[easytoker]

Guys, I'm having the hardest time trying to clone my medicine and not sure what I'm doing wrong. I've tried both soil in cups and some gordon rockwool cubes I bought. They just eventually get yellow tips or curl under and die... no roots and I give them at least 10 to 14 days to start developing. I'm not sure if it's light, ph ..over watering or what. I poke holes in the plastic cups so the water can run off and the cubes are moist but not soaking wet. I've just bought a ph and ppm meter. The ph of my tap water is 8 and the ppm (tds) is 202, is this bad and do I need to buy RO filters or something? Also, I'm putting a little clonex on the cuts I take but from what I've read recently I'm suppose to be taking cuts that have a internode that can be below the medium. The room I'm trying to clone in is 72-80 depending on the time of day and I'm giving the clones 24 hrs light. I'm thinking the issues might be light or ph so I bought some GH ph down/up and plan on setting the tap water to 5.5. What kind of light has the best results? From my searches it seems T5's might work the best, lowes has some T8's at 17W a bulb but I'm not sure how many watts I need. It seems less is more when rooting but how much is less for say 1 to 2 squar feet? Walmart has a 17w linear fluorescent bulb with ballast for 10 bucks or lowes has a dual t8 setup with addon bulbs for $40. Also I'm seeing these LED shop bulbs, like fluorescent bulbs, at lowes in both dual and singular ballast for $40 bucks or so. One of my main questions about posting is ...does fluorescent or led root clones more efficiently? It seems like the fluoresent bulbs are what most people use but I don't mind spending a extra 10 dollars for led if they will produce the same or better and last a extra 3 years. And, then there comes into question the color rendering. Is there a particular color rendering that works better for clones? The local home depot and lowes have 4k but I can find 6500k online. I'm just trying to find the best way to clone at this point as I cant continue to buy the pricy seeds. Thanks in advance for any help!

[Dready_jake]

Any lighting will do but make sure its not intense at all. Too much light stops the rooting as it has to focus on using the energy in its leafs just to stay alive. I have used fluoros and LEDs and both work great. Pull the light away a bit.

Are you using a dome for humidity? Tell us more details about what you do

[Vape-pro]

Get a heatmat for your clone tray.

[easytoker]

I'm not too sure what is too much at this point, 13 watt 20 watt 30 etc. I'd like to buy a led strip due to led/s lasting 5yrs plus but most people seem to like fluros. Is there a color temp that stands out as being better? I'm on the fence as to led / fluro and at what wattage. I'll start looking at craigslist for a heat pad!

Thanks guys, I appreciate you!

[WelderDan]

You want indirect light. I have a shelf above the lights in my veg cab. It keeps the roots warm, and gets the perfect amount of light. I just use perlite as the medium and root-tone or take-root powder.

Also, you don't want too much in the way of leaves. I strip everything but the growing tip and one set of leaves. No dome, or even mist. Just keep the perlite wet. I get almost 100% success, even when I take cuttings from a flowering plant.

[DoubleTripleOG]

Originally Posted by WelderDan

You want indirect light. Also, you don't want too much in the way of leaves. I strip everything but the growing tip and one set of leaves. . I get almost 100% success, even when I take cuttings from a flowering plant.

I use this same process. Glad to read what you read. I have cloned from flowering plants(2-3 weeks into flower) and it always worked out good. But right now I'm cloning some buds(6 weeks into flower). So I'm hoping "our" method of cloning works on these.

[BadRabbit]

Originally Posted by easytoker

Guys, I'm having the hardest time trying to clone my medicine and not sure what I'm doing wrong. I've tried both soil in cups and some gordon rockwool cubes I bought. They just eventually get yellow tips or curl under and die... no roots and I give them at least 10 to 14 days to start developing. I'm not sure if it's light, ph ..over watering or what. I poke holes in the plastic cups so the water can run off and the cubes are moist but not soaking wet. I've just bought a ph and ppm meter. The ph of my tap water is 8 and the ppm (tds) is 202, is this bad and do I need to buy RO filters or something? Also, I'm putting a little clonex on the cuts I take but from what I've read recently I'm suppose to be taking cuts that have a internode that can be below the medium. The room I'm trying to clone in is 72-80 depending on the time of day and I'm giving the clones 24 hrs light. I'm thinking the issues might be light or ph so I bought some GH ph down/up and plan on setting the tap water to 5.5. What kind of light has the best results? From my searches it seems T5's might work the best, lowes has some T8's at 17W a bulb but I'm not sure how many watts I need. It seems less is more when rooting but how much is less for say 1 to 2 squar feet? Walmart has a 17w linear fluorescent bulb with ballast for 10 bucks or lowes has a dual t8 setup with addon bulbs for $40. Also I'm seeing these LED shop bulbs, like fluorescent bulbs, at lowes in both dual and singular ballast for $40 bucks or so. One of my main questions about posting is ...does fluorescent or led root clones more efficiently? It seems like the fluoresent bulbs are what most people use but I don't mind spending a extra 10 dollars for led if they will produce the same or better and last a extra 3 years. And, then there comes into question the color rendering. Is there a particular color rendering that works better for clones? The local home depot and lowes have 4k but I can find 6500k online. I'm just trying to find the best way to clone at this point as I cant continue to buy the pricy seeds. Thanks in advance for any help!

I use a small 2 bulb T5 with 1 red spectrum bulb and 1 blue, and it works great. I've heard LED works fine, just not too much as noted.

The thing I learned years ago about the water ... you can overthink it and just end up adding too much stuff, even just putting the up/down stuff in adds chemicals. Add clonex, a trace of nutes, ph down and all of sudden, it's just too much. Keeping ph in a reasonable range is good, but overall, my goal is to give clones just pure clean water. I used clonex and other similar before, but just gave it up as I don't find it necessary.

If you us RW cubes, which I use exclusively with great success, be sure to dig the hole down deeper from it's pre-drilled depth, that's for seeds. The clone wants to sit down so the tip is near, not through, the bottom of the cube.

Keep it simple, keep trying, they'll start to pop at some point.

[easytoker]

Thanks so much gents for all the kind help. I'm hopping to get decent at this so I can supply my self in the future. At lowes they have a ultratech led 2ft 20W led strip , looks like a fluro tube, for $30 and a two bulb version for $40. Also they have a 2ft dual fluro strip ballast setup for $20 and the aquarium tubes are $9. I know Fluros work but never used any led before. Also in walmart I saw the lights of america 17W 2ft plant growing fluro strip for $9.95 but I'm not sure of the color temp..seems to be maybe 4-5k. Leds seem to last longer with little heat which is the only reason I'm debating.

Thanks friends for the help, have a great fathers day!

-EasyToker

[easytoker]

Another question, how about no-damp? I've heard adding a fungicide to the water might be benificial so they don't get all nasty in such a humid condition. I might try cloning in 50/50 perlite and vermiculite in cups on a heat mat.

[C. Breeze]

You are making this difficult I think. Perlite, 1/4-1/2" water standing in the bottom of the container, a semi permeable cover if you are in direct light, no cover if in indirect light. You needn't reinvent the wheel I pull cuttings from flowering plants all the time. Well about 60% of the time. No additives or hormones or nutes or bullshit. I'll exho the 90% or so success of the others who use similar methods. Easy Toker- make you're cloning easier!!