are you running the pump constantly? that could be it, water temps should be around 68-72 degrees with 72 i think being optimal, my buddy has my ezcloner and he uses a chiller to keep it down, roots cuts in 5-7 days. get a timer with minute or 5 minute off on times and have in cycle. as long as the pump doesnt continuously run the water keeps it cool, no temp fluctuations and no grey stringy shit.
Hello mate, thanks for the reply. I am running the temps at 75 which I read was the best temp, when you say pump you mean the air pump? I have that on all the time but I thought you need the bubbles to keep it all moist? I am heating with an aquarium heater. I have done one lot which worked fine, roots in about 10 days, but this one had some bad shit get in there, it seems fine now, but I will try just turning down four or five degrees, thanks again.
I've had virtually 100% success with cloners I made that is very much like Yoda's. I haven worried about the water temp. It stays somewhere near the same as the grow room is. I don't add anything to the water. It is ph 6.5 tp 7. I dip the cut into cloning gel as soon as I cut it. I use a 4" air stone from walmart and a really cheap air pump. $8 for a one outlet or $27 for a 4 outlet one on ebay for the cloner and 3 other things. I now have everything in 5 gal. bubble buckets; cloner, grow, and flower. I use a 10,000 lumen 2 ft. 4 bulb cfl growlight over the cloners. I put cuts in 1/2" neoprene cloning plugs. From there I go directly into Hydorton in a 8" net pot bucket top. Here is a pic of the cloner. The one in the bottom left is the only failure I've had in the passed 8 or 9 runs.
Hi pot head thanks for the reply, I now have roots! They have taken about ten days to happen but the plants are starting in flower (I lost all my day 21 cuts!) when I checked them today I had about 4 with roots but there was a small bit of crap in there again, I guess there is a little left on the cuttings? I sterilised about ten days ago and changed out the water. The mold looks like small strings of fluff out of the bottom of your pocket! Anyway I have sterilised everything and filled the system back up and put her going again. The heater is turned down to 20c which is about the same as the ambient air temperature, fingers crossed. I will get a pic or two on line in the next day or two, I have tweaked the design using an acrylic sign that I had lying around which I used for the top, it's very robust and I have glued two strips down the sides so that you can take the cutting out and stand them on the table whilst you check reservoir level ect. I also used some air tube for an air curtain, I pricked a loop of tube with a hot pin and I have found it better than the air stones which are all cheap Chinese crap which more often than not are broken when you buy them, anyway life beckons...
Pics would help. Are you still trying with cuttings that have started to rot? Good luck with that! Do you still have the mother plant? If possible I recommend starting over with new cuts. Also, was the mother plant you took the cuts from in flower when you took the cuts? Tell me how you made your cuts and how you prepared them. Did you dip them in cloning gel, powder or liquid? Did you scrape the stem? You did use neoprene cloning plugs didn't you? Did you put anything in the water or use plane water? Say it all again. Maybe this time you'll come up with the clue you need to understand what went wrong. Sometimes everything does just go all to hell. Maybe this is just one of those times.
I think that might be the problem. You didn't put the water deep enough to cover the tips of the cuts. I always put the cuts far enough through the plugs that they are at least a half inch into the water. I think this is important! The cut in the pic I showed didn't penetrate the water.
Right then from the top, No I started with new cuts, they were taken from my plants which I grew from cuttings and are now in flower in the grow room. The first cuts were taken at 21 days after they went into flower (this is what I always do, there are no flowers showing and they take real well) when I had the mold I binned them and started afresh, my new cuttings are just starting to show flowers but they are rooting after about ten to fourteen days. I do have a mother but I have just root pruned and repotted her after keeping her in the cupboard over winter and she is in the greenhouse re vegging ready for next crop. When I took the cuts I followed the same procedure as I always do, take cutting from plant, place in cup of water (just the end) then take a scalpel and trim end at forty five degrees whilst still under water. I then scraped the side gently with a blade, dipped in gel, placed in neoprene plug and put them going in the cloner which I had started up the day before. Just plain water was used. I have taken hundreds of cuttings before and never had problems like this but I am new to the bubble cloner, is all I can guess at is that a few microbes got in there and then you have the ultimate environment to grow mold and shit as well as roots? I have always kept the cuts quarter of an inch from the water as this is what I read in a tutorial, food for thought that is as the cuts I have now are taking in that position. Once again thanks for taking the time to reply man, I can feel the love reaching across the ocean, off to take some pics for you all, laters.
hope this works. The pics are of the bubbler, the cuttings and the plants in the grow room, 9 x white skunk females that are 2 weeks away from harvest. these are the plants the cuttings were taken from but before they went into flower.
The pics all look good to me. I just can't see any reason it got all messed up. If you did everything the same as usual and you nearly always get good results it makes me think it is just one of those times it all just goes all to hell.
if you happen to get some bacteria in there they will go sour.. allot of times being a lil to warm can cause this..glad to hear its going well now.. pics look great...thanks for chiming in oldpothead..Cheers
Yoda brings to mind something I don't remember either one of us mentioning. Sterilization! Did you decontaminate everything with bleach before setting up the failed attempt?
Morning all. Yes pot head I did sterilise everything, it all seems good now, the only difference is I am running a few degrees lower, I maybe missed something on the clean up, also I am working in sheds not laboratory conditions. For what it's worth I took a few cuttings and put them in rockwool blocks when I got this lot going and none of them have rooted yet so the bubbler is qauicker or more efficient method, so thanks Yoda. @yoda, what do you think of my lid design? It only came about because it was what I had lying around but I find the fact you can stand it on a surface without messing with the roots good. Thanks for your input guys, I think that, fingers crossed this is put down as one of those things, it's good sometimes to as Pot Head said to really break down and examine your methods sometimes, also it shows what a great facility this is, thanks again, I will let you know how the little ladies do. I have my nine that I need to keep me ticking over, Bye for now.
Also another quickie for Yoda, how far do you position your cuts from the water, a quarter inch or like pothead just touching the water?
I am late to the show again as usual. This is another fantastic guide. It was easy to follow and fun to build. Im glad it was a lot less pain on the hands than cramming half inch black tubing into grommets. . I can't control the heater temp but it heats to a constant 80. The bottom of the reservoir has two 10" air stones. I didn't have access to any neoprene discs and I just couldn't bring myself to walkthrough Walmart with a big swimming noodle. So I picked up a 10 pack of nerf discs.They fit over the holes and with a gentle push they fit snuggly into the ring. I'll go to net pots soon but for the time it should work sufficiently. I figure when its time I can just cut the disc off if need be. I had a 100watt actual cfl before and replaced it with a 10watt actual one. From all the other things I've been reading this was previously way to much light for this. Would someone be able to confirm whether or not I have the light either to far away or to close?As a side note while I was preparing the cutting I noticed tiny water droplets flying out of the hole. This really tickled me. I've got the tip approximately a quarter inch above the water level and from what I saw it should be getting wet. Thank you again for a great guide. I swear I've lost today just reading.
Here are some shots of my previous cloning attempts. You can see the FCCC in there at the top of the greenhouse and my party cups just sitting out. I'm really hopeful for the new rig to work. I think my fail rate was partly due to the over wattage on light. All the CFLs have been swapped out for 10watt bulbs.
I use a 110w 2 ft. 4 bulb T5 HO that puts out 10,000 lumens about 4 or 5 inches above the cuttings in my cloner and nearly 100% root in 10 days or less.
Arghh. Having a hell of a time getting anything to root. Ive taken 20 or so cuttings over the last 3 weeks trying like hell to get some clones going. Out of those i did 10 in soil and I've since filled the "BC." So first attempts in soil I had 1 out of 10 take root and I think it's dead now. Lol. It still has a tiny bit of green left in it so maybe it will pull through but I'm not holding my breath. As far as the "BC" goes I've still had 0 success with this. I don't understand what it is I'm doing wrong. I've taken bigger sized cuts down to itty bitty cuts as long as they've had at least 3 nodes. I think the first issue I had was that I was using rootone inside the BC. I guess powder doesn't last very long when its getting hit with wet bubbles. So... Saturday I picked up a box of dip and grow and clonex solution. Recut all the bottoms at a 45 degree angle under water and left for approximately 15 minutes in the cup. I then scrapped off the outer layer of green down to the white layer and dipped them into the dip n grow stuff. Replaced my cheesy nerf discs with soft foam inserts. Now because I've essentially had no success I have some submerged and some suspended just slightly above the water line. Ok now for the rest of the stuff. At the time I did not have any clonex type stuff so I used a very low amount of maxigrow in the BC. Is this screwing me? The container roughly holds 12 to 15 gallons of water and I added 2 teaspoons of maxigrow and have been monitoring the pH level and keeping it at 5.8. Further reading and searching the forums lead me to a few posts of folks using a tiny bit of bleach in their water with success. Is this recommended? I have smaller containers at my disposal. Would it be worthwhile to dump all the contents, get a smaller amount of water going, use the clonex solution in there and move everything over? Lastly these cuts were all taken during flower as all the previous attempts failed horribly. The lighting is on 24 hours. With that being said I know that rooting will take longer so I assume I should have more patience. If I do scrap my current setup and start "fresh" should I scrap these cuttings as well? View attachment 1371356 The front row 2nd from the right was the transfer from soil. It was the only one with any roots to have formed. Its pretty sad looking now and I am also pretty sure its probably dead. I had started with 2 10watt CFLs as light but the cuts were wilting. I've added back in 3 100watt (250watt) cfl bulbs and placed this clear dome thing over the top. Patience and see or restart?