I have always just used good ol' fashion H2O in my cloning machine and had a decent success rate, but now I want to try and hit 100% because it seems almost entirely possible. First of all, do you still dip the cuttings in the cloning gel? This seems a little counter productive like the cloning machine would just wash it away, Unless you have to let it sit for a little while, but I could use a little clarification on that. Secondly is obviously the res of water, I have been trying to do some research but it seems that nobody has asked the exact question of what to add to the Res to help, and how much to add. When I first started growing I was told that all plants could handle for the beginning was just water and that's it, so that's all I have used, but then I have seen that I can increase my success rate by putting certain liquids in the water, but don't want to kill a couple dozen clones trying to figure it out on my own. So I was just wondering what the best kind to use was, and how much of it I needed to use.
It's also important to remember that I have used the most simple cloning machine possible, which was just the plants sitting in a bin with a couple aerostones. I am going to actually follow the "Let's build a cloning machine" guide and make one, and I just read that he gets 100% success with just water, so that's another factor if anyone feels like touching on.
I almost always have 100% success rate cloning using rockwool cubes, cloning powder and a humidity dome. Keep it simple is my motto and this system is simple and very effective.