Best indoor grow setup for cannabis
Want to grow cannabis?
Have you been curious about growing your own cannabis at home? If you’re like me, you need a consistent supply of medicine 365 days a year to help treat and heal a serious and/or chronic condition. I have Crohn’s disease since I was 12 years old and I use cannabis medicinally every day.
What's your motivation?
Maybe you want to grow this wonderful medicine for a friend, patient, or family member that needs it. Or perhaps it’s just a personal goal to keep your personal stash stocked up indefinitely. In any of these scenarios you could benefit greatly from growing cannabis indoors. You have extreme control over your plants’ environment when growing indoors, to the point of being able to set the growth parameters 24/7.
When I first started growing cannabis, I got totally overwhelmed by the different designs and options that I found. I was on endless websites and forums and videos trying to formulate the perfect grow setup. I wanted the biggest buds, the most THC and the highest yield possible!
Avoid decision fatigue!
The only problem was that the number of styles I saw made it difficult to focus on what mattered. I ended up investing in some equipment that was totally unnecessary. For example, I accidentally bought some excessive nutrients of the wrong variety, unstable genetics that created a seeded grow, and the wrong sizes of ventilation equipment that was incompatible. I also completely failed to purchase some equipment that I truly needed, like a humidifier and other essential grow equipment pieces. Needless to say, the first grow rig was a bummer and so were the first several harvests.
Approach this task carefully, the list of things to buy is endless. You must be selective when choosing what to invest in and what to save on if you plan on being cost effective! If you are worried about purchasing the wrong or too much equipment, consider an Advanced Grow Kit System. These kits are fully provisioned sets of grow equipment for home use.
Here is the grow setup that I suggest for growing high quality cannabis indoors.
- Grow Light (400w or greater)
- Grow tent (4×4)
- Exhaust Fan 6″ (inline)
- Carbon filter 6″
- Circulation clip fans x2
- Humidifier (4L or greater)
- Power Strip
- AC infinity environmental controller (not pictured)
These are the main pieces you will need, generally speaking. This is not an exhaustive grow supplies list for your first grow. This is a guide to give you the types and sizes of equipment to purchase for your first grow. Again, the goal of this article is to reduce the difficulty in deciding your first grow setup and discussing why these options will yield a solid result.
All the equipment you see listed above and more comes with the Advanced Grow Kit System available on my website. This is the equipment I suggest and use on a daily basis. If you are facing decision fatigue or need an example of a pre-gathered set of high quality, purpose-built equipment.
Reusable equipment
Most of the supplies you will be using can be re-used during subsequent grows. It’s important to invest in this equipment and ensure you have quality pieces. The below sections contain information about the reusable equipment.
Grow Light(s)
The first and most important item that you will need is your grow light. This item cannot be skimped on. If you invest in only one piece of quality equipment, the light would be the most important part. The rest, we can deal with being a little lower quality.
The reason the light is so important is because it’s the driving energy of your entire grow. This is what provides the energy to the plants and causes the buds to grow heavy with weight.
Your best option for the light is an LED grow light. You want a full spectrum grow light, and the industry-trusted Samsung LED diodes for best longevity and penetration. Other options such as HID bulbs (tube or hood lights), CFLs, and fluorescents are known to yield lower results per square foot of growing area. They also have a higher cost of operation and are less durable.
LED lights have a collection of individual diodes that are spread across the surface area of the light. On the better quality lights, there are different colors of light emitted that will ensure the plants get the best of the light spectrum for plant growth.
They will also have the best penetration to ensure even lower buds have a chance to fatten up.
The average cost for a decent light with the mentioned features is between $400-$500. This type of high-quality LED light comes with the Advanced Grow Kit System on my website, which saves you a lot of money over buying individual pieces.
Tent or grow room
A grow area is an essential part of growing at a high level in your home. You can get away growing with other methods and styles such as outdoors, grow buckets/totes, and windowsill growing, but none offer the level of control, consistency, and quality that a dedicated grow room has, whether that’s a tent or built by hand. Let’s talk about the potential options.
Grow Tent – A specialized rectangular tent that is designed to do a few major things for your grow. This is #1 suggested grow environment for indoor growers. You can control the environmental factors by enclosing the grow in this sealed space and manipulating the environmental factors such as heat, humidity, and airflow. The tent helps protect the plants from damage by pets and pests.
Another benefit is that the tent provides a surface to mount the other equipment to, such as your light, fans, and carbon filter.
Grow Room – A room in your home that has been specially designed to allow for plant cultivation. This option is permanent and more costly to set up. You will need an enclosed space that is sealed from external light and is airtight. You will also need ability to mount equipment to the walls instead of bar-mounted equipment.
If you are like most home growers, you probably don’t wish to start a construction project just to try growing weed. In this case I recommend the tent. A tent comes with the Advanced Grow Kit System on my website from AC Infinity. This is the easiest option when designing the setup you want to use.
Exhaust fan and carbon filter
The next most crucial part of the growing setup is the exhaust ventilation system. This system has a few parts that work together to exhaust air from the grow room and filter it.
Exhaust fan – This is the driving factor of the exhaust system. A great exhaust fan is an important piece to have for your grow room. It is an in-line fan that filters the hot and odorous air through a specialized carbon filter and out of the grow room (clean air).
The exhaust fan can also be used to regulate humidity or temperature. If your environment is too humid or too hot, increase circulation. If too cold or dry, you can reduce the airflow by the fan’s controller (not all fans have multiple speeds).
Carbon filter – The carbon filter is another important cannabis growing tool. It’s a large metal cylinder that is porous and has layers of activated charcoal inside. The idea is that air passing through the charcoal particles is filtered by the properties of the carbon inside.
When air exits the carbon filter, it’s pretty much odorless. The only time I’ve had odor go through is when the filter needs to be replaced after a few years of constant use.
I have this listed on my site as Advanced Air Filtration Kit. You can purchase the kit which includes all relevant pieces AND connectors. This will ensure you have all the pieces you need including the sensor, cables to connect to UISP controller, 25′ of black ventilation ducting, and ring clamps to secure the ducts. It also includes a carbon filter, exhaust fan, and rope/strap hangers. You literally need nothing else to filter your grow room besides power.
Circulation fans
Circulation fans are different than the exhaust fan because they are not inline fans. They are normal fans with caged blades that provide strong airflow to the plants leaves and branches. This helps to keep the environment cool, prevent “hotspots” from forming in certain areas of the tent, reduce bugs and pests, and help prevent mold.
That’s a lot of function!
I would never skip having a circulation fan in your grow area. Plants will stagnate, bugs will take over, and mold/mildew has a much easier time taking hold. You absolutely need circulation fans to keep air moving in your tent/grow room.
Humidifier/dehumidifier (Depending on your climate)
Plants crave certain levels of humidity to thrive. You must control the humidity carefully in your grow area. This is not a difficult task for most people around the world. Unless you live in a tropical or sub-rainforest area, you will likely never get the humidity levels in your tent to where you would need a de-humidifier for your grow room. The easiest way to manage excessive humidity is to use the exhaust fan to blow that humid air away from the grow area if needed.
Usually, the opposite is the issue. Low humidity can cause extremely slow growth and cause seedlings to never germinate or rot due to rapid moistening/drying. Monitoring the humidity of the grow area is a well-known but sometimes neglected parameter that can have a huge effect on boosting your grow.
You need a quality humidifier that has auto on/off cycle or schedule, and ideally a sensor to determine the humidity level automatically.
AC Infinity Environmental Controller
This handy device is used to automate the grow environment. For example, your grow room is getting too hot. The controller is connected to a sensor in the grow room to detect this high temperature and automatically turn on an exhaust fan to remove the warm air and lower the temperature back down to acceptable levels.
The secret magic of this controller is that when the programmable thresholds are reached, the controller can trigger other pieces of equipment to activate. This works especially well with AC Infinity products, but AC Infinity even sells Smart Outlets and Adapters for use with 3rd party grow accessories such as other branded lights and exhaust fans.
Another reason this controller is a must-have for the home grower is the charting and data experience. There is an Android application by AC Infinity that integrates with the controller. You can program the unit from this app, see the current temp and humidity, and even see a chart of collected data for trend analysis (above).
The most important function of the controller is the programmability. There’s no other great way of controlling the environment when you aren’t present. You can ensure the timer and other functions are ticking away right from your phone. It’s been a game changer for me to have that level of control.
This controller comes both with the Advanced Grow Kit System and the Advanced Air Filtration Kit.
Power Management
You must set up your grow near a grounded outlet. DO NOT use an ungrounded outlet for your electrical hookups. Surges and shorts because of the lack of grounding can ruin your equipment and start a fire.
Most grows will probably be able to connect and power all equipment off one double-outlet (2 plugs). I would suggest having a power strip in each outlet plug and using these 10-16 plugs as your main hookups for powered equipment. Alternatively use a heavy-duty PDU that has the same amount of plugs or more with only 1 main plug needing occupied. To the right I have linked a 14-plug version that can handle 20A current.
Proximity to water source
This is not a difficult decision for most people around the world. Unless you essentially live in a tropical or sub-rainforest area, you will likely never get the humidity levels to a level of needing a de-humidifier for your grow. The easiest way to manage humidity is to use the exhaust fan to blow that humid air away from the grow area.
Usually, the opposite is the issue. Low humidity can cause extremely slow growth and cause seedlings to never germinate or rot due to rapid moistening/drying. Monitoring the humidity of the grow area is a well-known but sometimes neglected parameter that can have a huge effect on boosting your grow.
You need a quality humidifier that has auto on/off cycle or schedule, and ideally a sensor to determinehe humidity level automatically.
Saving money?
My general rule is that if something is totally inert or non-moving, I may be able to get a super cheap version to perform the same purpose. For instance, I typically buy super cheap drainage trays for my plants. There are manufacturers who make versions of this drip tray that cost $10-$20 USD. There are also versions that only cost $0.75 and they are stupid flimsy. These simply catch runoff water and they don’t have a moving function. Therefore I save money on these as needed.
Consumable supplies
There are other things you will need for certain when growing indoors. These supplies will not last for years the way the other equipment will. A certain amount of supplies and ingredients will be consumed with each grow. You won’t be able to reuse these supplies once you use them in the grow.
Limiting cost on these supplies is important and should be the focus of your money-saving efforts.
- Soil (can be re-used after reconditioning)
- Nutrients
- Microbial Supplements
- Seeds/Clones
- Water
- Electricity
Check out my Grow Supplies List for additional supply suggestions for your cannabis grow setup. I use most of the products on this list to achieve high-level results with organic soil methods.
Takeaways
The point of this article is to help explain and remove the mystery from the decisions you must make as a newer grower. There are tons of options out there for each and every step of the growing journey. This is what frustrated and derailed me during my early grow years!
I hope that I have helped you narrow down a basic and straightforward growing setup that will last for years to come. This is essentially the setup I use in my own grows and have had a ton of success with. I have labeled this the “Best Grow Setup for indoors” because it’s simple, straightforward, and universally agreed on in the growing community.
I personally recommend purchasing an Advanced Grow Kit System for your first setup. Cheers and happy gardening!
