This is one hell of a an idea/guide GG! I just love this site, brings all the great growing minds together Overall, very simple to follow. Thanks for the detailed info! A few things I did come across as being a bit on the "hmm, I wonder what he used" because it was not mentioned in the guide. Like, what is the pump size you are using for your sprinkler head? What 'is' your environment conditions for them (I read the topic and noticed someone else was talking about times with cfl and such, but all you responded with was "Getting the conditions correct is one thing but different plants will have huge variant in rooting time." so just wondering what it is you do have them under)? I notice the 'purple' (3k?) in your last pic but not sure much more than that. Also was wondering what the hours should be for the lights? What should the temperature be? The actual clones: do too many leaves matter? Or should it be primarily the stem and 1-2 decent 5 or 7-leaf fans? I currently have 6 of them under a 8 bulb t5 64k 400w 40k lumens, probably 2ft from the tops of them. I grabbed these from amazon (they are 'misters', I know you said they aren't as good as they get clogged real easily but I couldn't find yours [i'm in the US and links you gave earlier on ebay to them don't ship to the US] that you show in the diy though, so I hope these don't get clogged at least by clone removal), and grabbed a $17 160gph sub pump from petco. Seems to be enough pressure, spins/covers really well and each stem is dripping water droplets off the ends when I go to look at them. So I know they are all getting soaked. I'm thinking of adding a air pump/stone. You keep saying they root faster so I think I will. Side-note: [not sure if this company is world wide, might be] I actually used Rite-Aid branded plastic pens for the intermediate shaft from the pump to the sprinkler head, they fit together with minor modifications perfectly. Took some small rubber hose [that we bought for this but aren't using now] and cut little C shaped pieces and fit the pen tube we made right into the pump's output hole adapter. The sprinkler head fit right into the end of the pen you write with after cutting maybe 3-5cm off. All fit together without glue and very simple and stable. Good idea mentioning the pens, that's when I went on a highventure lol. Only been one day but they seem okay thus far . Thanks again, highly appreciate the awesome guide.
I'm glad you have made one mate, put some photos up, I'd love to see yours. Lol, that's a lot of questions, ill do my best to run through them. My original pump was 3w and 200L/H, it shows it in the photo lol. It worked perfectly at the start. I'm not sure what happened but after the first couple of runs it slowed down to the point that it wasn't spinning the sprinkler properly. I now have a bigger pump, it's either a 6 or 8 watt and is 320L/H. You are best to use the smallest pump you can get away with because big pumps heat up the water more. If you use a pressure type mister it will probably need a bigger pump to spray properly. I'm not quite sure what you're asking in the next question. Something about the environment. The light doesn't need to be much over clones. A couple of 20w CFLs will be plenty for a lot of clones. The purple light is from a 170w LED unit, but the clones are positioned way below it and even underneath part of a canopy from some other plants. I like to have my lights on 24/0 as I do with all my vegging plants, but anything over 18 hours of light per day is fine. The temperature is best between 15 & 25 degrees with 20 being optimum in my opinion. Root temperature should be kept under 21 but warmer temperatures will enable roots to grow faster. Too warm and it can also grow bacteria fast too. So I prefer to have mine about 19-20 degrees, but anything down to 15 is fine. When rooting in soil chopping some of the leaves off slows transpiration but when rooting in hydro or aero they have as much water as they want so no need to cut leaves. Your lighting sounds fine but I'd probably switch off most of the tubes, I can't see the clones making use of all that light. I'm not sure if the misters clog easily but there is certainly some degree of risk. I have read reports of it happening but I have no idea how common it is. You need quite a big bump when using misters and big pumps warm the water so this is worth keeping in mind. Yeah adding fresh oxygen to the rooting area is very much worth doing. It can be done without it but it's best with it. Sounds like you got it sorted, it's good that you didn't use glue because even waterproof glue could leech in to the water. But I guess fish tank sealer would probably be ok, but that stuff is dam expensive
Wow thanks for the awesome response GG! Very informative post I think you have answered everything that I was asking about . Though I never thought about the pump heating up the water :/. How you think I should go about keeping it cool? Also you say bacteria can grow if the room is too hot? Where would it grow that I should keep an eye out for it? I currently have it quite hot in my tent (30* C) as I need to setup ducting + ac. It has been a few days since I built this thing and so far they are holding up well. Little yellow on the leaves but still mainly green, standing tall (after the clones were cut they wilted pretty bad). Will definitely be getting an air pump/stone soon, help them out some more. Will also look into getting the EC meter to put nutes into the water. I will definitely get some pictures to throw up here shortly. I'll try to get a few while putting together my second one, showing a bit more detail on how my pen/tube contraption worked. Thanks again man, your thread/posts are a very big help
If you only have a small pump and the air temperature doesn't get too high then usually you won't need to worry about the nutrient solution becoming too hot. Fitting a remote reservoir and position this outside of the growing area can cool things down in extreme cases but keep in mind that will need an additional pump so it's only good if the temperature is a real problem. This requires the system to be much more complicated, but it's an option if needed. If the temperature is way too high then an air conditioner and/or a hydro/aquarium chiller will sort it. Bacteria won't be a problem in the room itself because it's dry, but in the nutrient solution there will always be some. Keeping in well oxygenated keeps the numbers down, but if the temperature of the nutrient solution gets too high then the dissolved oxygen count will drop and your bacteria count will rise, resulting in rotting stems. 30℃ is quite high, I try to keep mine below that. 30 is the line I draw, but I prefer 26-28℃. Often my grow tent will be about 28-30℃ for the growing plants but the clones will be on the floor shaded by the bigger plants and down by where cool air is drawn in at the bottom so temperature is rarely an issue for me when cloning. Yeah mine sometimes wilt for a short time when first cut and put in the cloner but they always perk up within an hour or so. About the yellowing, do you have nutrients in the water? I find mine yellow if I use empty water. They will still root, but they are much healthier when I have my nutrient solution at about an ec of 0.4 (ppm of about 200). Lol, I read down a bit further and not realise you are indeed using empty water. They will still root, so don't be alarmed. Thanks man, I'm glad I can help
this may well could be the ultimate test of this cloner. I finished a white widow a few days back and the bud turned out amazing and unfortunately I don't have any clones of it. The only thing I did have was a rooted stump (that's another story) and several sticks of bud that has been trimmed and hanging up in my drying cupboard for about 24 hours. So I cut a couple of small buds and put them in the cloner. These will need to re-veg and then grow roots. This could take several weeks and I need to keep them alive throughout. If this works, it will be astounding lol. We shall see
probably not lol. I have nothing to lose so figured I'd try. The biggest hurdle I thought was the fact that the bud has been drying for a day lol. But it seems to be still alive I think. Hard to tell because there's hardly any leaf left on them I think that they should be able to re-veg as long as I can keep them alive for the time that it takes. I'm guessing a few weeks
Good work Gold, Love the tutorial.. As long as they have a few leafs it will work, if your cuts are all buds and no leafs probably isn't gonna.
thanks Yoda. This is what they look like today. The one on the right-hand side has dried up by the looks of it, so definitely won't make it. But the one on the left-hand side is still holding on I think. I don't have much hope for it really, but there are little bits of green leaf on it lol
More than likely that will not work,due to the fact that u have no fan leaves what so ever. Clip the bud and cut ur losses,hope u can find another clone somewhere. Even if u had leaves of a flowering plant,that is one of the hardest things to get to root. In fact,it can take months if it does eventually root. Sent from my LGLS740 using Grasscity Forum mobile app
that is exactly the point. The opening line was "this may well be the ultimate test of this cloner" There are no losses to cut so I don't know why you're telling me to clip the bud.
I'm not knocking it. Did you know that when you do this the plant degenerates and will not yield nearly as much or nearly as potent buds? If you were smart,you would have left a bunch of fan leaves on it as well. But if it does work,it will take 4-12 weeks. Would be faster if it had fan leaves. GL Sent from my LGLS740 using Grasscity Forum mobile app
If I was smart, I would have left leaves on it?? The leaves were already cut off, Jesus man, it had been hung to dry for 24 hours lol Perhaps if you were smart, you might have read the post of me explaining what this is all about "It would root faster, if it had fan leaves". Well yeah man, you are sort of stating the obvious now. But if it did have fan leaves then this wouldn't be "the ultimate test of this cloner" now would it? Any cloner can root a cut with leaves on. Where's the challenge in that?
I'm learning so much brother gold. Yoda, thanks for this guy's. My re-veg LA Affie from Cali-Connection, she is 1 month old today flipper her back into flower days ago. Boy, they sure throw some really odd leafs when revegging. Single fingered non-serrated leafs Oh and my diy cloner I made
ok maybe this cloner isn't quite good enough to keep partially dried bud alive lol. But the normal cuts that are in there are rooting already I hadn't even gotten around to putting the air stone in there yet
Haha you have a decent shot brotha! There's definitely a few auxiliary sites there, it will just be a matter of keeping them alive long enough for new shoots to develop. The hell with the nay sayers, you have nothing to lose (as you know lol).
unfortunately the bud didn't root. They both stayed alive for a week or two, but then started to shrivel up. I knew it was a tall order. I'm really gutted because the bud was amazing from this plant. The other clones have roots about a foot long now, I haven't set up anything for them yet, they are still in there