Finding Your Optimal Settings for an Indoor Weed Growing Setup

Lights, Climate, Action: Optimizing Factors for Indoor Marijuana Seed Cultivation 

Indoor marijuana cultivation is an art that not everyone can master on the first go. It seems easy and manageable to set up a growing tent, install a fan and some LED lights, and throw a couple of germinated seeds into the ground, expecting bumper harvests in 2-3 months. Yet, things look much more complicated in reality, and you should consider many additional issues and nuances when planning the process of growing your indoor marijuana seeds. 

Read on to learn all the intricacies and plan your weed plantation's temperature, humidity, and lighting conditions. 

Why Grow Your Weed Indoors? 

The first point to consider is the risk-benefit analysis of growing your weed indoors. Putting the pots with weed outdoors and letting them enjoy open sunlight and natural air flows is surely more beneficial for the plants and much more cost-effective for the cultivator. So, what makes people resort to indoor growing? Here are a couple of benefits you should consider:  

• Higher weed quality. With full control of your environment and the ability to create any settings, from moderate to tropical, in your grow tent, you can elevate the quality of resulting weed to extremes. It will be dense, thick, and THC-rich buds with many health benefits. 
• Year-round cultivation. When growing weed outdoors, you're tied to the warm season and can't grow weed in winter (unless you live in a tropical climate). Thus, by choosing an indoor setup, you can cultivate weed all year round and collect up to 4-5 harvests yearly to keep your weed stocks full.  
• Independence on weather conditions. People living in locations with significant weather fluctuations can secure their crops by placing the plants indoors. This way, you secure the plants from strong wind, temperature rollercoasters, rainfall, and droughts. 
• Privacy. It's typical to face prejudice or disapproval from neighbors if you cultivate weed in the open space. Thus, in an indoor setup, you may hide the plants from curious eyes to avoid tension with your community. 

These reasons are more than enough to invest a couple of bucks in the indoor setup and enjoy the ultimate convenience of weed growing on your terms. 

What Equipment Is Needed? 

Now that you’re planning an indoor setup for your weed, it’s important to consider mandatory elements of the grow room without which your plants can’t do. Here are the things you should take care of. 

• Plan enough indoor space for the weed. In fact, anyone can grow cannabis indoors, and you shouldn’t drop this idea even if you have zero free space in a small apartment. You can start with a small 60 x 60 tent and organize a mini plantation in your kitchen or even bedroom. It’s better to choose a cool, dry place with good access to fresh air. 
• Buy an air ventilator to ensure no excess humidity is accumulated in the tent. 
• Prepare the temperature setup with an automated temperature tracker and heater/cooler that turns on and off depending on the current temperature in the tent. 
• Choose LED lights to provide your crops with sufficient light. They will require 12 to 18 hours of light during vegetative and flowering stages, so make sure you choose powerful, safe light bulbs. 
• You’ll also need soil and containers to plant your weed seeds. 

Let’s discuss every point in more detail and give you recommendations for attaining optimal growth parameters for your weed crops. 

Optimal Parameters for Indoor Cultivation 

Now that you have all the equipment and are ready for cultivation, it's time to fine-tune all settings correctly. If something goes wrong (e.g., humidity is too high or temperature is too low), your plants may fall ill and leave you without the flavorful buds you're expecting. So, we strongly recommend going the extra mile and checking all environmental settings for your chosen strain to ensure it feels at home in your grow room. 

Lighting

There’s so much to discuss about lights when it comes to weed cultivation. Cannabis requires 18 hours of light per day when it’s in the vegetative stage of development, and the flowering stage requires 12 hours of light. Professionals recommend choosing LED or HID lights for your weed grow. HID lights can be metal halide (MH) or high-pressure sedum (HPS) types, and the HID setup also needs a hood or reflector to make the light use more efficient. However, HID bulbs are pretty expensive, and they can make your electricity bills skyrocket (though weed loves HID lighting way more). Thus, we recommend using LED lights for newbies on a budget, as LED lights can also provide the needed heat and light for healthy weed development and cost way less. 

Air Circulation 

Plants develop well if they have a CO2 supply to conduct photosynthesis. Thus, it's vital to guarantee a steady supply of fresh air to your growing tent. This may be done with the help of an exhaust fan that will remove warm air from the tent and a port or passive fan for bringing the cool air in. A life hack from pros is to place the exhaust device on the top of your tent, as warm air tends to move upward, and the passive fan – at the bottom of the tent so that the cool air moves through the entire tent while it gets warmed up. 

Temperature and Humidity  

Humidity is your worst enemy in an isolated indoor setup, as a lack of air movement and humidity accumulation can result in mold and mildew development. You need a dehumidifier to remove excess humidity from your growing room to ensure that plants grow well in a relatively dry and comfortable setting. Still, it's vital to note that dehumidifiers heat the air, and you may need a couple of extra fans to keep the temperature level optimal.  

Temperature is another vital element of your cultivation success. Plants can get weak and sick in excessive cold or heat, thus undermining your harvest expectations. Use a thermometer and hygrometer to control temperature and humidity in the growing room so that you can take rapid action to save your crops if something goes wrong. 

Also, ensure you install temperature and humidity settings with proper regard to your plants' growth stage. Here are the optimal parameters your plants can thrive in: 

• Seedlings and clones – around 70% humidity and 75-850F. 
• Vegetation – 40-60% humidity and 70-850F. 
• Flowering – 40-50% humidity and 65-800F. 

This way, you should reduce temperature and humidity as your plants grow and mature. It’s better to keep this need in mind before you plant weed, so you should have a couple of fans and a dehumidifier installed in advance, activated once your plants reach the vegetative stage and need drier, cooler air. 

For more guidelines on the use of medical marijuana, you can visit the Weed Review website.

You Can Do It! 

As you might think right now, growing weed indoors is an intricate art and a bit of rocket science. In fact, it isn't, and you will quickly get accustomed to the environmental settings once you see how well they work for your plants' health and productivity. Another option is to install an automated system that will do all the tracking instead of you, ensuring that your plants get the temperature, humidity, light, and nutrition they need at each stage of their development. Such a smart setup may cost a bit more than a standard set of weed-growing tools, but you'll be free from worries and concerns in the end. 

The article was prepared by Denys Svirepchuk, an expert in cannabis growing and a dedicated fan of technology used to simplify cultivators' lives. Denys is a blogger at AskGrowers, sharing his findings and grow tips with everyone into weed growing. His unique recommendations can save your crops and make weed cultivation fun and hassle-free.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Nurlana Alasgarli           

Content Specialist

Nurlana Alasgarli is a professional copywriter with more than 6 years of creative writing experience. Having lived and experienced all over the world, there are many writing genres that Nurlana follows, including adventure, outdoor and winter sports. Nurlana brings life to content creation, captivating her readers.