.

If you’re using fabric pots, a simple and easy solution is simply to use pointy scissors to poke a hole and thread through that. I use Fiskars scissors since I use them for trimming and I have a pair lying around, but anything sharp and pointy should work.

Once you’ve made a hole, you can easily hook your twist tie onto it

You can also buy plant pots that come with built-in holes for training using plant twist tie.

Maximize yields by growing wide and flat plants like this!

Get a Spool of Plant Twist Tie

Plant twist tie is great for securing smaller, bendier branches while training cannabis plants.

 

Plant Training Clips and LST Helpers

These are relatively new to the cannabis grow scene. Growers started by making their own setups to be able to train cannabis plants as shown above using plant twist tie, paperclips or safety pins.

Then, a company in California had a cool idea and started making the device shown in the picture below, called an LST Clip. It holds on to the plant itself to maintain any bends (LST) you create. Make sure to get the original, American-made ones. They’re sturdier, last much longer, and support the product’s actual creators. These clips are a Calfornia-Texas collaboration!

Growers can use LST clips to gently bend and hold cannabis stems at an angle. They’re reusable (unlike the plant twist tie), and naturally offer a lot of strength and support.

I believe this was the original LST Clip that everyone else copied. The clips are well-designed, they’re manufactured in the US, and the people who make them seem like a great company to support.

Get LST Plant Clips for your cannabis plants!

 

Tape (Scotch, Duct, Electrical, Painters, Masking)

Duct tape, electrical tape, and even scotch tape can be great tools in the grow room as a "cast" for plant injuries

Tape?! Sacrilege! Who would put tape on their cannabis?!

Any grower trying to fix a broken stem, that’s who!

Cannabis is a very hardy plant and it’s capable of bouncing back from lots of stress and damage. However, this can work against growers as a stem that’s broken and not set right will heal in the position it’s left in. In such a case, a grower can lose the top half of the broken stem when it could’ve been recovered.

That’s where tape comes in. All that’s needed is enough tape to keep the stem in its natural position until it can heal. The tape is acting as a temporary splint or cast you can use to support the stem while it heals.

Sometimes you accidentally break a stem while bending

No worries! Broken stems that are given a ‘tape-cast’ will heal within a week or two as long as the wounded parts are held closely together.

Think of tape as a temporary cast for your plants! Always remove the tape after the injury heals. This knuckle that formed by DrWeedington may be the most impressive save I’ve seen with tape 🙂

A close-up of the knuckle that formed after this plant suffered a major wound (stem was almost completely separated, then taped back up)

Similar to twist tie, a tape-cast that’s on too tight can limit the growth of the stem above the cast. Make sure that you check broken stems regularly and remove the tape once it’s no longer needed.

Most common types of tape work great:

Get Tape for bending accidents

Rope Ratchets

Rope ratchets are great for hanging grow lights!

My first grow lights were a bunch of CFLs that I suspended from in the closet with nylon rope. It did the job, but it was insanely clumsy and just as frustrating whenever I needed to move the lights up or down. Although I moved past CFLs a long time ago, I still used nylon rope to suspend my lights for way too long before I found rope ratchets.

Rope ratchets are self-locking pulleys that make moving your grow lights about 100X easier. Instead of having to untie the rope, move your light, and re-tie rope at the new position (all while possibly dropping equipment), you can make minor or major height adjustments with very little effort. I also use them to lift heavy objects like carbon filters instead of trying to lift them myself.

Hang rope ratchets from the bars at the top of your tent

Use them to hang your grow lights, carbon filter, or anything awkward or heavy to lift or move up and down

Example of that exhaust system from a different angle

Carbon filters (used to get rid of smells) are surprisingly unwieldy and heavy. Rope ratchets let you lift them, one click at a time, from the floor. Save your back!

Rope ratchets are a must-have for any grow setup and have superior performance/ease of use compared to the all-too-common metal chain or plain rope.

Get Rope Ratchets

Rope ratchets are great for hanging grow lights!

 

Industrial Blunt-tip Syringe (Printer Refill Syringe)

An industrial syringe can be a very helpful tool for a grower. Not only do they help make sure you’re using precise amounts of whatever liquid you’re measuring, but they make liquids easy to dispense.

Syringes are more accurate than spoons and are great for measuring nutrients in mL (for nutrient schedules that use the metric system). Plus it’s harder to spill nutrients all over your floor!

Industrial syringes are so helpful at this job that the only downside I see to using them is the inherent scariness that comes with something that reminds us of needles.

However, it’s very important to note that industrial syringes aren’t needles – they’re called “blunt tip” syringes because they’re not sharp. They’re about the same level of danger as a pointy butter knife.

Watch me poke my hand with one! [Spoiler: Nothing happens!] (5.5MB .gif)

Ouch! Ouch! Oooowwwww! Just kidding, it doesn't hurt!

I was initially hesitant to try this tool since I’m not a huge fan of needle-shaped objects. But a reader named ‘JP’ got me to try it and now I can’t go back to using measuring spoons. It’s not that measuring spoons aren’t useful… in fact, they’re great for measuring! However, some liquids become easier to use with a bit more control. Measuring small amounts of liquids like PH Up, PH Down and micronutrients are where industrial syringes really shine.

Being able to accurately measure the amount of PH Up/Down you use (down to the mL) makes it easier for growers to quickly adjust their water to the right pH level. And since a little bit of pH up/down goes a long way, this can help to prevent growers from overcorrecting pH. More importantly, it helps make the next pH correcting much quicker. For example, I know that I can put in 4.5mL of pH down to bring my tap water to about 6.0. With a measuring spoon, it had a good general amount to use (about 1tsp), but using a syringe makes for much more consistent pH measurement in addition to taking less time.

Get Blunt Tip Industrial Syringes

Chip Clips/Bag Clips

Bag clips make for great ducting clips!

You’ve probably seen these before in your house or maybe in an infomercial. They’re a softer version of a binder clip and they’re used to keep potato chip bags closed so your chips stay fresh.

It turns out they’re also great for holding together the slack in your ducting!

If your exhaust fan stays in one place (it should) and your grow light moves, you will need to leave slack in your ducting to accommodate for the distance as your light and fan move away from each other. Although managing that slack can typically be a pain, two chip clips will solve the problem within a few seconds. Additionally, most bag clips/chip clips have rubber where they grab on to the material. This rubber is better for ducting since it doesn’t tear the material but still keeps a good grip.

They’re also good for keeping half-used bags of coco coir closed and holding rope (from ratchets) together for easy adjusting.

Get Chip Clips

Digital Magnifier

These get way closer than a jeweler’s loupe for deciding when to harvest!

Video of using a USB microscope on buds

We took the above video using a USB microscope hooked up to a smartphone with an OTG adapter. So far this seems to be one of the most accurate ways to look at trichomes. You can make the picture big so you’re not squinting through a tiny jeweler’s loupe, or take video to look at more closely afterward.

Important: USB microscopes like the one above require a phone with OTG technology. 

For more information on using magnifiers and microscopes to look at trichomes like in the picture above, make sure to check out our article: How to Look at Trichomes with a Microscope

Get this USB microscope on Amazon

 

Zip Ties/Velcro Straps

Keep the cords in your grow tent from becoming a rats nest! Velcro straps and zip ties are awesome for bundling your cords together, as well as keeping a group of cords out of the way. Zip ties are easier to use, but harder to remove later; Velcro straps are the opposite in that they’re harder to put on, but much easier to remove when needed. Chip clips – from the earlier example above – can be a great substitute for this purpose…if you have enough of them.

Bigger zip ties can be used to hold up heavy objects like carbon filters.

Velcro straps and smaller zip ties are great for bundling cords because you can easily take them on and off

Large zip ties are surprisingly strong. The exhaust system in this tent is being held up purely by large zip ties

Example of an exhaust system with the carbon filter and fan in a straight line

If plants get too tall, you have to raise the grow light up. But sometimes you run out of height and rope ratchets can’t get any closer. Zip ties are the best way to get around that problem and bring grow light as close as possible to the top of the tent. Those few extra inches can make a big difference!

This LEC grow light needs to be kept about 2 feet away from plants but plants were getting too tall. The rope ratchets were left on so the grow light wouldn’t fall, but zip ties were used to bring the light just inches from the top (if your grow light gets hot, make sure to still leave a tiny air gap to help keep things cool).

Get Zip Ties (extra strong zip ties or smaller ones) and Velcro Straps 

Zip ties and Velcro straps

Quick Tip: You can string multiple pieces together if you need a longer tie!

 

Pipettes

Pipettes are useful for taking a small sample of water. If you have trouble getting water into the included test tube when testing pH with a ‘drop kit’, this is a tool that will completely eradicate that problem. Pipettes are also very cheap so you can stock up on them once and have enough for many grows. I think of these as the low-budget version of the blunt-tip syringe.

Get some Pipettes

A pipette makes it easier to move small amounts of liquid

 

Mister / One-Hand Pressure Sprayer

If you’re the type of grower who likes to foliar feed or needs to spray your plants for bugs, a mister is a much better alternative to washing out a spray bottle and using that. In addition to it being easier to measure in, it creates a much finer mist (that can be changed) which is much better than a regular sprayer can make. Although I don’t do foliar feeding personally, a mister is an acting general in my White Powdery Mildew Eradication Army.

Get a Mister (also called a “One-Hand Pressure Sprayer”) 

 

Bonus Tools

Here are a few bonus tools and items that may be handy for cannabis growers, though aren’t directly related to growing weed.

Smoke/Smell Eliminator Sprays

FunkAway, Zep, and Ozium are three common examples. Compared to a typical perfume, these are much better at getting the smell of weed or smoke out of the air. Sometimes you just need to get rid of the smell now!

Smell-Proof Bags

These are a great place to store weed so that it doesn’t smell up the place. They’re plastic so they won’t show up under an X-ray machine or anything like that, which makes them a good choice for traveling. Grove Bags are a popular example though there are many brands.

 

At-Home Urine THC Test

There may be a time when you would like to know if THC is detectable in your urine. If so, an at-home test let you check. This can give you peace of mind. For example, if you’ve been abstaining for a while, this can help you know when you’re “clean” and no longer need to worry about “popping” a drug test.

 


 

Get the Tools That Make Growing Easier!

Now that you know about some of these off-beat tools that can make growing so much easier, get your hands on the ones that will benefit your grow! The best part about these tools is they’re cheap, so they’ll pay for themselves quickly!

Scrog netTool that helps make plant training a lot easier!

You don't know you need a plant yo-yo until you need one...

Plant Yo-Yos – Keep your heavy buds from falling over with an easy-to-use support system! 

 

Snowboarding Goggles – A cool way to keep your eyes safe from powerful grow lights

 

Water Transfer PumpWater plants, remove runoff, or move water between containers quickly and effortlessly. Only needs two D batteries!

 

Twist ties are great for gardening!

Plant Twist TieAn essential tool for plant training! Don’t go without it!

 

LST Plant Clips – Use these reusable clips to bend your cannabis plant stems where you want them.

 

Nutrient pumps aren't for everyone, but they're great when you need them.

Masking TapeIf you accidentally snap a stem, you can use masking tape (or any tape) as a “cast” until plants heal

 

Don't struggle with adjust lights, get some rope ratchets!

Rope Ratchets – If you are currently hanging your lights with rope or chain, these will make the job 10x easier.

 

A blunt tip industrial syringe is like having a scope on your nutrients...yeah, you heard me.

Blunt Tip Industrial Syringe – Measure your nutrients, pH up/down, and supplements with ease and precision.

 

Chip clips keep chips fresh and ducting in place!

Chip Clips – Keeps chips fresh and ducting in place!

 

USB Digital Microscope – A digital microscope that displays video on-screen (using an OTG USB adapter, if necessary, and a compatible smartphone) is one of the best ways to look at trichomes so you know exactly when to harvest.

 

Zip ties will help you keep your grow room organizedVelcro straps will help you keep your grow room organized

Zip Ties / Velcro Straps – Keep the cords in your grow tent neat and organized. Use big zip ties to secure grow lights or carbon filters to the top of your tent.

 

Pipettes make it easy to move small amounts of water, for example when you need to take a water sample for pH'ing

Pipettes – Move small amounts of liquid easily so pH’ing your plants is a breeze.

 

One hand pressure sprayer makes a fine mist that's great for foliar feeding

Mister – (also called a “One-Hand Pressure Sprayer”) – Create a fine mist of water and get the most from foliar feeding or spraying plants for bugs.

 

Bonus Tools (Not Related to Growing)

Here are a few bonus tools and items that may be handy for cannabis growers, though aren’t directly related to growing weed.

Smoke/Smell Eliminator Sprays like FunkAway, Zep, and Ozium

 

Smell Proof Bags to store your weed while traveling (so you don’t smell like a skunk)

 

At-home urine test to check whether there is THC in your system.

 


 

Jump to…

10 Odd Realities (With Pictures) About Growing Cannabis Plants

Teach me the basics of growing weed

How Sirius Grows – 600w MH/HPS & Top-Fed DWC

Plant Problems Picture Guide

 


 

Every cannabis grower benefits from a great set of growing tools. I hope today’s tutorial helped you find the unexpected solution to a grow problem.

A representation of your growers toolbox.... Learn about 10 helpful tools for growing cannabis in today's tutorial!

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