We wanted a real test run, right? Luckily the same buddy had dried 8 plants and let me take it home to trim for him 
actually gotta go weigh it quick in the bags before I get started for a rough starting weight⌠Theyâre all grapefruit ibl from Canada according to my buddy I call Strain keeper, amateur breeder with a real knack for eyeing genetics.
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K so doing almost a half pound at once was a lot for it but it did 90% of the work, some happy hands⢠leaves still holding on proudly but break a few of those off and youâve got nugs like the very bottom pics. Does do better on smaller quantities. I did 11.5 ounces from the post before this till now plus pics and typing and getting ready for bed n shit but you get the point. Still got one big bag left to do but Iâm gonna make him come help so he can check it out.
Really fucking love this thing.
The big run went 15 full minutes and the smaller two from the end pics were around 7.
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Iâll have to remember to use my 1000x microscope and check the trichomes, see if theyâre battered and bruised or not
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Use it!
When I started cloning, I tried using jiffy pellets, rapid rooters, etc, and failed miserably every time.
I came across plans for an aeroponic cloner. And WOW, that thing was literally auto-cloner, except it didnât cut the clones itself.
My cloner was a DIY version of this basically. âUnder the bedâ rubbermaid box, 36 holes cut in the lid w/ 36 little pieces of pipe insulation to hold the cuttings. Inside the rubbermaid I had an airstone with a GOOD supply of air, and⌠an aquarium heater! I believe the heater is a crucial piece here. Eventually (after ruining 2 cloners) I put in a float valve / top off. If ya let it go till the water evaporates, the heater burns the rubbermaid, makes a leak, and then cracks, learned the hard way (not once, but TWICE).
So, get that setup, get the water temp up to 70-72F, make sure thereâs TONS of bubbles, and drop your cuttings in so their bottoms are 1/2" above the top of the water (getting sprayed by the bubble spray from popping bubbles), and walk away for 10-14 days. NO nutes, NO additives at all, just plain well water. The cuttings should have 3-4 closer nodes at the top, and on the 4th of 5th node from the top, you cut just below the node on a 45 degree angle, and strip the leaves on that node. On all the other fan leaves, I cut them in half to minimize transpiration. Typically, thereâs about 2" of stem below my foam pipe collar, and 2" of plant above.
Once I made that cloner, my success rate skyrocketted⌠almost 100% overnight. Never looked at rapid rooters again unless I am planting seeds.
Do note, this relies heavily on a good airpump (Alita AL6a or AL15A here with a 12" airstone - dual use for my koi pond in winter). The popping action of the air bubbles is what keeps the stem moist, but not rotting. So make sure the stems are just above the water and not IN itâŚ
Another method of cloning that I will be testing for my ladies this summer is something called an âIntermittent Mist Sand Bedâ. I made two beds several years ago that are 4âx10â and use them to clone / root all sorts of ornamentals for the yard (Coleus, russian sage, purple smoke bush, montauk daisies, purple sandcherry, etc, thereâs literally hundreds of landscape plants that are easily multiplied this way). In essence, this is a 4âx10â x 6"deep sandbed with coarse sand (fine sand doesnt drain well). I have 4 misters connected to an irrigation valve to cover the entire bed. I have a Galcon timer for the valves (24 volt lawn sprinkler ones), and the TIMER is key! You want to be able to set it to open / close cyclically, and with a start / stop time or operating window. Simply put, my timer starts misting the plants for 10 seconds, every 10 minutes, from 7am to 7 / 8pm. So to root stuff, I just take a bunch of cuttings (new growth tips are awesome), strip the bottom 1 or 2 sets of leaves from them, cut a line in the sand (2-3" deep) with a spackle knife, drop the cuttings in and firm the sand around them. Forget about them for two weeks, then come back to fully rooted cuttings ready to be transplanted into soil.
I actually am testing this method now, I have a few plants outside that were sold to me as Photo seeds, and turned out to be autos⌠Didnât learn this until after I topped them all. So when I topped them there were no flowers and I said âfuck it, instead of just composting the tops, why not toss em in the mist bed and see what happens? Worst case is I give the neighbor a few small clonesâ Well, that was a couple weeks ago, and the cuttings are not only hanging on, but three are showing flowers now (right in time with the parents). I am gonna try to dig / replant them in some soil and finish budding them, but they may take the record for smallest plant with a bud because they are literally 3" tall, and maybe a nug on each, but that nug WASNT there when I topped em! (if it was, I wouldnt have topped em, and I would have found out earlier that they were autos).
Of course, when my photos that turned out to be photos get big enough, I plan to try cloning them in the mist bed as well, but thats a few weeks away yetâŚ
Hope this helps a little with making lots of happy little plants!
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Putting a heat mat under the tote is a better option than an aquarium heater. You wont have to worry about melting the tote. 
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Good point⌠I was recycling / repurposing what I had on hand I would be curious if a heat mat would struggle to keep temps up in the tote (having never done it myself, I do have a 24x48 heatmat here for veggies I might try with now that you mention it, but that thing is way bigger than my tote). I swear, I feel like my grow area is a mad scientists lab at times 
lol
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Ive used a mat for a long time with no problems.
This is a link to my cloner. Same idea as yours.
My homemade bubble cloner
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Nice, thats exactly the same, including no nutes in the water. And I agree, its set and forget, walk away, come back to roots in 2 weeks, 100% success rate. That might also be another reason why I put the topoff in the tub, laziness (or forgetfullness, always forget to topoff the cloner). Have a bunch of em, so I will still add to the next cloner, but I am gonna try the heat mat for sure!
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Choppy cause TMobile sucks Iâll reupload later at home n hope for not so choppy quality
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Iâm definitely interested in a microscopic view of trichomes that have been in the trimming machine. I know this guy who uses a salad bowl trimmer and his weed looks like someone got down in there and kicked all the trichomes over. I was wondering if it was from the trimmer or something else.
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Iâll have some pics over the weekend, it was after 10pm last night and Iâm at work now. Iâm super curious as well, the weed is dry which means trichomes are brittle so itâs an important factor
I am amazed by all your set up man, it keeps getting better! Your happy place makes me happy too! 
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So itâs literally an irrigation system you built, thatâs sweet as fuck. You described an outdoor lawn irrigation system almost to a T just on a mini scale.
Thanks a shit ton for spending so much time and energy writing all of that, I genuinely appreciate it
I will be giving the cloner another shot in the future for sure, just plain well water and air stones added into the reservoir, probably 2-3 medium sized cylinder type was Iâm using in my bubble buckets and my heatmat under it.
I think all the technicality of choosing where to clone is gonna be a little difficult to learn from just reading cause I canât quite picture it in my mind
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Also, I put this bubble insulation stuff underneath my heatmat so thereâs extra heat radiated upwards, itâs from home depot, I use it for a floor and one wall in my grow room, 95% reflective or something and insulates as well
It pretty much is, with slightly different components other than the valves themselves. Instead of sprinklers, I have a length of 3/4" poly, with 1/4" feeders off that that go to the mister heads. Fine mist is what you want. The unique component is the irrigation timer. Standard Hunter / Orbit / insert big name here wonât work because they canât do short, repetitive cycles. When I built this, that timer was almost impossible to find (Galcon), but now its easy to get. I remember paying like $50 for a âGrow Your Own Incomeâ system mainly to get the plans for the mist beds (also didnt hurt to get a big list of all the plants the author propagated in it). Setting up the timer wasnât intuitive, but thereâs now 3 or 4 YT videos describing the process. Obviously this is all outside by the veggie garden, partially shaded behind the shed, but uses surprisingly little amount of water. 10 seconds every 10 minutes translates to the system is on for 1 minute every hour, or 12-13 minutes total in a day its spraying. I calculated the water usage to only be a few gallons a day with everything going⌠Each mister uses like 4gph, so it really doesnât add up with the short âonâ timesâŚ
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Iâve had good luck with this trimmer thought I had a video only have a picture twister t 4 has interchangeable drums for wet and dry trimming . Does a nice job and not much damage to the buds if youâve got the vacuum attachment any lost crystal is captured for hash or sifting .
Also wet trim youâll loose less trichâs then when itâs dry .Both will do decent bag appeal with minimal hand touch ups.
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Lemon Skunk trichomes
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Romulan Grapefruit trichomes
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