#3: What Grow Tent size should I Choose?

You’ve decided that you want to grow. You’ve also decided how many plants you want to grow. The next step is deciding what size grow tent you need. 

GrOh Canada’s Recommendation

We recommend that hobbyist growers start with a 4’x2’ or 4’x 4’ tent, using LED lights.

Considerations for Choosing Tent Sizes

First you have to consider how much space you have available to grow – if you have a 4 x 4 space available then your tent must be that size or smaller.

The next thing to consider is how much you want to harvest. Have you heard of a “canopy” before?  The “canopy” is the amount of green space that your plants consume (e.g. leaves, buds, stalks) inside your tent. The bigger your canopy the more yield you can expect.  As a GENERAL GUIDE you can expect to get about 1 ounce of dry flower per square foot (s/f) of canopy. This will depend on a lot of things (the strain, grow light strength, growing techniques, etc.) but it’s a starting point. 

It’s important that you keep about 20% of the tent space free to ensure that you have enough room to interact with your plants (i.e. you shouldn’t fill more than 80% of your tent space with canopy). If you don’t have enough room to move around you won’t be able to feed and care for your plants the way you need to.

Your grow tent = the area that your plants grow in (the canopy) + the available space around your plants.

To calculate the tent size you need if you want 6 ounces (oz) of dry flowers per harvest, the thought process is

• To get 6oz of flower you will need about 6sf of canopy.
• Canopy should be no more than 80% of your tent, so you will 7.5sf (6/80%).

In this example you will want a 2’ x 4’ tent.   

Recommended Tent Sizes and Height

In my experience the best tent sizes for hobbyist growers are the 2’x4′ and 4’x4’. These are also made to fit the most common grow lights so you will have a lot of options for lights.

The 2’x4′ tent is great because it gives you enough space for decent yields (with a 600W light you can expect a 7-10 ounces harvest) but it isn’t big enough to be overwhelming. You get easy access to all the plants, including the ones in the back, but still get all the advantages of a full-size grow light. If you want to seriously increase your yield from a 2’x4′, the 4’x4′ is the way to go! It’s big enough for monster yields (with a 900W light you can expect 10-16 ounces) but still small enough to be manageable by just one person.

Of course the initial equipment cost and grow costs will also increase the bigger your setup.

Tent height is less important nowadays with all the different techniques for training plants to fill out the tent horizontally – these techniques (e.g. topping; FIMing; etc.) help ensure that the most plants get the most light. More about this when we get to growing.    

It’s standard nowadays for grow tents to be made from a highly reflective material (e.g. Mylar) and to have multiple vents for climate control, cables and ducting. If the tent you are looking at doesn’t have this you don’t want to buy it. 

Next Blog Post: We will discuss how the different types of light and how to choose the right type of light, and the right size light for your tent. Lighting is the single biggest factor in having healthy plants and biiiiigggg yield. Trust me when I say that you cannot compromise on lights!