Making a Cloning Propagator

I made a cloning propagator today and thought I would share it...

It works by using a fog machine to saturate the rooting area with water vapour. I have no idea if this will work but only one way to find out...

Here are the foam disks that hold the cuttings in place. They are made from a gardeners kneeling mat. It's like a sort of neoprene. I cut the disks out using a sealant cartridge that happened to be a nice size. Simply twisting it in to the foam cut the disks out quite nicely




next I took an offcut of some perspex sheeting. It's a shame it's colourless but it's all I had. Hole were cut in it just a tiny bit smaller than the foam disks so they fit snugly. A hole was also cut for the fog machine's cable and air line.




The fog machine needs to be between 25mm and 35mm from the surface of the water. This poses a problem when the water line inevitably drops. So I have fitted a net pot in to a slab of polystyrene. The fog machine sits in the bottom and so whatever the depth of the water it stays at the same distance





And here it is pretty much done. I have installed an air stone with a small air pump to supply the rooting area with fresh oxygen. The reservoir is a plastic fish tank that I had knocking about. They are £5 from Wilkinsons




I have cut 15 clones, each 5" in length, dipped in clonex and held in place with the foam disks. I put a black and white blackout sheet down to stop the light getting to the rooting area




Here you can see the cut stems suspended in the air above the water line




This is with the fogger switched on. The whole area is fully misted up. You can also see the small air stone in this shot

This is the finished system. I put another fish tank over the top to keep it nice and humid in there to slow down the transpiration rate.




.I hope it works after all this work lol. If anyone has any questions or advice it's all welcomed

 

Well I never got to find out if heat became a problem. I kept an eye on temperatures and they were good but at some point during the night the fog machine died and all the cutting lay completely flat and lifeless.

I have put in a larger air pump to see if I can save them but it doesn't look promising

 

Lol, your suggesting I trim leaves so I can take the cover off? I'd rather leave the cover where it is so I don't have to trim any more leaves. I chose that amount of foliage to keep because thats about the best for fast rooting. The dome is to slow down transpiration but when roots grow I want to take the cover off to speed it back up. I can't reattach the leaves can I? Lol

 

I used clonex so the plant will take some up. I know it will eventually get washed off but it stayed firm for well over 24 hours so the stems will have taken some up for sure.

Clonex always expires before I get to use it all so I wouldn't consider it a waste

 

Thanks for the compliment mate. All the DWC cloners I have seen take ages to get roots. Sometimes as long as two weeks. I'm used to getting roots in about 5-7 days using peat pellets, but I figured cloning without a medium makes things a lot better. So what would you say you do different to get them to root faster? If these cuttings don't come back to life I'll cut some more and just go DWC

When I root using peat pellets I usually scrape the sides, but I scraped only half of the cuttings for this one to see if I can see any real difference

 

My knowledge of cloning is weak? Please explain yourself, I have been cloning for almost 20 years

 

 
i think you have a lot to learn about conducting an argument. i very must dislike to be condescended to. obviously i made some changes when the fogger died and i have already said i changed the air pump. if you have any questions about what i have done your welcome to ask. but saying shit like "i can only assume that you...." and "im sure you had..." just makes you sound dumb.
 
no i didnt lower the roots at all. i raised the water line up a bit but not all the way to one inch above the tips. the water line is on the tips. there is no reason to submerge them to one inch.
 
there is no way i am going to paint the tank black.
1, i dont have any black paint.
2, if i did i wouldn't be able to see the roots/stems easily when i wanted to.
3, if i change things i will want to use that tank for something else, if it were painted black it would be worthless. 
4, blackout plastic that is wrapped around it stops all light so painting it black would do nothing anyway
 
no i did no triple the size of the air pump, i 10x it actually. tripling it would not have been good enough. that pump was only to supply fresh air to the stems, it was just 1 litre per minute. the one in there now is 10 litres per minute
 
why would i install 2x 6" air stones. thats rather specific isnt it? what i actually did was install the correct size and amount of air stones that is suitable for the pump i am using. 
 
i have already said your wrong about cutting leaves off, and i have explained the reasons why your wrong. if you want to conduct a counter argument simply saying it again does not hold up. you need to state reasoning.

 

now back to the plot. as it turns out i was pretty lucky i came across the clones when i did because every one perked back up. it was close on a few of them, they are looking a bit ropey but are very much alive.
 
while adjusting the ph today i put a bit too much ph down in so i had to top up with water to bring it back up to the desired range. unfortunately this caused the waterline to go a bit higher than i prefer but im sure they will be ok
 
 

 

i have no space for these clones so they may well be binned afterwards anyway. this was all about making a cloner out of that old fogger i had. now thats dead im certainly not buying one as they are quite expensive. i thought that it would create a rooting environment that would be really good so i tried it out. its a shame the fogger died but i am fully capable of making clones in other ways so im not too bothered

 

I can sometimes get roots in 5 days, certainly under 7 using peat pucks/pellets but not DWC as it seems. I take in to account that the fogger died and probably set them back a bit and for some reason my air lines kept coming off the outlet nipples but I expected roots by now. There is some swelling going on, but not even blistering yet. I'm sure I won't see roots for at least a fee days yet and it's been about a week already.

When I use peat pellets I use a heat mat under them. This speeds things up really well. Obviously I don't want to heat up the water in the DWC as it will lower the oxygen count. I'm not so sure if hydro cloning can compete with the old school methods

 

Thanks mate. No, I don't, but I could do one. It's pretty straightforward. Have you used peat before?

 

I have roots this morning, 10 days after cutting so not great lol but in reality what's a few days I guess. When I clone in future I'll just make sure I it a little earlier. I like the DWC cloning method because there are no consumables, everything gets reused.

It's a shame about that fogger, I may buy one one day and have another go but for now DWC is the way I will do them

Here's a photo of the roots starting to form. The second photo is the top side. I think I'll use some nutes next time, plain water just doesn't cut it, they look pretty terrible