How to grow marijuana indoors?

May 13, 2021 | posted by Carlos L

Growing weed indoors is great because you can grow it any time of year and you’ll have complete control over the plant and what you put into it. Live in an apartment or a small house? Don’t worry, you can grow weed practically anywhere, even if you don’t have a backyard or a lot of extra space.

Benefits of growing weed indoors

High-quality weed

Although it’s more resource-intensive than growing outdoors and you will likely have to spend more money on utilities to power equipment, you can control every aspect of your grow environment and what you put in your plant, allowing you to dial in your setup to grow some primo weed.

Adaptability

Unlike outdoor growing, you aren’t tied to the sun and the seasons. You will be providing the entire environment the plants need to grow, including the grow medium—soil, rockwool, etc.—and regulating the amount of water and nutrients they receive, as well as controlling temperature, humidity, and more for them.

Multiple harvests

You can let your plants get as big as you want, and can control when they flower and when you harvest, and you can start another batch right away or whenever you want. You can grow any time of year, even straight through winter or summer, and you’ll get consistent crops each time.

Privacy and security

Even in legal states, you may want to conceal your crop from judgmental neighbors and definitely from potential thieves. Growing indoors allows you to grow discreetly behind a locked door.

How to set up an indoor grow room

indoor marijuana grow

Below is a list of things to consider and equipment you will need to purchase to get started growing marijuana indoors.

Indoor space

You’ll need a dedicated space for your marijuana plants—you won’t be able to move them around. Ideally, the space is next to a window so you can vent air from the grow space outside. Growing weed plants smell! Especially when flowering kicks in, you’ll want to redirect air so your house doesn’t reek of weed.

A lot of people these days buy grow tents for their weed, but they aren’t necessary. You can grow in a closet, tent, cabinet, spare room, or a corner in an unfinished basement. Just keep in mind that you’ll need to tailor your equipment (and plants) to fit the space.

It’s a good idea to start small—the smaller the grow, the less expensive it is to set up. Newbie mistakes will be less costly if you only have a handful of plants. Additionally, most state laws only allow for growing six plants, but some allow up to 12.

When designing your space, you’ll need to take into account room for your plants, as well as space for lights, fans, ducting, and other equipment. You’ll also need space to work on the plants. Cannabis plants can double in size in the early stages of flowering, so make sure you have adequate head space!

Every space is different and there will be a learning curve to growing in yours.

Indoor climate

Cannabis, like all plants, prefers certain environmental conditions in order to thrive. Temperature, humidity, light intensity, and airflow are all factors that will need to be monitored and regulated in order to keep cannabis healthy through its different phases.

Although you’ll be controlling the climate inside the grow space, climate outside the grow space will affect your plants. If the environment outside your grow space is very warm or humid, you’ll have issues controlling your grow space. Choose a cool, dry area with ready access to fresh air from outside.

If you’re growing in a cold, wet basement, you might have to run a dehumidifier or heater to stabilize the environment. Conversely, if your space is too hot, you might need to add extra fans or an AC to cool the plants down.

One trick to avoid hot temps is to have the grow lights on during the evening, when it’s cooler outside, and leave the lights off during the day when it’s hot. This may help bring down the temps, but you’ll only be able to work on the plants at nighttime when the lights are on.

Lights

Weed plants need different amounts of light during their vegetative and flowering stages. You don’t have to worry about this in an outdoor setting—the sun and the season dictate this—but when growing indoors, you will be controlling it.

Plants need 18 hours of light a day when in the vegetative stage and 12 hours a day when flowering. The reduction in light from 18 to 12 hours a day is what triggers the flowering cycle—when weed plants start to grow buds.

Because the amount of light a plant receives is so important, you’ll need to make your indoor grow space light-tight. Light leaks during dark periods will confuse your plants and can cause them to produce male flowers or revert to a different stage.

Different lights produce different colors of light. Here’s a brief rundown of the most popular types of cannabis grow lights used for indoor growing.

HID

HID (high-intensity discharge) lights are the industry standard, widely used for their combination of output, efficiency, and value. They cost a bit more than incandescent or fluorescent fixtures, but produce far more light per unit of electricity used. Conversely, they are not as efficient as LED lighting, but they cost much less.

The two main types of HID lamp used for growing are:

Metal halide (MH) produces light that is blueish-white and is generally used during vegetative growth.
High pressure sodium (HPS) produces light that is more on the red-orange end of the spectrum and is used during the flowering stage.

In addition to bulbs, HID lighting setups require a ballast and hood/reflector for each light. Some ballasts are designed for use with either MH or HPS lamps, while many newer designs will run both.

If you can’t afford both MH and HPS bulbs, start with HPS as they deliver more light per watt. Magnetic ballasts are cheaper than digital ballasts, but run hotter, are less efficient, and harder on your bulbs. Digital ballasts are generally a better option, but are more expensive. Beware of cheap digital ballasts, as they are often not well shielded and can create electromagnetic interference that will affect radio and WiFi signals.

Unless you’re growing in a large, open space with a lot of ventilation, you’ll need air-cooled reflector hoods to mount your lamps in, as HID bulbs produce a lot of heat. This requires ducting and exhaust fans, which will increase your initial cost but make controlling temperature in your grow room much easier.

Fluorescent grow lights

Fluorescent light fixtures, particularly those using high-output T5 bulbs, are quite popular with small-scale cannabis growers because:

They tend to be cheaper to set up, as reflector, ballast, and bulbs are included in a single package.
They don’t require a cooling system since they don’t generate nearly the amount of heat that HID setups do.

The main drawback is fluorescent lights are less efficient, generating about 20-30% less light per watt of electricity used; space is another concern, as it would require approximately 19 four-foot long T5 bulbs to equal the output of a single 600 watt HPS bulb.

LED grow lights

Light emitting diode (LED) technology has been around for a while, and they are getting more efficient all the time. The main drawback to LED grow lights is their cost: well-designed fixtures can cost 10 times what a comparable HID setup would.

But the benefits are great: LEDs last much longer, use far less electricity, create less heat, and the best designs generate a fuller spectrum of light, which can get bigger yields and better quality.

Check out our buying guide on indoor lights for more info.

Air circulation

Plants need fresh air to thrive and carbon dioxide (CO2) is essential to the process of photosynthesis. This means you will need a steady stream of air flowing through your grow room, which will allow you to move hot air out of the space and bring cool air in.

This is easily achieved by placing an exhaust fan near the top of the space to suck out warm air—warm air rises—and adding a port or passive fan on the opposite side of the space near the floor to bring in cool air. A complete air exchange throughout the entire grow space should occur once every minute or so.

Without proper airflow, a grow space can experience rapid changes in humidity or develop pockets of CO2 depletion, neither of which are good for plant growth. CO2 depletion can lead to nutrient lockout, and areas of high humidity are prone to pest infestation, mold, or mildew.

It’s also a good idea to have oscillating fans to provide a constant breeze in your grow room as it will strengthen your plants’ stems, making them stronger and healthier.

Setting up fans

For small spaces or tents, clip-on fans can be attached to structures like walls, corners, or support beams. For larger grow rooms, use medium-sized oscillating fans or big floor models.

Fans should be positioned to provide direct, even airflow throughout the garden. This typically involves using multiple fans that work together or fans that have oscillation capabilities.

There should be a comfortable airflow both above and below the canopy, and fans shouldn’t blow air directly onto plants—this can cause wind burn, which makes leaves recede into a claw-like deformation.

Dehumidifiers and ACs

If your space is too humid, you may need to invest in a dehumidifier—also known as “dehueys.” However, keep in mind that while dehueys will reduce humidity, they typically increase temperature—you may need more fans or an AC when adding a dehumidifier.

Getting the right climate for your plants can be a delicate balance involving multiple pieces of equipment and also lots of electricity. This is part of what makes growing weed indoors more expensive than growing outdoors.

Fans are a must in a grow space to move air around, so buy some of those before an AC unit. If you find that fans aren’t bringing down the temperature enough, then you may want to invest in an AC.

Timers/Automation

You will definitely want to invest in a timer for your lights. Because the amount of light a plant receives dictates its vegetative or flowering stage, it’s important to give it a consistent amount of light every day, and that’s done with a timer. It’s a good idea to check your timer at least once a week to make sure it’s working properly.

You can also use a timer for your fans, but a thermostat is better—you can set it to a specific temperature, and the fans will turn on when it’s too hot and turn off when it’s too cold.

Most dehumidifiers and ACs have built-in thermostats, but if they don’t, you’ll want to buy an external one.

For growers who have a little extra money to spend and want full control over their indoor garden, environmental controllers will allow you to automate the process. These devices are essential for if you’re away from the garden for a long period of time.

You can connect a controller to fans, dehumidifiers, humidifiers, heaters, or air conditioners, and set thresholds whereby each device will power on and off based on your ideal environmental settings. Some units run autonomously, making changes based on set parameters, while others allow you to control each element via an app on a phone, tablet, or computer.

Regulating temperature and humidity in your indoor grow space
home growing cannabis humidity, indoor growing marijuana regulating environment

You’ll need to ensure that temperatures remain within a comfortable range for your plants, between 70-85°F when lights are on and between 58-70°F when off. Some varieties of cannabis—generally indicas—prefer the colder side of the range, while others—typically sativas—are more tolerant of high temperatures.

For the most part, weed prefers these temps at each growth stage for optimal health:

Seedlings/clones: 75-85°F; ~70% relative humidity
Vegetative growth: 70-85°F; 40-60% relative humidity
Flowering: 65-80°F; 40-50% relative humidity

The two factors you need to control to dial in the environment are temperature and humidity.

Inevitably, there will be fluctuations of temperature and humidity in your cannabis garden. These fluctuations can occur both throughout a grow space as well as within pockets inside a given room. They can also occur at different points within a given day or throughout a season as conditions change in the environment outside your grow space.

It can be tricky getting the right balance of temperature and humidity because they affect each other—turning up your dehumidifier will lower the humidity of your grow space, but it will also increase the temperature of the area. This in turn may require you to turn on an AC unit—everything’s connected!

Tools to measure temperature and humidity

Equip yourself with these cheap and easy-to-use tools to take measurements in your indoor cannabis setup:

Thermometer: A basic one will allow you to measure how warm or cool the environment is inside your garden.
Hygrometer: This measures humidity, or more specifically, water vapor content in the air.
Infrared thermometer, or IR thermometer (optional): IR thermometers use a detection device called a thermopile to measure surface temperatures. Although not necessary, these are helpful in finding out leaf temperatures, which will give you an extra layer of knowledge on how to properly regulate environmental conditions.

Regulating temperature

Controlling temperature in your indoor grow room or cannabis garden can be achieved by manipulating these factors:

Lights: Different grow lights will give off different heat signatures. Hot lights such MH, HPS, and fluorescents produce much more heat than LEDs. Also, lights can be raised or lowered to change temperature at the canopy level.
Airflow: You can remove warm air (up high) out of the garden and bring in fresh cool air (down low) with fans and ducting. Fans can also help exchange air throughout your canopy, cooling leaves in the process.
ACs: You may need to bring in an air conditioner to rapidly cool the overall temperature of your grow space if it’s too hot and fans aren’t enough.
Heaters: Some gardens may require warm air, especially during times when lights are off and not generating heat.

Regulating Humidity

Humidity is the amount of water vapor in the air. Here are some ways to control it in your marijuana grow room:

Dehumidifiers: Dehueys remove moisture from the air but also increase temperature.
Airflow: As with regulating temperature, regulating airflow will allow you to move moisture in and out of your grow space and control humidity—simply opening up a space, i.e., opening the door to your grow room or tent, can bring down humidity.
Humidifiers: A humidifier can add water vapor to a grow space and increases moisture levels if it’s too dry.
Water: In the absence of a humidifier, you can mist plants with a spray bottle to create extra moisture.

Soil and other media for growing weed indoors

There are many different media to choose from, including good ol’ fashioned pots full of soil, rockwool cubes, a hydroponic tray, and more.

Soil is the most traditional medium for growing marijuana indoors, as well as the most forgiving, making it a good choice for first-time growers. Any high-quality potting soil will work, as long as it doesn’t contain artificial extended release fertilizer—like Miracle Gro—which is unsuitable for growing good cannabis.

Good soil for cannabis relies on a healthy population of mycorrhizae and soil bacteria to facilitate the conversion of organic matter into nutrients that a plant can use. Alternately, you can use a regular soil mix and then supplement your plants with liquid nutrients.

Finding the right soil for cannabis

For most first-time gardeners, we recommend buying a quality potting soil that will provide your plants with enough nutrients to get them through most of their growth cycle without having to add many amendments or liquid nutrients. This pre-fertilized soil—often referred to as “super-soil”—that can grow cannabis plants from start to finish without any added nutrients if used correctly.

You can make this yourself by combining worm castings, bat guano, and other components with a good soil and letting it sit for a few weeks, or it can be purchased pre-made from a local nursery or grow shop.

While shopping for soil, you might be overwhelmed by the options available at your local garden store. The soil type is the basic structure of your soil. From there, look at nutrients, microorganisms, and other amendments that improve the soil. Your choices will be flooded with words like:

Perlite
Worm castings
Bat guano
Biochar
Peat moss
Compost
Fish meal
Bone meal
Glacier rock dust
Plant food

These are just some examples of amendments commonly used in different types of soils. Heavily amended soils will have long lists that break down all organic nutrients they contain. Some companies create soils that offer a great structure with base nutrients, but allow you to fill in the gaps as you desire.

Growing containers

What type of container you use will depend on the grow medium, the system, and the size of your plants.

Inexpensive options include standard plastic pots or cloth bags, while some growers choose to spend more on “smart pots” or “air pots”—containers designed to enhance airflow to the plant’s root zone.

What size pot do I need?

Many growers will start plants in a one-gallon pot and then transplant up to a bigger pot as plants get bigger. A lot of growers will transplant once, from a one-gallon to a five-gallon pot, and harvest from there. If your plants get bigger, they may need a seven- or ten-gallon pot.

What to look for in a pot

Your cannabis wants a safe, healthy place for root development. Without healthy roots, your cannabis will never thrive. Roots are in charge of water retention, nutrient absorption, anchoring the plant, and they also facilitate vegetative growth.

Drainage is key, as cannabis plants can get waterlogged and develop root rot. If you repurpose containers, be sure they have holes in the bottoms and set them in trays.

For a root system to develop and thrive, they will need the following:

Drainage: Water retention is paramount for healthy plants—without it, your cannabis will wither and die. But too much water will waterlog your plant and lead to root rot, killing roots.
Oxygen: Plant roots require oxygen to function properly. Choose a container that facilitates enough oxygen for root development without overexposing them to the elements—containers do this though various styles of perforation.
Nutrients: Roots require optimal conditions for nutrient absorption to occur. This includes pH balance, optimal temperatures, and nutrient availability.
Space: Roots need plenty of space to branch out. A container that is too small will cause it to become rootbound and choke the plant.

Traditional plastic containers
plastic pot containers

Standard plastic containers are a popular option for growers operating on a budget. These pots are inexpensive and provide the essentials for your plants.

Pros:

Low overhead costs
Solid drainage (plus it’s easy to add more holes)
Transplanting is easy and inexpensive

Cons:

Can’t protect root systems from temperature fluctuations as well
Lack of durability which can cause cracks and structural damage over time
May have airflow issues depending on the grow medium

Fabric containers
fabric pots

These are quickly becoming the standard. Roots in fabric pots grow to the outer edges and attempt to bypass the porous fabric wall but are cut back, allowing new growth to occur. This process, called “air pruning,” results in a denser root composition which promotes healthy growth and development.

Pros:

Promotes dense, healthy root systems
Increased airflow to roots
Excellent drainage

Cons:

Require more attention and maintenance because they dry out quickly. Note: You can use larger pots to help slow drying.
Flimsy structure can make plant support challenging

Ceramic pots

Terra cotta pots offer a unique set of benefits to growers in hot climates.

Pros:

Absorb moisture and retain lower temperatures during hot days
Heavy weight helps to anchor larger plants

Cons:

Less than optimal drainage; drilling holes into clay pots is possible but requires special tools and is labor-intensive
Heavy weight makes it difficult to transport plants

Caring for your indoor cannabis plants

When starting with clones or seedlings, you’ll want to check your plants every day because they’re delicate and sensitive to environmental conditions. You may need to adjust temperature and humidity levels in your indoor grow space at first to hit the sweet spot for your plants.

As your indoor weed plants grow, they’ll need less attention, but you’ll still need to check up on them every 2-3 days.

Watering and nutrients

When growing weed indoors, you’ll likely have to add nutrients to your plants. You won’t need to add nutrients every time you water, but get on a schedule where you water every other time, or two on, one off.

Before watering, check the pH of your water and add pH Up or Down if needed.

If using nutrients, estimate how much water you’ll need for all of your weed plants so you can measure out and mix in the appropriate amount of nutrients.

Remember, a common mistake newbie growers make is to overwater plants.

Check out our Guide on nutrients for more info.

Check for pests, mold, or nutrient deficiencies

You’ll also want to take this time to check over your weed plants for pests, mold, or nutrient deficiencies.

Examine the tops and undersides of leaves for pests or discoloration—spider mites live on the underside of leaves—as well as stalks and branches. Also, check the soil for pests.

Equipment

Make sure all equipment is on, no breakers have flipped, and everything is running smoothly. Check lights, timers, fans, dehueys, ACs, and anything else that plugs into the wall or has a battery.

Think of all the equipment in your grow space as organs in the body—if one fails, the others will have to work a lot harder for a bit, and then will fail in a matter of time.

Daily maintenance checklist for your indoor marijuana grow

Water plants
Check pH of water
Measure and mix nutrients
Check plants and soil for pests, mold, nutrient deficiencies
Prune/remove dead leaves on plants if needed
Determine if plants need topping
Make sure plants are spaced properly and not shading each other out
Adjust level of lights if leaf tips are getting burned
Check temperature and humidity in grow space
Check equipment is running properly, i.e., lights, timers, fans, dehueys, etc.

Indoor marijuana grow timeline

The growth stages of marijuana can be broken down into four primary stages from seed to harvest:

Germination (3-10 days)
Seedling (2-3 weeks)
Vegetative (3-16 weeks)
Flowering (8-11 weeks)

Generally speaking, it takes anywhere from 10-32 weeks, or about 3-8 months, to smoke what you’ve grown. (It’ll be quicker if you start with a clone or an autoflower seed.)

That’s a big variance, but it really depends on how big you want your plants and how often you want to harvest—you can have multiple harvests of smaller plants, or less harvests of bigger plants.

For example, it takes less time to grow 3′ weed plants than 5′ plants; in the span of a year, you can maybe grow four harvests of 3′ plants, or two harvests of 5′ plants.

You’ll likely yield about the same amount of weed in both cases, but more harvests mean you’ll have fresh weed to smoke more often and have more opportunities to grow different strains. But more harvests also means more work in cleaning up the space between harvests, trimming, etc.

The biggest variability in how long a marijuana plant takes to grow will happen in the vegetative stage—after the seedling phase and before flower.

The flowering stage will always take about eight weeks—some strains take seven, some nine, some even more, it depends on the strain.

So when growing weed indoors, you can control the size of your plants by flipping them into flower whenever you think they’re big enough in the vegetative stage.

Check out our Guide on marijuana plant growth stages for more info.

Odor control in your indoor marijuana grow

As much fun as growing marijuana indoors is, having a home that perpetually smells like fresh weed can be a serious inconvenience, if not to you than possibly your neighbors. Although weed odor from a small indoor grow in a closet is much easier to manage than a large grow with several flowering plants, both can produce pesky odors that will permeate an entire home if left unattended.

Plants in the vegetative stage maintain a low odor as they haven’t begun to produce terpenes, the plant’s aromatic compounds. As weed plants transition into the flowering phase, trichomes will start to develop and produce terpenes, causing them to smell more.

Here are some ways to mitigate odor when growing weed indoors.

Check temperature and humidity levels

The first step in odor control is making sure temperature and humidity are under control in your grow space—high temperature and humidity will perpetuate odors.

As your plants get bigger and especially when they start flowering, they’ll start to smell more. Outfitting your grow with a dehuey or AC can help bring odor down.

Make sure air is circulating through your garden

Proper air circulation will help maintain temperature and humidity, and also bring down odor. Ideally, air needs to move through a garden every few minutes, and you should create a vent to the outside. Oscillating fans, and intake and exhaust fans can move air through your garden quickly, taking odors out with them.

Odor absorbing gels may help

Odor becomes much more difficult to manage in the final six weeks of a marijuana plant’s life, when trichomes and terpene production ramps up. You can also get odor-absorbing gels, which replace weed smells with other scents. Keep in mind that odor gels don’t eliminate odors, but simply mask them.

Activated carbon filters

These come in different shapes and sizes and are a great way to get rid of odor in an indoor weed grow. Also known as “carbon scrubbers” for their ability to get contaminants out of the air, these employ activated and highly ionized carbon to attract particulates responsible for carrying odor, such as dust, hair, mold spores, and volatile organic compounds, and traps them in a filter.

Carbon filters usually work best when positioned at the highest point in your grow space, where the most heat accumulates.

Patrick Bennett and Trevor Hennings contributed to this article.

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