Product and Grow Guidance Page for Newer Growers

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When choosing a soil to use in your grow, we suggest that beginners start with a nutrient rich organic soil like Fox Farm Ocean Forest. During your first grow it is highly likely that some mistake is made in mixing or applying nutrients, which usually results in some kind of nutrient deficiency. Having this nutrient rich soil helps to prevent that from happening during at least the first month to month and a half. The organic nature continues to help through most of the grow as organic material continues to break down.

The type of soil you choose is very important, but we also want to consider drainage. It sucks to get halfway through a grow and realize you had an area of soil that never dries and has killed off some roots. Or you find that you are over watering a lot but every time you check your soil it seems to be dry. This is because soil by itself can be unpredictable for various reasons and hold moisture in one area but not another. We like to suggest adding coco and vermiculite to your soil. This ensures a more consistent and predictable drain rate. We also recommend adding vermiculite to your soil for a second reason, this further assists in ensuring a consistent and predictable drain rate but also adds needed Silica to your soil. We suggest mixing about 60% coco and 40% vermiculite together. Then take that mixture and add it to the soil at a rate of approximately 40% mixture to 60% soil. This isn't a hard rule and close, for now, is good enough.

Roots are the foundation of your plant, yes for your first few grows, following the How To Grow Tutorial page will get you through just fine, you will learn a lot and become knowledgeable in the basics. But you will eventually want to learn enhancement techniques. Root enhancement should be the next go to addition to your set of tools. Root enhancements include mycorrhizal beneficial fungus, humic acid, enzymes, beneficial bacteria and vitamins from the B vitamin family. Products that you can introduce into your system include Trifecta Myco Supreme or Advanced Nutrients Piranha for beneficial fungus which increases the surface area of your roots and fungus can store small amounts of nutrients further aiding in preventing nutrient deficiencies, Advanced Nutrients Voodoo Juice for beneficial bacteria which has a symbiotic relationship with fungus, further increasing the efficient breakdown and uptake of nutrients and protection from pathogens, Humboldt's Secret Plant Enzymes for Enzymes that break down organic material and Catapult from iBEX which introduces beneficial microbes that have a symbiotic relationship with roots, roots feed the microbes and the microbes help break down nutrients into a more efficient form for uptake.

After your first few grows and you are ready to focus on root development another option to consider is getting a soil packed with beneficial fungus and humic acid like Fox Farm Happy Frog. There are many specialty soils out there, do some googling and see what else you may like to try! If you like it let us know and we'll give it a shot and consider carrying it in our store.

Your environment consists of your lighting, air flow, air exchange, humidity levels and temperature, humidity and temperature collectively can be measured as VPD (Vapor Pressure Deficit). Here is a good site to learn about VPD, but as you are starting out, you will probably be less concerned with VPD than you are with just watching temp and humidity as instructed previously but to enhance your knowledge please explore this topic.  VPD Cannabis Cultivation: Understanding Vapor Pressure Deficit | Mintropy 

As in most everything else we've discussed, lights are no different, there are different options and different price points for your specific situation. For your first foray into growing cannabis you probably want to go with an LED full spectrum light and you will want one or several for the size of your grow area. For instance, if you were using a 2 x 4 tent you would need either one light designed for a 2 x 4 grow area or two lights designed for a 2 x 2 area. 

Also important is to note what is the coverage at different stages. Most if not all lights will cover x amount of canopy in veg and y amount in flower. For instance, maybe I have a light that covers 4 x 4 feet space while the plants are in veg but once in flower the light will only cover a 3 x 3 foot canopy. 

The next item to consider is if you want a light that has a little UV in it, UV is helpful to plants, LED lights can generate UVA light but you will pay for it, UVA isn't cheap. Many full spectrum lights do not cover UVA or might cover to just the very end of the UV spectrum and call it UV. Beware of this and make sure the light has actual UVA if you are buying one specifically because you want UVA. This kind of light is generally going to be used by more professional or advanced and craft growers. Which of course will be you one day! What I can tell you where UVA is helpful is in the control of pests, fungus and bacteria and it does aid in making thicker healthier leaves that effect is really is noticeable when used with a good foliar spray. But beyond that, I have found no hard scientific evidence of UVA actually having any affect on trichome or terpene production as many claim. There are a lot of light manufacturers that claim it does, some growing experts swear by UVA in flowering and others say no it doesn't do anything. We have no solid proof of this ourselves yet, we have a lot of testing to do before we can call the trichome or terpene production improved. Though from our perspective, just the fact that it helps to kill bacteria and fungus like white mildew is worth the cost in our opinion. We recommend it if you can find it in your budget. 

Generally if you get cold you turn up the heat, if you get warm you turn up the AC but controlling temperature in a tent or grow space is not quite that easy. You have to consider the methods at which you add or remove heat. The main tool on your belt is the inline fan. The inline fan can be used to either remove air or add air. We generally remove air from the tent effectively reducing temperatures and humidity. But you also have to consider the heat your lights are putting out. If you're running a 300 watt light at max, you are generating some heat my friend! Make sure to use a light PPFD meter to know your intensity, keep your light intensity correct, the lower the light the more intensity on the plant. So if you want your PPFD to be at 1000 in Veg, dim it and put it about 12 inches above the plant, measure the light, move the light up to reduce the intensity and lower it to increase the intensity. Don't get the light too much closer than 12 inches if this is the case, then consider turning the light up a little and raise it as needed to get the proper intensity. Back to the fan, the higher the inline fan is turned up the faster it will remove air from the tent. But it just vents it outside, so if you are pushing hot air out into a room that is also hot, that means that ultimately you are just pulling hot air back in the tent through whatever openings are able to breathe. We suggest pulling air out the top of the tent and opening, at least partially, some of the openings available near the bottom of the tent. This draws in as cool of air as possible. You may have to add a small air conditioner to your room or you may have to add a small heater in your room depending on your situation. If your normal house thermostat isn't working for your grow room, consider adding the AC or heater. Ideally you want your temperature to be between 65 and 85 degrees. You can keep them between 85 and 90 degrees if you are adding CO2 to your grow. Which greatly improves veg development. Plants do like cooler temps in the 65 - 69 degree range while they sleep, keeping them at this temperature really brings out colors in the plant as well, especially with plants that have purple in their leaves. But above anything, pick a range of 10 degrees and stick to it. You really want to maintain an environment where you do not have temperature swings of more than 10 degrees. For flowers, you generally do not want those high temps, bring your temp range down to under 80 degrees, a good range would be 70 to 75 for day time temps and sleeping temps of 65 to 70.

Humidity removal can also be done with the inline fan but again, whatever you push out, if you have no controls in your room, you are just going to suck right back in. Therefore it may be a good idea to add a dehumidifier or a humidifier depending on your situation. If in veg, your tent is higher than 70% humidity, get a dehumidifier, if it is below 55% humidity then get a humidifier. If in flower, your tent is higher than 60% you will want to add a dehumidifier or lower than 40%, you will want to add a humidifier. Of course, some strains love higher humidity, like some cultivars from Hawaii, some love a little bit dryer, like some cultivars from Afghanistan, so it also depends on what you are growing. Be sure to give your plants the care they are asking for. Spider farmer has a great humidifier, they redesigned their 6L humidifier in December 2023 and it's had great reviews since. 

Yes, this can be a lot to manage, but AC Infinity has us covered! AC Infinity has a controller, the PRO 69 controller, that can monitor temperature, humidity and VPD. The controller can control circulation fans, inline fans, exhaust fans, lights, humidifiers and more with their AC plug control device or they have their own line of equipment that plugs right into the controller. You also do not need an AC Infinity tent to use their equipment.

Ah, those pesky bugs. You can prevent some bugs by merely keeping a circulation fan blowing on your plants at all times. Pests like gnats, don't like high wind and they will generally not set up shop on a plant that has a fair amount of wind.  Also, you can use a preventative spray that is easy on your plants called EVIOS from Optic Foliar. We would recommend these two approaches first. If you find that you have an infestation of thrips or mites, you could also introduce predatory mites, these are a product you would need to order of course. Finally use Damascus earth if you have stag beetles or thrips or fungus gnats as their larvae live in the soil and when they come through the Damascus earth will cut their soft bodies. Captain Jacks is a very good foliar spray, you can spray it on the top of your soil too, this should be used after an infestation though not as a maintenance or preventative spray.

If you are growing outside, not much you can do. You would need to have a greenhouse that was vented with carbon filters, similar to what you would do with a tent. But if you grow indoors in a tent, yes, there are a few things you can do to keep that wonderful flower smell down. One, is to have a high quality carbon filter like the Air Filter Box with high efficacy from AC infinity. As a next step, you can tape off some of the outlets on the tent, this creates an air tight seal so there are less areas that the smell can seep out of. We will want some open for air intake into the tent, preferably openings at the bottom of the tent. You will want to get some charcoal filters from Home Depot or some other hardware store that can fit over these openings or order a pill filter, it's a filter shaped like a large pill. Finally you can get a diffuser that has a scent that is designed to attach specifically to cannabis scents like a lovely peach scent offered by Aroma Retail. In this set up, you mainly have to concern yourself with smell when you open the tent, that is why we suggest the diffuser scent, turn that on a few minutes before you open your tent and keep it on for a few minutes after you close it and you shouldn't smell it in the next room, some testing done by us, the person couldn't even smell it until they put their head in the tent.