Are you looking to set up a compact grow tent with the perfect light? Let’s check out the Spider Farmer SF-2000 LED Grow Light set up in their 2’x4.5’ grow tent! Welcome to The Hippie Geeks, lets dig into this review.
We recently reviewed the Spider Farmer SF-2000 LED grow light and we loved it. When Spider Farmer wanted to provide us a sample of their 2’ x 4.5’ Grow tent to review with another SF-2000 to go into it, we told them we would love to. They are great to work with, and while they provide these items for us to review, that in no way influences what you are about to see.
As a quick note, you commented on our previous SF-2000 review that we only had LUX readings and not PAR values. We recently picked up a PAR meter, and you will be able to find PAR readings for the light at various heights inside of this tent at the end of the video. Before that though, lets get this tent set up.
When opening the box, it tells you to not use a knife. However, with the intelligent way that they have this packed, you would have to try very hard to cut thru into the tent fabric. On top is a plastic bag holding the metal structure of the tent, and a second bag with the metal corners. Under that is another cardboard panel, and finally under that is the grow tent fabric. Set the cardboard aside and pull the structure bars and corners out of their bags.
The instructions on how to put the tent together are super clear and easy to follow, especially if you have set up a grow tent before. I like to put the top and bottom of the structure together first, then place the bottom on the floor to put all of the uprights into. After that I will just lift the top up onto the uprights and set it into place. Once everything is snapped together, carefully lay the structure over onto its front so that we can put the tent fabric on it.
Getting the fabric on these structures is always a bit of a pain, but Spider Farmer actually made this fairly easy. Once you get the fabric unfolded, look for the door zipper, it should be in the upper corner on the left when you are facing it, and you will see the Spider Farmer logo in the upper right. Start unzipping it, once you get to the bottom of the flap, just keep going. It will actually zip off three sides of the bottom of the fabric which is what will let you get it onto the structure.
Once you have it unzipped, flop the door over one side so that the wide back side of the tent is facing up. You then want to slip the structure up into the top of the tent like a foot going into a sock, don’t force it or it may rip. Just make sure that it isn’t caught anywhere, and it should slide right in. Once the top is in fully, you can then flop the bottom of the tent over the bottom of the structure and start zipping it closed. Once it is zipped, go ahead and set the tent onto its bottom so that you can finish setting it up. Unzip the door to open it up and check out how much space you have in your new tent. Its actual overall dimensions are 55” wide by 28” deep by 78” tall. Now that we have it set up, it is easy to tell that this is a high quality tent. The zippers are strong, the tent material is sturdy and the structure is very solid.
You should have 2 short and one longer crossbar left over, those will go in the tent next. The short bars go in first, with the longer one going in after that, as it will hang below the first two. This should give you plenty of hanging points for your accessories. For us, that means hanging up the Spider Farmer SF-2000. The light itself comes with two ratcheting hangers, but when I am hanging a light as low as I am this one I prefer to use one on each corner, so we ordered a four pack just for this. The ones it comes with are perfectly serviceable however, and you can use them if you want to.
It only takes a moment to get the light hung, and then you can move on to putting the floor into the tent. Unfold the floor into the tent and tie it off at each of the four corners. This will catch any spills that happen while you are watering. It is also easy to remove and clean if necessary. Next up is time to install the exhaust fan that we will be using. This is an 8”, 420 CFM booster fan that we already had laying around. You are looking to get three to five air changes per minute in a grow tent, and as the tent is right around 90 cubic feet we will be able to use a fan speed controller to help quiet our fan down and still get three air changes per minute.
Once all of that is hooked up, I ran an extension cord into the tent to power the SF-2000 and Exhaust fan. I am using the Teckin Smart Plugs that we reviewed a while ago to control the fan and light separately, and on the fan I also have a speed controller so I can quiet it down a bit as they are pretty loud at full speed.
Now that the tent is completely set up, lets get some PAR readings from the SF-2000 when it is installed in this tent. If you haven’t seen it yet, I will have a link to our previous review in the corner of this video along with a link in the description below. The way we are going to test this is by taping out a six inch grid in the bottom of the tent and taking measurements at each of those points. You are going to notice that the edge readings are going to be a bit higher than you would expect, and that is because any reflected light from the sides will add to that reading. That is the reason that I wanted to try out a SF-2000 in this tent, I think that the light coverage will be a perfect match.
Our first readings are taken at 36” from the floor, showing a fairly even distribution with a fall off at the edges, which is to be expected at this height. 36” above the canopy is where we set the light when we move seedlings or clones into the tent, as it gives them plenty of light but doesn’t shock them when going from the T5’s to LED’s.
The next reading set is at 24” with light levels being up across the board, which is to be expected. You will also start to notice with this set the numbers in the lower left seem a bit below where they should be, that is because the tent door is open, and that area has less reflectivity. Forty-five readings later, and we can move on to the next set.
For these ones we moved the light down to 18” and the numbers jump up as you would expect. This is the outer end of where we typically run out lights, we prefer to have them as close as possible, but when we are trying to avoid the stretch or ease the plants into more light we can end up here.
Our final measurements are at 12”, which gives the highest readings as you would expect. As I mentioned earlier our lights are typically as close as we can get them to the canopy, though that will vary depending on the plants that we have in our tent and what stage of growth they are in.
So far, we are thrilled with the tent and it will be perfect for our clones for now. Some of these will get grown for the next 8 weeks to go into the garden as our outdoor crop in the big tent once it empties out, while two will stay in here to finish out a final short indoor grow.
It has been two weeks since we put our clones into the Spider Farmer 2’ x 4’ grow tent, let’s see how they are doing. As soon as we set up this Spider Farmer grow tent, we moved our fourteen clones from under the T5’s and into it immediately. They were ready for more light and more space, and the 2’ x 4’ tent plus the Spider Farmer SF-2000 light gave them plenty of both. LED light can be pretty intense for plants when coming from T5’s, so we initially set the height of the light at 36” above foliage, and then moved it down to 18” over the course of a week or so. The clones had pretty great roots when we pulled them out of the cloner and put them in these four-inch pots, so they were pretty much ready to be potted up into gallons after a week of being in the tent.
It has actually been sunny here in Oregon, so Lindsay was able to get them repotted out by our vermiculture worm bins and enjoy the warmth. You can see that she adds in a three or four inch layer of packed soil to the bottom of the gallon, then places the four inch pot in there to see where the clone will be sitting. You want to bury it pretty deep in the pot including some of the main stem, but still be able to water it without getting it on the foliage that will be left above the soil. She clears off any of the smaller, lower leaves that aren’t doing anything, and then pulls the clone out of its small pot.
This is what you want to see when you put your plants into a larger pot. A solid amount of root growth that will hold the soil together, without being so much that you are root bound. The root ball gets put into the larger pot, then more soil gets packed in around the edges and over top of the existing soil. We use Roots Organics Greenfields soil for pretty much everything, from our medicinal grows to our house plants and even in our vegetable garden starts. As there were fourteen clones to be repotted, it took her a bit of time to get it all done. Take your time though, make sure that each plant is packed securely into the new pot and then get them watered in and watch for some explosive growth.
Looking into the tent now, and you can see that I raised the light a bit just to make it easier to record these videos. The plants are looking really good, well other than that little lady in the bottom right corner that looks like she could just give up at any time, we may actually cull that one soon if it doesn’t pick up. Not every clone will make it however, that is why you should take more than you think you are going to need just in case.
You can also see our kitchen basil hiding in there picking up some light, it was kicked off of the counter to make room for some of our garden seedlings that are sprouting under the T5’s. Looking at everything up close, you can see the results of a nutrient deficiency that the plants suffered a couple of weeks ago. Life has been super busy here lately, and the ladies were watered a few times with water that did not get PH adjusted … and it really should have been. They will be fine and are coming out if it nicely now, but it just goes to show that no grow is ever perfect. Just watch your plants and make corrections as necessary, they are incredibly resilient and will come back from just about anything.
Do any of you folks have some vegetation going in a tent this spring? We are about seven weeks away from our last frost date here, so it is prime time to be getting things ready for the garden. Six of these ladies will be going outside for our summer grow, the rest are going to flower out inside of this 2’ x 4’ tent which should be pretty cool to watch.
It has been four weeks since we put our clones into the Spider Farmer 2’ x 4’ grow tent and they are looking great! Looking at all of the new growth, it is hard to believe that it has only been two weeks since the last update. The Spider Farmer SF-2000 is filling the tent with all the light the plants could want, and it is showing, just look how full the canopy is now. If you don’t remember what the canopy looked like before, here is a clip from the last video showing what the plants all looked like at that point.
There was actually room in there for the basil, which has since been moved outside as it is warming up here in Oregon finally. However, there is no room for anything other than the clones at this point, well except for a couple of strawberry starts on the floor out of the way. We have been pushing the nutrients fairly heavily, though we did back off a little with the last watering. The tips of the growth were telling us that they had enough, so we listened and gave them a break.
After looking over everything, we couldn’t be happier. The new growth looks fantastic, and there is so much more of it than we were expecting. By the time we do the next update on these clones, they will definitely be ready to have some of them transferred into our larger tent. Speaking of the big tent, our final update in there will be coming out next week as it is finally time to harvest and get it cleared out. Once those plants are down, we will be moving the clones for out outdoor grow into there for the next month until they are ready to go outside, which is really exciting. All of the other clones will be finishing out in the 2’ x 4’ tent though, and we will continue having biweekly updates on its progress.
How are your grow’s going? Hopefully well, as ours is doing fantastic and I wish the same for everyone else. Oh! There will be one pretty big announcement during next weeks big tent update, so make sure you are watching for that one as it is pretty cool and something that we are incredibly excited about.
It has been six weeks since we put our clones into the Spider Farmer 2’ x 4’ grow tent and they are bursting out of there! We are now at the six-week mark after we put these clones in the tent, and we really need to get some of them out of here. The current plan is to move the six clones that will be part of our outdoor grow this year into the big tent to grow a bit more before they go outside in early June, and then let the rest of them flower out here in the small tent. We tried getting everything in the big tent harvested by now, but we were not quite able to get it finished up. However, we should finish up with harvest tonight, get the tent cleaned out tomorrow and then get the plants moved around.
For now though, everything looks great. They have been growing like crazy and the canopy is super full and lush. We will be doing some heavy thinning once we get things moved around, and this tent should look a lot better by time we do our next update. We will also be flipping over to flower in this tent right around the 8 week mark, though we may do it a little earlier if the tent is still packed after we pull out some of the plants.
Coming up next week we will be talking about the results in the big tent and show some footage of the plants that will be going outdoor, along with that big announcement that I had mentioned before. Also, check the description below for a discount code that you can use on the Spider Farmer website!
We are now eight weeks into this grow in the Spider Farmer 2’ x 4’ tent, lets get these ladies repotted and flipped over to flower. We finally moved six of the clones into the big tent to finish getting ready to go outdoors, which means that we finally have some room in the small tent to put the remaining seven clones into five gallon pots and flip them over to flower.
We are using the tall five-gallon pots, as they take up less floor space, which is at a premium in a small tent. It is easy to see the difference between the one-gallon pots that they were in versus the new pots, and this should give them all the room they need going into flower. We use Roots Organics products almost exclusively; in this instance we are using their Greenfields soil mix. Much like when Lindsay moved them from the 4” to the one gallon pots, she starts out by compressing a layer of the soil into the bottom of the pot, until the plant is sitting at the level that she is looking for. After that she pours more of the soil around the plant, compressing it as she goes so that the new soil is making solid contact with the existing root ball. She will typically water the soil in after that and set it aside for the next one.
The whole process took her about an hour, including some light thinning as she went. After everything was done, she set them back into the tent, and we changed our light cycle to 12 hours of light and 12 hours of dark to send the plants into flower. She did some more thinning a couple of days later, and here is what they are looking like now.
The canopy is still fairly full, and we should get a good stretch out of them as they progress thru flower. The next step will be to get some scrog netting in there to support them, and then just keeping them watered with nutrients. Is there any interest out there in what our nutrients load looks like let me know in the comments below, and we will make a video about it.
The SF-2000 is still doing really well at filling this tent with light, and I really do believe that they are a great pairing. The plants all look great, other than one of them that is definitely having some kind of nutrient deficiency, though we are not exactly sure what is going on yet as none of the others look like that and they are all being fed exactly the same.
Zooming in close though and you can see the pokey white wisps of the preflowers showing up, letting us know that they are definitely on the way to flower. We are pushing it a little bit with this final grow, as we now have eight more weeks of flower which is going to get us us into July. We do not have air conditioning, so it is going to be a little warm by the end of it.
If you are interested in picking up any of the Spider Farmer gear that you see in this video we will have links to their website in the description below, and make sure to use code GEEKS to get a discount on your purchase.
Ten weeks in, and things are looking spectacular in the Spider Farmer 2’ x 4’ grow tent. The first thing you are probably going to notice is the two layers of scrog that we have in there now. You can also see that it isn’t anything fancy, just some pieces of bamboo zip tied in place with a netting zip tied to those. Simple, cheap and effective. It is mostly there for support as the plants bulk up, because the canopy is really, really uneven. That is the result of starting out with too many clones in here so that we could pick our favorites to go outside.
Next up, let’s talk about the packets you can see hanging underneath. Now that our outdoor plants are going, we have started up our IPM, or integrated pest management routine. A couple of years ago we got nailed by russet mites, and we have made sure that it will never happen again. The foundation of that is these packets full of predator mites, but we will talk more about our IPM strategy in a future video. If that is something that you are interested in, keep an eye on the channel for it to pop up. As we have both outdoor and indoor going at the same time, we try to avoid cross contamination, but the predators are there just to make sure nothing crazy happens. Believe me, you DO NOT want to deal with russets.
Looking between the layers of netting, and you can see that we have some decent growth happening. We will probably be going thru soon to do another round of thinning, which will let more light into these lower nodes to promote growth. Back up on top of the canopy and things are looking really great for only being two weeks into flower. As I said before the canopy is fairly uneven, mostly due to the two plants in the back row that decided to jump up in size. Over the next couple of weeks though things should even out a bit as the plants finish stretching. The node stacking is nice and close, the flower nubs are looking great and you can already see trichome production showing up on the leaves close to the flowers, which is a really great sign for things to come.
Looking up thru the bottom, and you can see that we definitely need to do some thinning in here before flower gets too much further along. I do love this view though, its like looking up at the canopy of a primordial forest. We love growing these plants, and we are really happy with how things are looking so far. The combination of the Spider Farmer SF-2000 and their 2’x4’ grow tent is really working out well for this small grow, and I am excited to see how things progress from here over the next six to eight weeks. How about you folks, do you have a grow going right now? If so, how are things looking? Let me know in the comments down below, I love hearing about other folks experiences.
Twelve weeks ago, we started our grow in the Spider Farmer 2’ x 4’ grow tent with their SF-2000 grow light. What are things looking like now? Two more weeks have gone by, and after looking at our last video, the difference is incredible. The flowers have put on a lot of growth, and the leaves are looking even more frosty. I did a pretty heavy thinning after the week ten video, but you can’t even really tell now. We get pretty ruthless when it comes to thinning as flower progresses, we want to keep enough leaves to push growth, but we also want to clear out as many as we can to allow for better light penetration and air flow. You also don’t want to go so heavy and so often that you stress the plant out, it is just something that you get a feel for as time goes on. The end goal with this grow is to be a little more heavy handed with thinning, as we will not have a lot of time to deal with harvest so we will have most of the large fan leaves removed before we get to that point.
The plants are ready to be watered tomorrow, and we just set up our new bubbling station that we use to off gas chlorine from the tap water, and when that is done to mix our nutrients. We will have a video coming up showing all of that, so keep a look out for it if that is something that interests you.
Back to the plants though, and other then the progress there really isn’t much to talk about. The SF-2000 is pushing the growth even better than I had expected it to, and I am super excited about the trichome levels we are already seeing as we are a full month away from harvest. This grow is shaping up to have some of the best medicine that we have ever grown, and I am really looking forward to see what everything looks like once we finish out.
Wow, are we already fourteen weeks into this grow in the Spider Farmer 2’ x 4’ grow tent with their SF-2000 grow light.
In this sponsored series of videos we have watched these plants go from tiny little clones to frosty swelling buds. We are not done yet, but the end is definitely in sight. We did our last thinning a couple of weeks ago, and the plants have been doing great. The canopy is still very uneven, but as we talked about in earlier videos that has a lot to do with the fact that at one point this tent had fourteen clones in it, before we took out several of them for this years outdoor grow. Still, we are pretty happy with how things have gone so far and I still think that the SF-2000 is a perfect fit in this Spider Farmer 2’x4’ grow tent.
Looking in between the scrog layers, and we have really good light penetration that has led to some very decent node stacking on the plants. They have already plumped up quite a bit in the last couple of weeks, and we are just looking to continue this going forward. Looking up from the bottom, and you can really see how well the light is penetrating thru. There isn’t much under here as we cleared it out pretty consistently, but this is what allows us to keep up really decent air flow to keep down soil gnats and other issues that can come up with low airflow situations.
Heading back up into the canopy, and the bud structures are looking great. The pistils look great, the calyx are nice and plump and you can see that the trichome production has ramped up even more. These are going to be the most sugary indoor plants that we have grown, and it is really just amazing to see them doing so well when we are so close to the end.
So far, this grow has been completely painless. Everything is growing like it should, we haven’t had any major deficiencies or pest issues, and it has just felt good to watch them grow. If you are interested in picking up any of the equipment used in this video, look for links to everything in the description down below. Also, make sure to use the coupon code GEEKS at checkout on the Spider Farmer website to get a discount on your purchase.
Sixteen weeks into this grow in the Spider Farmer 2’ x 4’ grow tent with their SF-2000 grow light, which means this is the last update before harvest! It is hard to believe it, but we are almost done with this sponsored grow series. First up, and I is time to water the plants. Right after the last update went live, we checked the trichomes and we were showing mostly milky with some orange trichomes just beginning to show, which tells us it is time to start flushing the plants. From that point forward, all that they have gotten is PH adjusted water and SLF2000, which they will get up until a couple of days before harvest. This allows them to use up the last of the nutrients, and finish feeding on themselves. You can see how we water these little ladies, they get two quarts and then they sit for a few more hours as the plant absorbs some of the water and it spreads throughout the soil, at which point we give them their third and final quart.
Looking across the canopy, and you can see the fade beginning that lets us know that they are indeed finishing off all of the nutrients. This is exactly what we want to see at this point, and things are looking great down in between the SCROG layers as well. Looking up thru the canopy and we are still getting good light penetration, and the quality of flowers is showing it. They are all super solid and covered in trichomes. They look fantastic, and we are really excited to harvest them in another couple of days.
We will have a final update video on this series in a few weeks, showing how we are planning on harvesting this tent, which will be a little different than what we have done before but should work out well. We will update you on what out yield ends up being after drying and starting to cure, and lastly our final thoughts on growing in the Spider Farmer 2’x4’ tent with their SF-2000 grow light. You can also look forward to seeing reviews on their 2020 versions of both the SF-1000 and SF-2000 lights, so if that is something that you are looking forward to keep an eye on the channel for those to show up.
We finished the grow in the Spider Farmer 2’ x 4’ grow tent with their SF-2000 grow light and now it’s time for harvest! It is hard to believe that this sponsored grow series has finally drawn to a close. This is the last look at the ladies that we have been growing for the last four months and they look great. The trichomes are plentiful and changing to amber, the leaves are fading and the flowers are super dense. Let’s say goodbye to these ladies, and then get them chopped down.
The first thing that I have to do is remove the scrog netting. As I have no intention of re-using it, that means just cutting it out of the way. Once it is cut apart, it just needs to be removed carefully from the plants themselves. This part was actually more of a pain than I thought it would be, because the flowers are so sticky that they just want to grab on
The reason that I want to remove the scrog net, instead of just cutting off individual branches and pulling them out of the netting, is that we want to cut the plants down in their entirety and hang them as a full plant. Usually our plants, especially our outdoor plants, are way too big to be able to do this. However, these plants are the perfect size to hang whole, and we have done enough thinning that we don’t even need to do much more trimming. Eventually I was able to get all of the netting cut away, and then pulled out the front bamboo poles so that all six of the plants would be accessible.
Looking in the tent, and you can see why we put in both layers of scrog netting to support the branches. Many of them are so heavy that they are bending under their own weight, and the scrog kept it all nicely supported and separated. It didn’t take very long for me to chop down all of the plants and get them hung, and while I was doing that Lindsay was removing the rest of the large fan leaves that didn’t have enough trichomes to get processed into kief.
Here are all of the plants hanging next to the grow tent. We are absolutely thrilled, they smell fantastic and are super dense, with a just amazing amount of trichomes on every surface. You can the complete plant hanging there, and one of the reasons we did it this way is that we are about to go camping for five days, and we want to leave as much stem and leaf with them for this part of the drying process as it is the middle of summer here and fairly warm. We moved them all into the large tent to dry and headed out for an amazing camping trip to Waldo Lake.
Once we returned home, I checked on the plants and they were ready to get taken down to start curing. Now, this process is different for everyone, and I am sure that most of you do it differently, but this is our process. Once the plants have hung for a week or so, we pull them down and cut all of the flowers away from the branches and put them into large plastic containers. This allows us to mostly seal in the humidity, while still making it easy to burp the air twice a day to make sure that it is stabilizing properly.
Now, curing can take two to four weeks, and you don’t want to rush it. Flower stored in an air tight container needs to be in the 55 to 60 percent humidity range before you can seal it up permanently, so we will actually put a hygrometer in these containers overnight to track what the humidity levels are. Once they can stabilize in that range, they are ready to get their final trim and then get sealed into mason jars until Lindsay needs them.
All right, so the flowers have all stabilized, which means that it is time to finish trimming them for storage. Now, you may remember that we left any leaves on here that had a lot of trichomes, and there is a reason for that. All of our trim gets saved and stored separately, and when we have enough of it we use dry ice and small micron bags to separate the kief from the plant material. It is super potent and works really well infused into coconut oil as a carrier. That can then be used as a strong edible for when Lindsay is in a lot of pain and needs help sleeping. Sometimes nothing can knock the pain down other than the infused oil, it has really been a lifesaver. If there is any interest in seeing how we make our oil, let me know in the comments below and we may make a video about it the next time we make a batch.
I am not going to make you sit here and watch me trim everything up, but here is a sample of what our final trimmed flowers look like. We are thrilled with how everything has turned out, so lets go over final numbers. We had 3 clones of The New that were fairly undersized but added up to 4.2 ounces of flower. The Blue Fire clone ended up being a smaller plant at 2.36 ounces of flower, with The White coming in the biggest at 3.52 ounces on its own. The tent was finished up by the OG Kush at 2.95 ounces, which gives us a grand total of 13.03 ounces.
It is a pretty good feeling to have made it this far, and I just want to thank Spider Farmer again for sponsoring this series, and all of you for following along the way. If you are interested in picking up any of the equipment used in this video, look for links to everything in the description down below. Also, make sure to use the coupon code GEEKS at checkout on the Spider Farmer website to get a discount on your purchase.
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