I am getting tired of buying rockwool and will be making an 8 site aeroponic cloner out of a 5 gallon bucket pretty soon. I saw a few setup's through google that I liked but they led me to a couple questions. 1) Does the reservoir on a cloner have to be light proof? Considering I won't be adding any nutrients to the water, there shouldn't be anything in it to cause bacterial or fungal growth. I saw a video of a clear reservoir grow and the roots didn't seem to have been effected by the light at all. They actually looked healthier than my current plans in 3rd week of veg. 2) I was thinking of going with a design that used a plugged garden hose with holes punched in it as a spiraling sprayer. I wouldn't mind spending a little money on PVC and legit aeroponic sprayers but I hear horror stories about clogging. If I am, once again, using water with no nutes (just PH down and superthrive) would clogging even be an issue?
The aeroponic sprayers clog mainly for two reasons. People are using very hard water with high mineral deposits in them.......and not cleaning them properly. Or they are using them to grow with nutes that have poorly dissolving salts (not designed for aeroponics). I'm afraid your idea of just plain holes would only dribble and not spray properly. As to the lightproof question, I would lightproof if I were you. The spoors we are trying to combat are microscopic and why would you give them any chance of survival when combating them is as easy as a can of black spray paint or a roll of aluminum ducting tape?
I've light proofed a LOT of reservoirs and I wish it was as easy as a quick coat of spray paint. HID lights are pretty intense and 4-5 layers of even paint rarely do the trick. Plus, aluminum taping is a pain in the ass. I'm still probably going to light proof, but I am just curious if it is even necessary under "ideal" water conditions. My tap water (unfiltered) runs at about 30 ppm (yes, 30, not 300) and I use an external filter for the non dissolved solids (rusty pipes) that drops me down to about 25 ppm. During flushing and cloning I normally buy R/O water from the store but reading into it, I have found that naturally low PPM tap water is extremely good for clones DUE to the chlorine. Something about aiding in nutrient uptake and average tap water doesn't have dangerous levels of chlorine in it anyway.