Looking for the right grow tent

[yeetinthebay420]

Hello all

I am a california person here looking to grow about 10 plants indoors. Was looking to use a grow tent for this.I am quite new to the whole growing cannabis thing but I am quite good with growing other plants outdoors and understand the science behind it. This will be my first time growing cannabis.

So I guess I'd just like to ask a few questions and then maybe we can figure out a setup for me.

1.) I have a garage that i dont use at all and its perfect but it gets hot here in the summer to 100 degrees. Should I just use a grow tent indoors or is the garage an option?

2.) What is a good grow tent to get? I'm looking to grow 10 plants and have a budget of 500 for the grow tent itself not including lights and fan and whatever else.

3.) Do you guys have any light set up reccomendations? Budget 300?

New to this forum and excited to be here and learn !

 

[Backlipslide]

First of all, you gotta decide if your growing indoors or in your garage, because if it’s in the house then how big of an area are you able to work with. If it’s in the garage then you may have to think of a way to combat the heat. You could always buy a air conditioner of some sort to keep the air cooler in the garage, but it’s completely up to you to where to decide the final destination will be.

With the light, it depends on the size of the area and how many plants total you have. To have 10 plants with a budget of 300 for a light may be a steep order, but I’m no light expert nor tent expert either. I’ll help you along but it’s up to you to make the final decisions

A way of maybe saving a dime here and there to afford a better light is you could make your own tent (just spit firing ideas here) by some furniture grade 3 way elbows on amazon or hardware store or something, 3/4” pvc pipe and wrap the structure with a material like panda film.

I built my own tent and it’s not glorious but it produces well. If your interested in checking out my journal it’s located at the bottom of my post called Blue Angel2019

Good luck sir! I will be back to check in

 

[yeetinthebay420]

Backlipslide thank you for the reply.

Just took measurements the garage is 13' by 12' and the indoor space i have is 8' by 8'

Would rather use the garage if possible, just concerned about the summer heat. Wouldnt there be fans in the grow tent though? Isn't the point of the grow tent to provide a stabile climate and protect from extremes?

I should note that my budget is flexible and for the overall project maybe we could say 12-15 hundred. I just don't know how it would be allocated. But as far as what needs to go inside the grow tent, i need fans and lights. Anything else?

Let me check out your build it yourself one. I was thinking of maybe a gorilla grow tent. I'm willing to spend some money on the tent if it is worth it in the long run.

 

[Backlipslide]

Isn't the point of the grow tent to provide a stabile climate and protect from extremes?

Your absolutely right, having a tent (with controlled temperatures) will do that. 100 degrees in a tent may be a lil too warm but again your right, with fans you may be ok.

Gorilla grow tents are definitely the way to go if your not worried about prices. You’ll definitely get the most bang for your buck, and like you said, better in the long run.

You will need fans, lights, pully systems to hang the lights (which usually comes with the light) with that big of an area I would recommend maybe getting two lights. You will need nutrients to feed your plants with, which you have many options to choose from. What I recommend is doing a lil research on what type of soil/ coco/ hydro/ making your own super soil that your wanting to grow with. That will determine the nutrients you will need, or at least narrow it down to choose between a few that you like. You may want to do some research on the different lights you can choose from, whether you want to go with led or fluorescent or hps/hid lights. It’s completely up to you, I’m an LED guy so Check out the mars hydro line, I hear great things about those lights.

 

[Backlipslide]

I’ll also recommend maybe buying two smaller tents instead of one big one, unless the big tent has a really good separation in the centre, because you will want a vegging room, and a flowering room. The flowering room need to be isolated from the veg room so you don’t allow any light into the flowering tent and mess up the 12/12light schedule.

 

[PE636]

Why 10 plants? A better way to look at it might be how much do you want to produce?

 

[yeetinthebay420]

I think 10 plants is a good size for a first small grow. I dont really have any reasoning in particular I guess. I'll be purchasing my grow tent today so I can let you guys know where that goes

 

[Backlipslide]

I just want to add one thing, for your first grow, don’t bite off more then you can chew. Starting with ten plants is A LOT of work. I would maybe recommend starting with 4 maybe, once you get your first grow under your belt, then you can start raising the number of plants. When the first four have started flowering, then start 4 more or how ever many you choose. So you can have some in flower and some in veg. Once you start your second round of vegging plants you will feel like you have a good handle on things.

 

[Johnny5thesim]

I just want to add one thing, for your first grow, don’t bite off more then you can chew. Starting with ten plants is A LOT of work. I would maybe recommend starting with 4 maybe, once you get your first grow under your belt, then you can start raising the number of plants. When the first four have started flowering, then start 4 more or how ever many you choose. So you can have some in flower and some in veg. Once you start your second round of vegging plants you will feel like you have a good handle on things.

I second this motion! I never realized how much work just 4 plants were. 10 plants, with all their individual feeding schedules and my set up would be a tremendous amount of effort. If I would have started with 10, I would have definitely bitten off more than I wanted to chew!

 

[Alafornia]

Backlipslide thank you for the reply.

Just took measurements the garage is 13' by 12' and the indoor space i have is 8' by 8'

Would rather use the garage if possible, just concerned about the summer heat. Wouldnt there be fans in the grow tent though? Isn't the point of the grow tent to provide a stabile climate and protect from extremes?

I should note that my budget is flexible and for the overall project maybe we could say 12-15 hundred. I just don't know how it would be allocated. But as far as what needs to go inside the grow tent, i need fans and lights. Anything else?

Let me check out your build it yourself one. I was thinking of maybe a gorilla grow tent. I'm willing to spend some money on the tent if it is worth it in the long run.

There are a number of 4x4 or even 5x5 grow tents for a smaller start. I had to pare back my ambitions with being new to growing as I realized how much work it would be and how little I knew about growing cannabis.

A tent like one above, exhaust fan, filter, intake filter, A/C, heater (hot in day, cold at night), 3 lights (CMH x1, LED x2), fans, and other assorted equipment was very close to your budget range. That did not include organic soil or seeds.

Gorilla appears to be a great product, but they are spendy - especially the lite line for the material used. I have no experience with them so it may be the greatest thing since sliced bread. iPower has tent and fans that seem reasonably priced. I went with iPhresh filters. I specifically bought an A/C that only uses 6.8 amps at 8k BTU. For all I know at this point I spent too much for less quality than I should have but the reviews in numerous places were positive. (I hope naming brands isn't out of line with policy - I double-checked and only saw LED light brands as a potential problem)

There's a lot of good info here and other places also about temps, relative humidity, and other variables to give your grow the best chance.

Best of luck. I know I'll need it.

 

[mojuan]

started growing in november last year, its not a job its an adventure. never grew anything in my life. i should change my name to weed killer lol, couldn't figure out the cloning thing so i bought some seed, unbeknownst to me they were auto flower, just finishing up my second grow and have figured out a STABLE grow environment is hard to come by. watch out for mildew and stay on top of the cal mag issues. i have a 4x8x8 tent for flowering and a 4x4x8 for babies. don't skimp out on exhaust fans either, better to over do it there then not have enough and have to buy more fans, on the neuts? less is better until you figured that out, i had 12 plants doing just fine and thought well if this is good more is better..... nope, newt burned 9 of the 12 and had 3 survivors. good luck, there are a lot of people on here to help, every grow setup is different but they will help as best they can and with the years of knowledge im sure they've seen it or know somebody that has.

 

[TysonOG]

It's probably a little late, but I would reccomend the apollo tents. 4x4 for $100 isnt bad. I have the 3x3 and 4x4 and have used both for multiple runs, very sturdy. imo you wont use most of the extras that gorilla offers. I would also suggest 4 plants. Tho if you're set on 10 I would suggest 9 in a 3x3 pattern.

 

[TorturedSoul]

Just took measurements the garage is 13' by 12' and the indoor space i have is 8' by 8'

Would rather use the garage if possible, just concerned about the summer heat.

The garage would give you the space to have multiple rooms, a flowering and a separate growth phase / mother / clone one. Even a small work area if you want. But if it gets to 100°F in there now... You're looking at about 3.412 BTU per hour per watt of lighting. Ballasts, power supplies, et cetera would add more heat.

Does this project include a home-improvement budget ? Inspect the garage for air leaks and seal them. If you never use the garage, then you don't need the garage door; replacing it with wall can be expensive, but a roll of plastic and tape is (relatively) cheap, lol. Insulate the space as much as possible. Buy oversized three-zone mini-split air conditioner and install it. Smile, you just beat the "I just need to go a little bigger/better" game. That bit me when I was into fast cars (and passing as many of them as possible ). I only want to go a little bit faster right now. After that, of course, I'll want to go... a little bit faster. A climate-controlled garage setup would step right to the front of the line, as it were. You could go sealed rooms with CO₂ supplementation, kind of take advantage of the heat to keep the plants in the zone (assuming you were also able to supply enough light-energy).

Uh... You'd want to really like your house, though. Because I don't think you'd be able to force yourself to leave after the garage to cannabis farm renovation, LMAO.