Indoor Marijuana Growing New Season Start-Up Guide

By Gary Anderson | Published: September 26, 2016

I had a nice summer off from indoor marijuana growing.

I’m growing marijuana outdoors at a remote guerilla site, and thanks to BigBudsMag.com, I knew how to select the site, how to prep it, how to install plants, how to feed and water them, and how to protect them from rip-offs including the police.

I haven’t visited the plants in five weeks, but the last I saw them, they were six feet tall and looking great.

This is surprising because it’s been a hot summer with not enough rain.

I attribute the plants’ survival to the fact that I grew them out to 20 inches high, feeding them Rhino Skin potassium silicate, B-52, and beneficial root zone microbes before and after I transplanted them at the outdoor grow site.

Meanwhile, it’s time for the September through March indoor marijuana growing season.

These are the cooler months of the year and for most of us doing indoor marijuana growing, they’re the best months because outside ambient heat and heat in our attics is way less, so we have a lot easier time keeping our grow rooms at the right temperatures.

Indoor marijuana growing requires adequate air conditioning to keep the grow room around 74-75 degrees Fahrenheit when the lights are on.

If you’re adding C02, your grow room temperature can be as high as 84 degrees during lights-on.

Air conditioning is an expensive hassle for indoor marijuana growing.

In general, you need 4000 BTUs of cooling power for every 1000-watt grow light.

If you’re running other heavy heat-generating gear for your indoor marijuana growing, such as C02 burners or dehumidifiers, you need 5000 BTUs of air conditioning power for every 1000-watt grow light.

If you’re running double-ended bulbs instead of regular bulbs, you might have to up the BTU per 1000-watt calculation by 10-20%, especially because double-ended bulbs usually can’t be air-cooled.

As I’m preparing for indoor marijuana growing season start-up, I do the following:

Go up in the attic and check all ducts and vents to make sure my AC system has no leaks or other defects.
Have the AC ducts cleaned.
Install new high-end AC filter. Use filters meant to stop molds and mildews. They cost more and decrease flow efficiency, but they’re worth it.
Have AC unit checked for coolant and connections.
Check your dehumidifier to make sure it’s operating properly. If it’s one of those that you have to attach a garden hose to so it will drain, make sure the drainage is working.
Clean all walls, ceilings, ducts, floors, windows, grow room equipment with SM 90 and then with Moldex.
Run pyrethrum foggers and let the pyrethrum go throughout your air conditioning ducts.
Put pyrethrum foggers in your attic.
Thoroughly vacuum your indoor marijuana growing space. Consider investing in a vacuum cleaner that uses water filtration. Regular vacuum cleaners distribute fine dust into your space as you vacuum.
Install batted R-15 roll-out insulation into windows and cover windows with white poly plastic. Back the insulation with infrared Mylar thermal blocking. This prevents FLIR radar used by police and thieves to detect indoor marijuana growing heat signature. It also keeps your grow room climate isolated from the outdoor temperatures.
Get an electrical tester and check all outlets, along with your mains electrical panel and circuit breakers.
If you have a ceiling fan in the room, clean the blades and ensure the unit is secure and fully operational.
Run a PAR and lumens intensity meter under all your reflectors to see your light profile, and how well your bulbs or LEDs are holding up. Remember: bulbs and LEDs wear out over time. LEDs have a lot more longevity than high-intensity discharge (HID) bulbs.
Replace your reverse osmosis filters. Make sure your RO water is zero ppm.
Calibrate your pH meters and check accuracy of ppm (parts per million) meter.
If you’ve stored nutrients during the hot season, check them for precipitants, settling, debris, molds, and other defects. Most nutrients don’t store well if they’ve been opened. Some brands of hydroponics nutrients and organic nutrients will rot in the bottle after a couple of months, open or not. This is especially true for carbohydrates and beneficial microbes products.
Turn on all the electrical gear in your indoor marijuana growing room and check functionalism. This includes pumps, timers, chillers, digital ballasts, fans, monitors, dehumidifiers, controllers, security systems, etc.
Check your trellises and any other plant support systems to ensure stability.
Consult your grow diary from previous season and figure out ways to improve your indoor marijuana growing success. This could mean using different cannabis genetics, root zone media, growing systems, nutrients, lighting, room set-up, etc. Especially if you had nutrients problems, mites, thrips, aphids, powdery mildew, gray mold, broad mites, or other pests or diseases plaguing your crop in your most recent seasons, you obviously want to upgrade your procedures, materials, and even your cannabis genetics (you can select genetics that are more resistant to specific pests and diseases, for example).
Clean your trimming equipment, bulbs, reflectors, reservoir… so everything is super clean.
Make sure your light hangers, light leashes, light stands, light movers are sturdy and in no danger of failing.
Do a test run of your indoor marijuana growing space before you put plants into it to make sure that ideal temperatures, relative humidity, light cycles, and other factors are going to be maintained.