Grow Mediums Aeroponics cloning system

[Mañ'O'Green]

Ok based on what i think I am seeing your sprayers are pointed straight up at the foam this will totally saturate the foam with no chance for air to oxygenate where the stem passes through the foam. This would be a problem even with closed cell foam and will lead to damping off. I think you need to rethink the misting system to spray from the top down.

 

[Mañ'O'Green]

I was just thinking that maybe cycling the sprayers on 1 minute then off 4 minutes might let the stems get enough air. Or maybe just make a bubbleponics bucket out of it. Let the bubbles from the air stones wet the tops of the stems that are submerged 1 - 3 inches down into the water. You already have everything you need. Do a quick search on "bubbleponics cloner" to see what I am talking about. Remember I gave up on aeroponics - too many failures!

 

[Madness]

I've never tried to cultivate clones this way but have tried aero supplimentry with dwc.

Thinking it through I don't believe it is a good way to start as the stem will always be wet and run off any gel or powder

I think you need to get them to shoot roots before you put in your aero tub, then you might see some results


f6

Also if I'm looking at it right..

Looks like you have your cuttings in blue foam wedges? TBH can't see that helping your cause, maybe go back to wool cubes? Just don't let them get to wet.

Could be wrong bro, just observations

Flowering cuttings also do not clone well in my experience

f6

Never tried a true aero cloner, but I ran a bubble cloner (dwc), for years, with about a 90% success rate. No rooting gel, just a 45 degree cut across a node, and suspended 1/4" above straight tap water, chlorine and all. 1/4" soaker hose, for plenty of air. No PH adjustment (no roots, no need), a single low watt cfl bulb about a foot above the cloner. I kept the water temp a consistent 75f, with a small aquarium heater. When I saw roots a half inch long, I'd add 1ml per gallon of GH Flora bloom. Root explosion!
If you aren't totally set on the aero cloner, the bubbler works very well indeed, with much less to fiddle with, or go wrong.
Best of luck. Figuring out why clones won't take can make you old, but I wouldn't clone any other way, at least for plants going in to hydro.
Regards, Kyle

Ok based on what i think I am seeing your sprayers are pointed straight up at the foam this will totally saturate the foam with no chance for air to oxygenate where the stem passes through the foam. This would be a problem even with closed cell foam and will lead to damping off. I think you need to rethink the misting system to spray from the top down.

@fettled6

I understand where you are coming from .I thought it to be quite weird as well to clone this way but many people do it and have gotten results. Many are claiming roots within 5-7 days. Obviously I'm new to this cloning method so I am not expecting that but I definitely didn't expect to not get any rooted at all.

The foam wedges are replacements for neoprene collars. I made them out of a yoga Matt so I could have hundreds for like 10$ rather than buy them.

@Ydijadoit

Thank you for your input. I actually am going to make a bubble cloner as well but still keep this aeroponics one. I love DWC and I never thought to basically make a cloning bucket the same way. Goes to show you're always learning. It would be better for me to have 2 cloners anyways with the way I want to do things.

@Mañ'O'Green

Makes sense honestly. I feel like other people that I've seen have it a similar way but it definitely saturates the top of the kid a lid which I thought was good. I shall try and spray the misters downward and see if that will work better. Or maybe I could cut the PVC T so it's shorter and isn't as close up to the stems.

Thank you for all of your input. I'm going to fix the T, put bleach in the system and let it run over night and then I'm going to run just water throughh it over night while stabilizing the pH then throwing cuttings in .

Also make my own bubble cloner as well to see how that works. I mean it would be nice to be able to consistently get 24 clippings of my strains that I bought it I wanted.

 

[vaness]

sorry for you loss dude,
im looking to do my own cloner
can you share the plan of your design ?

 

[Muddy]

I use a Botanicare 25 site aero cloner. It has an H shaped spray head with about 10 or so nozzles. The pump is 180 gpm, so 300 gpm might be a bit too strong. I've had my share of ups and down with clones and have finally found a system that seems to work very well.

First off, forget about using cloning powder or gel. It will be washed off within minutes and serves no purpose in an aero system. Use a new, sterilized razor blade to cut your clones. Using scissors, cut the leaves in half to cut down on photosynthesis and promote root growth. Use the razor blade to scrape the bottom 1 1/2 - 2" of the clones, including a node if possible. Scrape them enough to remove the outer layer but not so much to damage the inner layers. I do one strip down each side of the stem, rather than scrapping the whole stem. This really helps them root faster. Also, if possible, take clones that tend to be woody near where they are cut. Place the clones in a jar of RO water over night to promote maximum water uptake. Next day place them in your clones with 2 ml Dyna Bloom per gallon of solution, ph to 5.2. Dyna Bloom is high in P and K, which is necessary for good root growth. Once you see roots, usually in about 7 days, add a sterilizing agent. I use UC Roots at 3 ml per gallon. You can also use hydrogen peroxide. Once the majority of the clones have roots in the 3-4" range, change your solution and up the Dyna Bloom to 4 ml per gallon, pH 5.3. Don't forget the sterilizing agent. Some say you can also add cal/mag at this point but I've had better luck without it. In about 3 weeks your roots should be long enough to go into your system. The roots will be at least a foot long and some new growth will be noticeable on the tops of the clones.

I keep my cloner under a 100 watt, 6500 temp LED bulb. Just enough light to keep them going but not enough to promote a lot of photosynthesis. Also, don't worry about the stems being wet all the way up to the collars. With aero systems it's impossible to avoid and not an issue.

I've had issues like you with the stems getting mushy. When it happened to me it was either because I scrapped the clones too much or not enough. Also, some strains clone better than others, so keep that in mind as well. I've also found it's unnecessary to constantly monitor the pH or to do frequent system changes. In fact, once I do the initial pH adjustment I never check it again until the next system change. On a 3 week cloning cycle I only change the system the one time when I up the Dyna Bloom. I've got 20 clones in right now and 19 of them are rooted, with roots in excess of 12". Eight of them will be going into the veg system in a day or so. The rest will go into some Pro Mix and sold to some outdoor growers I know who like rooted clones when they can get them.