How to Grow Cannabis With Hydroponics at Home?

What is marijuana hydroponics?

The name "hydroponics" comes from the Latin language and it literally means "water working". This is the method where you grow marijuana in a flow or bath of water that's enriched with nutrients and highly oxygenated.

Growing marijuana using this method means that there is no soil and plants grow in a sterile, inert growing medium. All of the nutrients necessary for the plant's growth are mixed into a solution with water.

The hydroponic method provides the nutrients, water, and air to the plant through the mediums for growth and because there is no need for massive root webs or extra energy to absorb the nutrients, the plants grow much faster.

To have the perfect crops, you need to control the entire atmosphere in our hydroponic system because the plants absorb the nutrients from both water and air.

The hydroponic system is ideal for drought-stricken areas because almost no water gets lost to evaporation.

Is Hydroponics Good for Growing Cannabis?

Have you seen cannabis plants growing with their roots just floating in a reservoir of water? This type of hydroponics is known as Deep Water Culture (DWC), and has been around for over a 100 years! As more growers gain experience with this medium, DWC has become increasingly popular for growing cannabis. Hydroponic setups are really neat and offer some big benefits over growing in soil!

Benefits of Hydro Over Soil

• Plants grown in a hydroponic reservoir tend to grow faster in the vegetative stage, resulting in bigger yields and faster harvests
• Hydroponic buds tend to be more potent and often cost more at dispensaries
• Once a hydroponic reservoir is set up, it does not take a lot of work or time to maintain. Instead of regularly watering plants and removing runoff, a hydro reservoir only requires you dip a PH Pen and top off with more water or adjust as needed.

Cons of Hydro

• Takes more time and effort to set up than soil or coco
• Buds grown in soil without added nutrients tend to have a stronger smell than buds grown with liquid nutrients like in a hydroponic setup (though if you're trying to keep things low odor this might be a benefit).
• Unless you protect your roots by using the right supplements and equipment, your plants may struggle with root rot. Luckily if you follow the steps in this tutorial you don't need to worry about root rot killing your plants!

Set Up Your Hydroponic Cannabis Growing System

While this system is built from the ground up, it should be noted that there are plenty of plug and play systems available for those looking for something that is easy to set up. Plug and play systems come with everything you need in a streamlined package to allow growers to get started on the right foot.

First we will start with the supplies needed. Keep in mind this is just an example, and depending on your space and desired results, many things can be tweaked in a hydroponic system to make it most beneficial to you. This list specifically outlines equipment needed to install your hydroponic system and does not include lights, fans, filters, and other basic needs for any grow room or grow tent.

Hydroponic Cannabis Supplies:

• 3 or 5 gallon bucket (one for each plant)
• Grow table
• Clay pellets (enough to fill each bucket)
• Rockwool cubes (one 1.5-inch starter plug per plant)
• Reservoir tank (depending on the size of garden)
• Water pump (the bigger the better)
• Air pump
• Air stone
• Plastic tubing
• Drip line
• Drip line emitters (one or two per plant)

Once you have gathered your materials you can begin to construct your hydroponic setup.

1. First, set up your reservoir. Your reservoir is where your nutrient solution is held. A reservoir can come in all shapes and sizes depending on your grow space and size, and it holds the water pump and the air stone. It will have a line in from the air pump to the air stone and a drainage line in from the grow table. The reservoir will have a line out from the water pump to the drip line and the power cord for the water pump.
2. Next you will create your grow table. The purpose of the table is to contain and return the excess water from the plants to the reservoir. To do this successfully, the table needs to have a low point where all the excess water will travel to. This low point is where you install the drain that will take the water back to the reservoir via plastic tubing.
3. You can then add your 5 gallon buckets filled with clay pellets on the table. Before using clay pellets, you should soak the pellets overnight to allow them to become fully saturated with water for your plants to drink. Also, the buckets need to have holes drilled in the bottom to allow them to drain excess water onto the grow table. It is important that the holes are about half the diameter of the clay pellets to prevent the pellets from passing through or clogging the holes.
4. Take the plastic tubing coming off of the water pump and run the line to the grow table. From here you can use drip line equipment to puncture holes in the plastic tubing and extend drip line to each bucket. Finally, attach drip line emitters to the end of the drip lines.
5. From here you can run your system without plants to see if everything is functioning properly. The system should not have standing water anywhere. The air pump should always be running to keep the water in the reservoir oxygenated and moving, while the 5 gallon buckets and grow table drains any excess water back into the reservoir.
6. At this point you are setup and ready to create your nutrient water solution in your reservoir. Below we will introduce information about nutrients and how to use them to grow your cannabis plants.
7. Once your solution is ready, can introduce your plants. Take the starts or clones that have begun growing in rockwool and place them into the clay pellets. Insert the drip line so that moisture is reaching the rockwool and roots of your starts.

DWC - Deep Water Culture

This is a hydroponics system in which the roots are suspended in air. Plants are grown in a container over a separate tank. The container is full of clay balls to keep the plant in place and act as a substrate, and the water goes in the lower tank along with the nutrients.

The bottom of the container is a sort of mesh so that the roots can grow through it without any of the clay balls falling through. Roots seek out the water in the tank and that's where they feed from, although at the start they simply absorb humidity until the roots reach the water, which is when your plants will really begin to grow.

An air pump with its corresponding airstone will ensure that the water is oxygenated enough and so that it doesn't stagnate, letting your plant live with the same water for more or less a week.

You need to mix water and nutrients up for your plant during the entire grow and your plants root systems will begin growing spectacularly. Your plants will steadily absorb more nutrients, accelerating an extremely productive process. You need to keep a close eye on your roots and air pump though, as the water runs the risk of becoming stagnant and rotting the plants' roots.

Ebb & Flow

This system is similar to the DWC system, except that instead of allowing the roots to reach the water and sit there, the roots are flooded with water for a few seconds and then emptied again various times throughout the day. You use a sort of watering table with mesh pots that have expanded clay in them.

5 Ways to Grow Cannabis in Hydroponics Underneath the table you should have a tank and a water pump - every now and then the pump should pump water up into the table to flood it, wet the roots with nutrient-rich water for a few seconds and then go back into the tank.

Your plants will be permanently hydrated and well-fed when growing in this system, and if you adjust the pH and EC adequately you'll accelerate many processes in the plants making for more quantity and quality.

You're going to need to keep control of how often you flood the table and for how long, or you could end up with some serious rot problems. This may seem like one of the simplest methods, but it's reserved for the most professional of growers.

Nutrients for marijuana growth

All plants, including marijuana, don't really require soil. What they need are some elements from the soil. Those elements are: Potassium (K), Phosphorous (P), Nitrogen (N), Sulfur (S), Magnesium (Mg), and Calcium (Ca). These are known as MACROELEMENTS.

There are also some MICROELEMENTS needed for healthy growth of your plants, like Copper (Cu), Zinc (Zn), Boron (B), Molybdenum (Mo), Manganese (Mn), Chlorine (Cl), and Iron (Fe).

When you grow your marijuana plants with the hydroponic system you create a perfectly balanced nutrient solution by mixing these nutrient salts with water.

You can create an all-purpose nutrient solution with all of the secondary elements and it will get your plant through all of the growth stages, but sometimes it's better to adjust nutrient levels depending on the stage of growth.