Can't believe using strictly tap water in your cloner hasn't been mentioned the chlorine and chloramines will keep most reservoirs fairly sterile. That's why using plain tap with no rooting gels works best with cloning machines.
Not true. If you had read the whole thread you would see that many people have used tap water at some time with great results. Then after moving to a new town with different water, the results were terrible. Some people's tap water is extremely hard. Mine is over 600ppm at certain times. The only way to work with water like that is to use an RO filter. This removes almost everything, which is why the chlorine is needed to be added back in after filtering. If your tap water is only 150-200 ppm, you probably don't need an RO filter and that is why you have good results.
My ez clone experience and thoughts as follows: I just completed my first run in an ezcloner 60 site. The cloner was given to me by a friend(and now I see why lol), and had only been used once and cleaned and stored properly. I still made sure to buy new plugs, new filter for the pump, new airstones and lines, and then sterilized the cloner before use. I used Ro water with watermax since my tap water is poison. I got the thing up and running and everything seemed great. For about 36 hours. After only 36 hours I noticed a sulfur smelling iron infection. Ugh! Even with all the new stuff and sterilization, I still got something. This was due more to the fact that it got up to 85 degrees in the res the first day! I had not anticipated having such a hard time keeping it cool since my room temp was a measured 70-72. I immediately realized there was no way to actually clean it now that the cuttings were in there, major flaw. To keep the water clean but more importantly cool, I was forced to switch the water out with cooler fresh Ro water 1-2 times a day. I would then fill it with clean cool Ro water and a double strength watermax solution and run it for 2-3 hours in attemps to clean the roots at least somewhat, then dump that and refill with regular strength. This was a hassle obviously, and I used a shit ton of Ro water for one batch of clones, at least 100 gallons over the two weeks. I was running the pump 24/7 which is why it was getting so hot. I switched over to 15 on 15 off and it helped with the temp and also seemed to make the roots grow faster. I had no idea it would make that much heat. Eventually after about 9 days the weather cooled off and I was able to keep the temp good for the rest of the cycle, so I stopped switching the water. Although it smelled like sulfur when you would open it, that iron bacteria is one of the least harmful and I didn't get any goo or film or yellowing roots. All in all, it did work well, and pretty quickly. I was able to start transplanting clones at day 12, and had all of them out by day 15 with a 100% success rate! So I was happy with the and result. I found the ones with the most and longest roots took the fastest to the transplant, less roots took several more days to start growing after transplant. Even though I had good results, these things are just so damn overcomplicated. For the amount of work and time you spend on them I want them done in a week max to make it worth the hassle. I mean, you need a 6 outlet power strip full: flouro light, pump for cloner, pump for airstones, temp sensor for the res, fan moving air in the space, and a water chiller. To me this is overconplicated. I could stick 4 trays of rockwool clones in the same space the cloner takes up, have half the plugs, and for a fraction of the cost. Yes, it takes longer, but you have room and money to have several trays going at different stages. Anywuys, that was my first run in with one, I might use it again and I might just sell of for my friend, lol..
You make an excellent point. If the EZ cloner isn't making your job easy, then is it worth using? Well, I made a couple of ez-cloners myself. Each one has 56 plug sites. I put 2 cuttings in each site. This allows for 112 cuts per cloner, X 2 cloners = 224 cuts. I have had great success using RO water. I would clean with h202 between batches, and then I was getting 100% success within 7 days every time. I was actually tossing out rooted clones because I only had enough room for so many and I would just keep the strongest one. I started getting overconfident and stopped cleaning between batches. Then I dropped my success to about 10% which is pathetic. Mushy stems would set in around day 14 with no roots visible. Lost 2 batches in a row this way. Now I clean with bleach between cycles. I also put a small amount of bleach in the water when I first load my cloner. (like 3 drops per gallon of RO water) I do not add any more bleach after that. Usually by the time the bleach is completely gone out of the water, the clones are only a day or two away from rooting and therefore the bacteria can't build up to a high enough level to harm the plants in that short time. I don't usually have problems after roots are visible. I don't even worry about temps or anything. I run with benneficial bacteria in my NFT-RDWC system. I have not had success using bleach in my actual grows at this time. I know it's definately due to fluctuating chlorine levels. Too high, then too low. This could probably be solved with a simple clorinator system. You basically want the same amount of chlorine in your grow as in regular city tap water. You shouldn't be able to SMELL chlorine in your reservoir. That is definately too strong if you can smell it.
I feel that there is something that needs to be pointed out here. There is a problem with the growers out there today. Everyone is "AFRAID" to use chlorine in there grows because of the initial idea of it. I even went to the local hydro shop and the lady there (who is pretty knowledgable) said "I don't believe in bleach. It's poison". At first, it sounds like these people are correct in their thinking this way. But, what people fail to realize initially, is that the amount of chlorine in the water is not supposed to be higher than the amount in your city tap water. People think you are dumping buckets of bleach in your res or something. If they are ok with drinking tap water, then they should also be ok with eating food/smoking weed that is grown in that same water. I remember when someone first told me about bleach, I argued with him that he was an idiot and nobody should ever put bleach in their res. Commercial growers don't put bennes in their res, they run sterile. Don't they?? Commercial growers most definately do not use Dutch Master Zone or anything like that crap. Chlorine is the answer.
kinda funny story, my first attempt at ever growing anything on this earth was DWC. They took off like rockets, about 3 weeks in I had slime on all my roots. I ask how to fix it, i suggest running bleach in it- "would you really want to smoke that? smoke that bleach? NEVER put bleach in there" as you say...commercial producers arent playing with beneficial bacteria lol I'm pretty much thinking the same way about AVID and Floramite as well, I truly believe we are consuming, at the minimum, equal insecticides on a daily basis from whatever you buy at the grocery store. anyhow, I posted previously asking if chlorine could stop rooting... I have an update and I hope I'm right. I was using 4ml of bleach every 24 hours and still getting "damping" off or soft stems/ mush whatever you wanna call it... the odd thing was I bought some pool testing strips and it never would read anything...I had to dip the strip INTO the bleach jug to get any color change. I wrote it off to cheap ass strips. So i've been searching and searching for what has changed and why i'm not getting results. I bought another bottle of bleach, the bottle I was using was somewhere between 2-8 years old. I asked my old lady when she bought it and she couldnt remember, "possibly when we moved in?" she says. I put 2.75 ml of the NEW bleach into my 7 gal rez in my cloner and BOOM instant reading on the test strips. Hoping this was my problem all along. We'll know in a week.
Well, good luck man. I eventually would like to switch to using just bleach altogether in my grows and not bother with any benneficial bacteria. Currently, bleach is fine in the cloner, and easy to maintain the correct amount. The only problem I have at the moment is with my grow room being a flooded nft/rdwc system and having multiple plants in the room causing a LOT of water to disappear from my res daily. The multiples of plants drink a lot and also there is evapouration from all my waterfalls. Not to mention that Chlorine breaks down rapidly. It's very difficult to maintain the precise amount of chlorine needed. It would need to be adjusted every few hours. I need a chlorine monitor for my res that just automatically adds a drop when it senses it getting low. But for now I will keep using bennes. The roots are generally white, but there is a bit of debree from the bennes that gets stuck in the roots that are on the surface of the water. Growing...why doesn't everyone grow? lol. ... I know why.
Any tip for a beginner to watch for with EZCloner... Just got it and have never used bubble ponics im a cann coco guy... Any tips or things to avoid? Thanks bro
Anyone ever try just poppin them into some aloe gel? or honey... or soak them in willow bark tea and than put them into some organic soil with good humus ?
Why bother with all that? EZ cloners work fine if you have clean water with low ppm. Not to mention your method is no good for anyone that is doing hydro.
Soaking clones in willow bark or aloe or honey is no good for hydro? WHY is that? i cant seem to think of any reasons why you couldn't apply the same technique to hydroponics you just dip them in whatever solution you chose than pop them into a cube with aerated water.. and wait till they root what does it matter what you use to help them root as long as it does the job... its basically the same thing as cloning gel btw the hormones in willow bark is the shit in clonex
You said put them in organic soil. That won't work for hydro. But also, I wouldn't want honey in any kind of hydroponics system because it will promote bacterial growth which I've had enough experience with. Pop them into a cube? You mean rockwool? Again many people do not want rockwool in their system because it hold too much moisture for certain systems. The system I am using requires clones that have a bare stem with BARE roots growing out of it. You don't want to be trying to separate your newly rooted clone from a rockwool cube if you don't have to. The cubes stay too wet in my system and promote root rot. Bare clones planted in 3" net cups filled with hydroton (which I reuse) is what my system needs. Also, what if you need like 100+ clones every couple weeks. Are you really gonna be able to pull that off using cubes? That could be tricky and could require a lot of monitoring. What you are suggesting requires buying rockwool cubes all the time or other stuff "materials". An EZ-cloner requires clean water and that is all. No storing humidity domes and trays and warming mats and sheets of rockwool etc. It's just simpler and you can go from your ez-cloner in to whatever medium you like. Other cloning methods limit you.
Well now i realize you cant put organic soil in hydro i said you could apply the techniques to hydro meaning dip that shit in aloe or willow bark tea and it would be the same great effect as the rooting hormones in products like clonex and when i say cube i just mean whatever you use damn i was just trying to make an example you can use whatever the fuck you want im just talking about natural alternatives to cloning solution which can be applied to hydro i have done it with much success
ok. The OP was talking about the reasons why cloning fails. I'm sure your dipping methods work great for you. But the reason for failing clones in an EZ cloner is almost ALWAYS bacteria due to RO water having no chlorine in it to prevent bacterial growth. You don't need to dip your cuttings in anything at all when using an ez-cloner which is why I like it. There are no extra products needed. Good luck.
Lol, actually you can easily make just as many clones on rockwool, and with much less effort and cost. I can fit three trays in the same space as my ezclone 60, so it would be about the same space wise as putting three stems each in the ezclone. My buddy runs a cloning business and has shelves with sometimes thousands of clones going. He uses rockwool. He can have all 8 shelves fully operational off one outlet in the wall. You would need an immense amount of plugs, tubing, etc for 12-16 ezcloners. One cool thing about rockwool is you can leave them in there, take the dome off, and let them go for weeks before transplanting if you don't have the room/buyer at the moment. I would like to see how to keep 500+ very well rooted aeroclones alive for 2-3 weeks without transplanting or losing any. And yeah, how the hell are you supposed to sell someone bare aeroclones anyways????? Lol!!! Also the tray will be dry since the wool holds water, no root rot or brown roots after 4-6 weeks in a tray, while splashing with water every 4-10 days. Oh yeah, power went out for three days, rockwool clones were fine. Aero??? As far as materials, you forget that the rockwool did not require a few hundred dollars initially. The cost of the cloner, real air pump, stones, tubing, plugs, and god forbid a water chiller would buy a hell of a lot of rockwool. If two people started with $500 for a cloning setup and had to buy everything new, the aero route would net you one cloner setup. The rockwool route you could buy plenty of rockwool, shelves, more lights, more trays, and have probably 10x as many clones going off the bat for the same price. Also the supplies are disposable or cleanable, those mondi domes will survive your dishwasher. you can perpetually add clones to a tray for months without any cleaning and no real issues, if they get dirty buy a new one for a dollar. No scalding bleach water, no peroxide, no cleaning supplies or hassle. And for the cost of 35 collars you can buy like 200 rockwool and new trays. I had roots grow into a few of my collars that I can't get out, so in my experience I would say their reusability is limited. Don't get me wrong, mine works great, but the fact is its much more expensive, much more complicated, and much more maintenance intensive. The only real advantage I found was that the clones are better for hydro or aero since they are bare. Again, I'm not trying to rip on them, if they work for you and your situation that's awesome. But there's no way they are in any way cheaper or easier.
Agree with you wholeheartedly now man hahaha just shut down my ez cloner it was killing all my clones nothing easy about this my plugs rooted better. Back to domes and plugs.