This guide was originally written by industry expert Stoney Tark in 2022. It has been fully updated, expanded, and revised by the Paradise Seeds Editorial Team in 2026 to ensure accurate pricing, modern safety standards, and step-by-step maintenance tips.
What are the advantages of growing with cannabis hydroponics?
Growing Cannabis using hydroponic systems can be a great way to dramatically increase yields, reduce vegetative time saving electricity and nutrients, maximize space, and is far more advantageous from a commercial scale farming perspective. Generally a first time grower will venture into the world of organics and later when the desire is there, will decide to grow Cannabis with hydroponics.
Another great thing about hydroponics is how easy it is to replicate different types of systems using store bought equipment. Once you have a thorough understanding of how to grow Cannabis plants in hydroponics in the first place, the rest is easy and customising and maintaining your own systems can be as exciting as growing your Cannabis plants.
Equipment needed for a cheap home cannabis hydroponics system
The following list can be sourced online or at a commercial hardware store and will allow you to build different systems, depending on the goal and plant count. Growing Cannabis using a home hydroponics system does not have to be expensive – you can buy everything you need for less than €100.
Water Pump: It is these pumps that will keep your system circulating with hydroponic cannabis nutrients. They are the same as you would use inside a fish tank aquarium and can pump between 400-800 litres of water per hour. A good pump online will cost €15, but I always recommend buying a back-up pump too. If the pump stops working, it will cause issues.
Light Proof Tub: Once you have an idea of the type of system you will build, sourcing a tub that will act as the reservoir for your hydroponic cannabis nutrients is next. This may be a 20L black tub that will be converted into DWC (Deep Water Culture) systems, or it may be a black coloured 50L plastic tub. The lid from the tub is what can be used to turn the system from a top dripper system to an aeroponic / DWC or aeroponic cloning station.
Air Pump: An essential element of any successful hydroponics system is providing plenty of dissolved oxygen. DWC systems depend on a permanent air supply into the nutrient solution, so a good air pump and air stones will usually cost around €20-50 online, or at your local grow shop.
Air Stones: These typically small blue golf ball sized stones will connect to the air pump and create a large amount of bubbles and dissolved oxygen into the reservoir and into hydroponic Cannabis nutrients. Air stones come in various shapes, and sizes as well as air hoses, which work very well also. Not expensive to buy and it is always a good idea to have extra clean air stones on standby.
Plastic Pipe and Fittings: For those who want to replicate NFT systems using the white plastic drain pipe commonly seen in the U.S, then investing in drain pipes, 90-degree bends, and stopper caps can be purchased relatively cheaply. As long as they are thoroughly cleaned between harvests, using 10% strength hydrogen peroxide, then they should last a lifetime.
Spray Nozzles: This is only for low pressure aeroponic systems and is attached to a tube which fits to the water pump. When the pump is switched on the water is aggressively sprayed around the roots of the plants and the basis of an aero-cloner .
Drip Lines / Drip Rings: Setting up drip lines with either stakes or a drip ring is easy to do, and once they are in place should require very little maintenance. Drip rings can be better at distributing hydroponic Cannabis nutrients to the pots when Cannabis with hydroponics and have become increasingly popular in the U.S and Europe.
15-Minute Segment Timer: The same type of timers used for your grow lights that will be used to drip feed the Cannabis plants for 15-minute intervals. Drip systems and low pressure aeroponic systems require frequent feeding schedules, whilst DWC and NFT remain circulating permanently allowing the roots to be sat in the oxygen-rich hydroponic Cannabis nutrients.
Which grow medium to use with a cannabis hydroponics system?
When growing Cannabis using hydroponics, generally working with rockwool and hydroton are your best options. If your goal is to build an aeroponics or deep water culture system then suspending net pots with hydroton and rockwool is required, however if you have chosen a recirculating drip system then a 50/50 mix of coco and perlite will be perfect. Alternatively if you wish to keep your dripper system on 24/7 then using hydroton is required.
Home Made Cloning Systems for Cannabis Hydroponics
As growing Cannabis with hydroponics has become more popular amongst home growers, many have converted to cloning with small sized bubblers or aeroponic misters. The system is like a miniature DWC system that keeps the bottom parts of freshly taken clones surrounded by bursting water droplets and oxygen, without the use of any hydroponic Cannabis nutrients.
Aero-cloners are extremely successful. A spray nozzle inside the reservoir will produce high amounts of fresh air and moisture, providing the ideal environment for clones to want to root well. The quickest way to build one of these at home is to buy a light proof black tub and drill holes through the lid where the 2-6-inch net pot will sit.
Paradise Seeds’ Top Hydroponics Tips and Mistakes to Avoid
Growing Cannabis with hydroponics can be extremely rewarding once you have got it up and running. A hydroponics system has the potential to produce massive yields, using a minimal amount of grow medium. Below is Paradise Seeds 9 top tips to help you on the road to perfecting hydroponic Cannabis plants.
Optimize your Vegetative Time
The amount of time that you keep your Cannabis plants in the vegetative state will play a huge role in the final size of the mature plants. Unlike organic soil grows, hydroponic plants grow incredibly fast, meaning they need much less time in veg.
- The Rule: Keep veg time as short as possible.
- Our Top Tip: Limit your vegetative phase to 7-10 days maximum, especially if you are using Deep Water Culture or Aeroponics
Master Feeding Frequency
Just because you normally feed your plants once a day with organics, does not necessarily mean you need to do the same when growing Cannabis using hydroponic systems.
- The Rule: Feed based on your system and cycle stage:
- During Vegetation (8/16): Feed 2-3 times per day (for dripper systems)
- During Flowering (12/12): Feed 3-5 times per day.
- Our Top Tip: Feed little and often, and always pay close attention to dry back periods.
What is a “dry-back” period?
One of the most important things about growing Cannabis using hydroponics is to make sure the root zone is kept well saturated and allowed to dry out. These drying periods are known as ‘dry backs’ and can make a big difference to final yields. Keeping the growing medium totally wet when using a dripper system will still produce good yields however try to master the point of saturation to dry with a little and often style feeding program.
- Our top tip: be vigilant and check how dry your growing medium (coco/rockwool) has become before feeding.
Lock in the ideal water temperature
The temperature of your nutrient solution determines two important things: how well nutrients dissolve, and how much oxygen the water can hold.
- The Danger: Cold or hot water can cause cloudy reservoirs and nutrient lockout.
- The Sweet Spot: Leep your nutrient solution between 18–21°C (64–70°F).
- Our Top Tip: get a small aquarium heater with a thermostat to automatically keep your reservoir at the perfect baseline temperature
How do you control pH in a cannabis hydroponics system?
Not only is the right temperature important when it comes to the nutrient solution, pH is also a vital component in how Cannabis plants are able to utilize the available nutrients in a hydroponics system. Potential Hydrogen (pH) indicates the amount of oxygen that is present in the reservoir / water tank.
- Our top tip: use a digital pH pen that will allow you to monitor the pH of your solution, and aim to keep between 5.5-6 on the pH scale .
What growing mediums are used with cannabis hydroponics systems
The beauty about growing with a soiless medium means you can use different substrate, for different hydroponic systems. Hydroton, perlite, rockwool, and coco are all used with dripper systems, deep water culture, and aeroponics.
- Our Top Tip: Run a side-by-side test to see what works best for your setup. Try running drippers with rockwool cubes right next to a 50/50 mix of coco and perlite to compare the pros and cons of each.
Are Dripper Rings worth it?
Growing weed strains using dripper systems can help take a lot of the hard work out of feeding and can allow your plants to receive a consistent feeding program at the same time every day.
- Our Top Tip: Swap out basic dripper stakes for dripper rings. Rings distribute water in a perfect circle, ensuring the entire medium is evenly saturated.
- Note: This technique works incredibly well with a Hydroton setup left on 24/7.
Boost hydroponics cannabis yields with extra oxygen
The roots of a Cannabis plant absolutely love oxygen, and especially when it is in the form of dissolved oxygen in the water. One of the reasons why deep water culture hydroponic systems are so effective at producing monster yields is due to the fact they have access to high amounts of dissolved oxygen permanently.
- Our top tip: Add an air stone into the reservoir of your dripper systems or NFT systems . Passive hydroponic systems that use gravity to refill the reservoir should also benefit from the added oxygen created by an air pump, as these can often sit stagnant over time.
The Golden Hydroponics Rule– always have a back-up pump!
There is nothing worse than when your pump for your system stops working. Depending on how fast you react it can become a crop killer. Finding out the dripper system has not kicked in, your NFT table is silent, or deep water culture pumps are off can be a terrifying moment, so our top tip here is to always have a back-up pump and air pump. If you are growing with DWC, dripper systems or NFT tables, then spare pumps will be a real life saver.
Choose the right strains for Hydroponics
Not all cannabis strains react the same way to the intense growth rates of hydroponics. Here are three ideal strains:
- White Berry is fast flowering and stays medium height.
- Durga Mata grows short and stocky, perfect for S.O.G hydroponics.
- California Gold is very productive and perfect for hydro.