DWC cloner ok?

[SamandMax]

Hi,
I am having issues at the moment with cloning in the humidity dome and certain mother plants. The clones take too long to root and the stems instead start to rot. As I have many clones it is difficult to control the humidity for all of them.

So I decided to build a DWC cloner. (I dont need a humidity dome with that).

But what I am worrying a bit with that one is, that it is not light proof. Is that a big issue?

Can I put h2o2 against bacteria and fungus in the water or will that hurt the rooting?

Temperature of the water is 16 degree celsius. Is that enough?

Using RO water. Tried to ph it, but I am not sure if that really works. I also put clonex on the stems.

I have GH Flora Bloom and Micro here. Should I put some nutes in? How much? Or will that cause bacteria to grow?

I have around 120 watts of t5 on them. Is that too much?

The yellow stuff swimming in the reservoir is from the foam, still falling out of the drilled holes. Shouldnt be a problem

Btw before building the dwc cloner, I put around 50 clones in some glasses with water. That was around 9 days ago. I didnt use clonex with them. The stems didnt get thick. Do the stems only get thick if you use clonex?

[beacher]

Try adding a small amount of bleach to keep things sterile. I don’t know the amount offhand but I know lots of people use it here (or pool shock) for that reason.

[SmknCanuck]

.25% or 2.5mil per litre of water for bleach…H2o2 will not hurt either thats what i use.I made a cloner also added a 1/4 strength gro-tek pro silicate and 1/4 strength ocean phytophlankton .took these cuttings 3 days ago and have them under a 200w equivilent led light.

[HolyAngel]

8% strength bleach I use ~0.2ml/gallon of water every ~3 days(72hrs) without issues. No fungus/rot/bacteria and happy plants.

Usually don’t need a lot of light for clones, seedling light levels are fine, like ~10k lux.

I’ve had the best luck getting roots the quickest with the water at PH 5.4-5.7.

[George]

I wouldn’t use RO water, tap water minerals are food for them. As they don’t have roots keep the leaves humid spraying them a bit, they “eat” also that way. You cannot use Clonex with water, I use it only in the part of the stem that touched the cork-sponge, it worked for me …

[JoeCrowe]

I don’t use rooting hormone at all, just a rubbermaid, some water and neoprene, oh yah and an air pump. You can add a low dose of nutrients, but then you have to make sure the neoprene never touches the surface of the water or the clones will die.

[George]

Nice trick cutting that neoprene to easy liberate the clone later on, much easier than making a hole like in my case , thanks for the tip …

[SamandMax]

Are you using tap water or ro water?
Why the clones die when the neoprene touches the solution if I add a small dose nutrients? Bacteria and fungus growing?

Thank you guys for your answers!

How long your clones take to root?

I have a 12% h2o2 here. The DwC cloner has 75 liters or around 20 gallons of water. What range of h2o2 could you recommend?

What you think about the temps? Will 16 degree celsius or 61 degree Fahrenheit ok?

I think you can use rooting hormone in liquids. First you can dip the stem in before putting it in DWC. Also I think you probably could mix it in the solution. But dont know how good that works. And I even read of people watering their motherplants with clonex water solution before taking clones.

I am wondering if there is a point when a clone does not get any roots anymore, or does a clone always root after some time (if it is not rotten of course)?

[JoeCrowe]

in general if light and nutrient mix the plant dies. I never checked which pathogen was doing it! Clones from further down the plant root slower, growing tips from the top of the plant root faster. usually from 4-14 days for them to root, but I’ve seen it take up to 30 days when it’s a lower branch and also in bloom already. I’m not sure about 16 degrees, should be ok I suppose, usually 18-20C cooler temps might slow rooting. I am using tap water not RO water. I never added peroxide but you probably want to be under 3% so I’d dilute it a minimum of 5 to 1. Also, I’ve never seen a clone not root if it doesn’t die. If light and nutrient mix the stem of the clone turns to green mush.

[SamandMax]

Ok, as in my setup there is not at all light proof, I think I should be very cautious adding nutrients?

[JoeCrowe]

in that case don’t add nutrients. It could be fatal. Just wait until some root lumps form then you can transfer to hydroponics with nutrient solution. If you are using a growing medium instead wait for actual roots or they could die from dehydration. I always try and ensure cloning root zones are dark.

[SamandMax]

some of the clones which I cut already around 10 days ago show a bit yellowing of leaves. (No roots yet, but in the humidity dome they would have been dead already). I read that the yellowing of the leaves is because of photosynthesis in the leaves. I wonder if I should reduce the lights?

You guys mentioned bleach or chlorine? Never used that stuff, but maybe it will come me cheaper than pouring always half a liter of h2o2 in the reservoir?

Can you tell what bleach or chlorine product is good? Maybe its good to buy the raw substance and not pay a brand name with unneeded additives???

[pufferfishfiend]

Ehh, I’ve successfully rooted without hormones in a non-light proof bubble cloner. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it but it’s possible.

Cloning ain’t a thing.

Just cut your clones, trim close to a node, peel some of the outer skin back, pop em into a neoprene collar and put them into your bubble cloner. I’ve found putting the clones so the actual cut is just below the water level is good, because as your cloner drops in water level it’s going to coax the new roots down.

These days I run a low EC dose of nutes to clone because I tend to let my clones develop more substantial root systems before I move them to their final home, and if I don’t dose it at the start I’ll forget I don’t know if it helps the rooting itself, but it doesn’t seem to hurt it.

I typically will get roots within 7-14 days of cutting, some more aggressive cuts have formed roots in as few as 5 days though.

[Foreigner]

I just use tap water pH to 6.0ish

No nutes
No hormone
No bleach

If I had to guess I’d say 16C is on the cold side. A little more heat could speed them up.

All the best

[SamandMax]

I noticed the water temperature fluctuates between 16 and 18 degree celsius. Under the lights it probably is more hot.

One third of the clones was cut around 14 days ago. No signs of roots. But they start showing a yellowing of leaves? Should i reduce the lights or feed them somehow?

Somewhere I did read the following:

One of the most common mistakes made when cloning happens before you even cut the clone. About a week before taking clippings, you should flush your mother plant with only a mild dose of nutrient. This will ensure that there are significantly lower levels of nitrates in the plants system. Cuttings will only “start” to produce roots once majority of nitrates have been metabolized, so starting with less nitrates is a must to guarantee roots in less then a week, not an E-Z clone machine…no offence.

Maybe it has to do something with the motherplants??? I have small motherplants maybe 30 centimeters in size?

Airpump delivers around 35 liters per minute or around 9 gallons per minute of air. In my reservoir is around 50 to 75 liters or 13 to 20 gallons.

[HolyAngel]

If the bottom of the stem is yellowing and hardening off, you can snip off a small section so it can try and root again from a fresh area. I had to do this last time.

The clones overall don’t look too bad yet. If they do get bad or you’re worried, you could always make up a small foliar spray to feed them while they try and root. I had to do this last time too as they didn’t have roots for 3 weeks.

Make sure the reservoir PH is 5.4-5.7. I couldn’t get roots until I lowered it there. Temp is a little low. 18c would be minimum really for any kind of decent rooting, just don’t wanna go over 23c or you risk rot.

[SamandMax]

Hmmm maybe I foliar feed a bit. How much percentage of full strength nutrients would you recommend.

I just got an aquarium heater and some chlorine powder.

The chlorine powder is for the pool. It says around 56% active chlorine… I need to figure out a proper dosage

[SamandMax]

almost day 20 for some and no roots. but some died of a root rot or something. Too me it looks very unusual.

I put in an aquarium heater to keep the temps at 20 degree celsius.

The chlorine I bought is a soidum version. I read it is not the best for the plants. Tomorrow I will get the calcium version. Then I start chlorinating the water. Before I was using h2o2…

My suspicion is that there is maybe some bacteria which is toxic to the roots in the reservoir.

Maybe the mother plants already had this in them.

Or it is a nutrient deficiency.

[JoeCrowe]

stems turned mushy and then shriveled up the clone?

[SamandMax]

I reduced the lights (because of yellowing the leafes) and actually now the clones look good, the yellowing didn’t progress (did a foliar feed also).

Some of the most oldest clones got mushy stems. Every now and them some of them had to be replace. But I would guess I lost only maximum 10 percent of them in a time frame of almost 3 weeks.

Idk… I hope at least the newer clones, now almost two weeks, will root.

I will add chlorine to the water. The hypochlorite isn’t there yet. Is it safe to use troclosene instead?

No root bumps on the stems to see or anything. Only the color changes to more of a brown the longer the in the water I guess…

I am going to do some more today and will put them in a different reservoir and put chlorine in it from the beginning.

I really dont know whats going on, I am used to around 7 days for getting roots…