Can I Grow Weed with Hydroponics? The technology advancements in marijuana farming have made it easier for anyone to grow pot. One of the significant improvements is hydroponic growing systems that allow you to grow weed with fine control. Some growers, especially in commercial settings, rely exclusively on hydroponics.
This method is fascinating because it relies on water instead of dirt. No dirty hands with this method. With hydroponics, you can fine-tune the control for how much water and nutrients your marijuana plants get. But as you will see, growing with hydroponics might require more effort and more equipment. Here are a few good ready-made setups for you. There are other tools and kits at the bottom of the page.
Personally, I love growing marijuana, and I always ensure that I get high-quality seeds like Strawberry Cough seeds from a reputable site to avoid any disappointments when using these systems. In this article, we look at how you can use hydroponic growing methods to grow marijuana and everything you need to do that.
What follows is a brief explanation of hydroponics with the beginning steps. You can read much more in our comprehensive review article about the best hydroponics setups.
Kinds of Hydroponic Methods
To use hydroponics, you need to prepare a setup. Here is a variety of systems that you can create depending on your specific needs:
- Deep Water Culture.
- Nutrient film technique.
- Ebb and flow.
- Drip System.
- Aeroponics.
- Wick System.
Supplies You Need to Start
After choosing the system you want to use to grow your marijuana, there are other crucial supplies that you need to buy for installing the hydroponic system. They are;
- A grow table.
- Air pump.
- About 5 gallon buckets.
- Enough clay pellets to fill all your buckets.
- Reservoir tank (get one depending on the size of your garden).
- Airstone.
- Dripline.
- Dripline emitters.
- A big water pump.
- Rockwool cubes.
- Plastic tubing.
After getting your supplies, follow these steps to construct your hydroponic system:
Set Up the Reservoir
The reservoir is where your hydroponic system will hold your nutrient, and it comprises the air stone and water pump. Your tank should have a line running to the air stone from the air pump. Also, it should have a drainage line coming from your grow table and a line running from your water pump to the power cord and drip line.
Set Up the Grow Table
The grow table is vital as it enables you to contain the water that comes from the cannabis plants and send the extra to your reservoir. To create a functional grow table, ensure that it has a low point. Doing so will enable your hydroponic system to drain the excess water quickly. Installing your drain at this low point is also crucial so it can easily use the plastic tubing to carry water back to the reservoir.
Add Your Clay Pellets
After creating your grow table, add the gallon buckets (3 or 5 each full of clay pellets) on the table. Make sure you soak your clay pellets overnight before using them in your hydroponic system. Doing so will ensure that they have enough water for your marijuana plants to use.
Drill some holes at the bottom of your buckets so they can easily drain excess water from your plants. The holes need to be approximately half the size of your clay pellets’ diameters. This size is enough to help prevent your clay pellets from clogging or getting through the holes.
Add Drip Lines and Emitters
Ensure that the plastic tubing that comes from the water pump is running to your grow table before putting some holes in the tube with the drip line equipment. After that, you need to take your drip line and extend it to your buckets. Finally, attach your drip line emitters to your drip lines.
When you finish doing the above, you can now run your hydroponic system to check if everything is working. Check whether there’s any water standing somewhere as that can indicate that you made a mistake in your set up. Your air pump should run throughout as it’s responsible for moving and oxygenating the water in your reservoir.
When your hydroponic system has finished making the solution, take the growing clones in your Rockwool and put them in the clay pellets. When done, insert your drip line in the system to help the moisture reach the roots and Rockwool.
The good thing about this setup is that you can expand it when you want to grow more marijuana. However, you will need a bigger reservoir tank since your system will require more water to supply to all the marijuana plants.
The Nutrients for Your Hydroponic System
If you want to use a hydroponic system to grow marijuana, then you need to ensure that your plants get the essential nutrients. Failure to do that will lead to low produce at the end. Therefore, your marijuana plants must get enough Phosphorus, Nitrogen, and Potassium.
Some solutions contain all these nutrients hence making it easier to supply your plants with the right percentage of each. When your cannabis plants are at the vegetative stage, use a solution rich in nitrogen. A nutrient solution with a ratio of 23-19-17 (N-P-K) can work perfectly at this stage.
During the flowering stage, phosphorus is more crucial, so you need to reduce the amount of nitrogen you use. At this stage, use a nutrient solution with an NPK ratio of 15-30-15.
Most nutrient solutions don’t have a lot of magnesium. In case you buy such, use Epsom salts to boost the amount of magnesium your plants get. You can also add some secondary nutrients such as manganese, calcium, boron, sulfur, copper, and zinc, depending on the stage your marijuana plants are in to get better results.
You must take the EC and PH reading before adding nutrients to your cannabis plants to help you determine the number of nutrients they need.
Hydroponics Grows Great Weed
Growing marijuana using a hydroponic growing system can give you great results, but it can also be exhausting, especially during the initial stages. To get higher yields using these systems, make sure your plants get enough nutrients considering the specific stage. You also need to continually check the PH and EC readings to ensure your marijuana is getting enough nutrients. Get the necessary supplies, and you will be good to go.
You might also like to review our Best Hydroponic System Article for some more in depth details of using this system.
Kits, Tools and Books on Hydroponics
Last update on 2023-02-20 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API
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