Mini Grow Tent Shopping List & Tutorial (100W Quantum Board LED Grow Light)

by Nebula Haze

Example of a mini grow tent setup with an HLG 100 Quantum Board LED grow light for microgrows

See More Growing Setups

 Mini Grow Tent Setup (For Stealth)

  • Average Yields: 1-5 ounces
  • Recommended 1-3 plants
  • Grow space is 2’x2’x3’ or larger (more height is easier but potentially less stealthy)

 

About This Setup

For a microgrower, it’s all about getting the best yields in the smallest and stealthiest way possible. This mini-tent setup has been designed to produce several ounces of high-quality bud in a space as small as 2’x2’x3′ without any sounds or smells to give it away. If you get a 2’x2’x4′ grow tent (with an extra foot of height), you will make it so that you don’t have to worry so much about plants getting tall, and you’ll just have extra room in general.

  • Best suited to autoflowering strains because they tend to stay smaller
  • Choose strains that are ready to harvest 10 weeks from germination or sooner (these strains tend to stay smaller than longer-flowering strains)
  • You should top your plants (cut off the top tip) while they’re young or it will be difficult to spread the plants out and keep them the correct height. I recommend removing the top above the 5th node when the plants are about 3 weeks old. However, don’t top a plant that’s already started flowering or you may stunt it! (unless you’re trying to stunt the plant…)
  • Plants tend to stay smaller if they’re kept in smaller pots. Use a 2-gallon pot or smaller to help plants stay small enough for this setup.
  • You may need to familiarize yourself with supercropping to forcefully bend tall branches if you have any stretchy plants that start getting too tall
  • Only use a grow light that can be kept within a few inches of your plants because of the limited height. Besides the HLG 100 (which is featured in this list), I’ve also grown in this tent using a 2-foot T5HO fluorescent light, and that also worked great.

 

Cost Estimates

  • Total Setup Cost: $613
  • Estimated Monthly Electricity Cost: $10-20/month (based on $0.12/kWH to $0.25/kWh – see breakdown)
  • Total Cost for Entire First 4-Month Grow (Setup + Electricity): $693 ($138-693/ounce)
  • Total Cost for Second Grow (Nutrients + Electricity): $110 ($22-110/ounce)

Summary of what you need for this Mini Tent grow setup

Everything you need to get for the complete mini tent grow setup with an HLG 100 Quantum Board LED grow light

Mini Tent Grow Examples

Here are some examples of plants I’ve grown in this setup

 

Complete Grow Supply List

This cannabis mini grow tent setup list includes all the supplies you need to get to harvest.

HLG Quantum Board LED Grow Lights

  • HLG 65 V2 (4000k color, for the vegetative stage)
    • Start out in the vegetative stage with the HLG 65 (4000k color)
    • Keep about 10″ away to start. If plants start getting tall/stretchy, move the light closer
    • Cost: $100

  • HLG 100 V2 (R-Spec color, for the flowering stage)
    • In the flowering stage, you’ll want to switch to the “R-Spec” colored HLG 100. This provides light in a color spectrum that’s been designed to support flowering
    • If you’re only going to get one lamp, get just this one, but get both if possible for the best results 🙂
    • Keep about 8-10″ from the tops of plants, and move further if you notice signs of stress on the upper leaves (edges tipping up, early yellowing, etc)
    • Cost: $150

Grow Space

  • Carbon Scrubber
    • If you don’t hook up a scrubber to your exhaust fan, your tent will rapidly fill the surrounding area with a pungent weed smell! Normally it wouldn’t be such a big deal with such a small tent like this, but you are going to be growing a surprising amount of weed in here.
    • Recommended: 4-inch TopoLite Carbon Filter, 4″ x 10″ version
    • Cost: ~$40

Plant Pots

  • Growing medium: Coco coir or soil  (hydroponics can be more difficult to fit, but we’ve done it before in the 4′ tall tent with a mini DWC system)
  • Containers: Smart pots or Air Pots under 2 gallons in size. I grew with 1-gallon fabric pots, which worked well at keeping plants small, but plants needed to be watered daily. The plants needed to be watered less often when I used 2-gallon pots, but the plants got a little bigger.
  • Recommended: One bag of coco potting mix with perlite. This will be enough to fill 16 gallons worth of smart pots with a little left over. You’ll have enough to last a few grows, but luckily coco stores really well.
  • Cost: ~$65

   

Nutrients

General Hydroponics Flora trio - includes all your base nutrients! General Hydroponics CaliMagic Cal-Mag supplement
General Hydroponics Flora Trio and CaliMagic

Other Supplementary Items

  • Get your seeds – $5-12/seed (on average, can be more or less depending on the breeder)
  • 24-Hour Timer (to put your grow lights on a timer so the plants get a day and night period on a schedule). Why do cannabis plants need to be on a day/night schedule? What about autoflowering light schedules? – $10
  • Water containers (I personally use a 3-gallon or 5-gallon water jug to mix up nutrients, but anything can work) – Much cheaper at Wal-Mart ($5-15) than online!
  • 4″ Ducting and Ducting Clamps – to connect your fan and carbon filter together securely – $8
  • Zip ties – the hanging apparatus that comes with many grow lights add several inches of height for no real reason. They just aren’t designed for height-limited growing. In a mini tent like this, height is at a premium and a few inches can make a big difference. When you need to get your light all the way to the top of your tent, nothing seems to work better than industrial zip ties! Once you start using zip ties you end up using them for everything. They’re weirdly permanent and strong for something so disposable – $10
  • Thermometer/Humidity Monitor with a probe so you can keep track of the temperature inside the tent (unless you got the really fancy Cloudline exhaust fan with a temperature and humidity probe built-in) – $15
  • PH Test Kit – Prevent potential nutrient deficiencies by testing the water pH: https://www.growweedeasy.com/ph – $15
  • Measuring spoons for measuring out your nutrients (many people already have these) – $10
  • Learn about other cool growing tools

Estimated Cost for EVERYTHING: $613 plus the cost of seeds

Check Out Different Grow Setups!

Carbon filter and fan (how to cool tent, remove humidity, and stop smells)

Notice the configuration of the carbon filter and fan. Even though this is a very small carbon filter, just 10″ long, there’s not a lot of extra room at the top of the tent. The configuration below seems to be the only way I can find to fit the carbon filter inside while still allowing the grow light to get to the top of the tent. This is not as effective as exhausting from the top of the tent, but it will work in this small tent.

Your other option is to put both the fan and carbon filter sitting on top of the tent, exiting from the top port. In that cause, you’d want the carbon filter to be the last thing before air escapes (carbon filters should always be at the ends of an exhaust system, either inside the tent at the beginning, or at the end on the outside).

You have to get creative to fit a carbon filter in this tiny tent

Example of Nebula's Microgrow - this mini grow tent was 2'x2'x3' with 4 autoflowering plants and used a HLG 100 LED grow light

When set up right, you can produce a surprising amount of bud in a tiny space!

The inside of Nebula's microgrowery - look at all those colas growing under the 100W HLG Quantum Board LED grow lightBut not much room at the top

Example of the mini tent with an HLG 100 LED grow light (quantum board)

Growing a single Pineapple Chunk plant in the 3′ tall tent

We’ve even grown in the 4′ tall tent with a mini DWC/hydro system! A tight fit but doable.

 

 

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