FWIW I have never used a dome. My timer works on a 15 on/15off. But I see no reason your 1on/7off wouldn't work.
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DIY Aero Cloner the EZ-Cloner Replica in 10 Easy Steps!
- Thread starter KingRalph
- Start date
FWIW I have never used a dome. My timer works on a 15 on/15off. But I see no reason your 1on/7off wouldn't work.
great thread... so easy and so many roots! i built myself one of these about 10 years ago and t still puts out mad roots. also for anyone who is to lazy to do the aero ponic set up... you can just get your rubbermaid container, cut out the neopren sites and throw a few airstones in that mother and you get mad roots quick. i prefer the actual misters (true aeroponics) but the latter works almost as well if not the same succes rate, close to 100% my aero cloner always roots unless the cut is damaged and suffers shock.
GreenGrocer
Active member
Thanks so much for this thread. I just made my first Cloner and yoru directions were the BOMB....Much appreciated!!!
JointOperation
Active member
I built a few.. they work..... I left mine on.. but depending on ur water temps.. u might need to do on and off like that..
but in all seriousness.. the only time ive ever needed to do that on and off.. was in the summer with a hot week.
and if ur having issue.. ill say it again.. grab some Anti Wilt.. spray the clones either before u take off the mom.. or after doesn't matter. but deff spray them after u put them into the cloner.. let them dry.. and then spray them 1 more time..
basically .. I have found 2-3 sprays will help keep them nice and green until rooting..
so if having any issues.. I would TRY that first.. then make sure ur water temps are ok.. 75-80 worked great for me.. but I just saw a dude on the mag say he has been using low 90s and having ridiculous amounts of roots popping out ... but I have no clue what hes using in his water to keep from stem rot..
I would be cautious on temps over 72 for a period of 48 hours. your tempting rot root. Your rez will take on ambient temps. So if your room is 80 your water will be there is 2 -3 days max. Great pics on how to set that cloner up. I bought a 144 unit turbo cloner for $400 I think I can make that for under a $100.
Thanks for the replies. Will try to get some anti-wilt. Just used it again, and got about 40% rooting. Will have to keep track of what I did to each one, next time (scrape, cuts, etc.).
The only problem I have with homemade cloner, built from Home Depot's biggest bin, is leaking, even with weatherstripping.
Kombat Weed
Member
Lots of stuff!!!
DAVES NOT HERE
Member
this thread rocks, not going to buy another ezcloner again
I bought a 12 pack of OG Tahoe clones about a week and a half ago. I treated these little ladies well. I trimmed them up and gave them a dip in the cloning gel and put them in the sweet bubbler that I built and waited. Several days went by and squirting and spritzing them every hour or so but nothing. After a week, not even a nub. The little ladies were losing color, slumping, and dieing. I could not sit by and wait for them to bounce back.
So five days ago I built the aeroponic cloner. I transferred all of the clones none of which had roots and within two days I had several clones with roots nearing a half inch. Three days later and most of my plants have roots. Most of these little clones have 2 inch roots and it hasn't even been a week.
It worked so well, I carefully pulled my seedlings out of their rockwool and put them in the cloner. They were doing well but now they are thriving and have incredibly healthy roots.
I would absolutely recommend a aeroponic cloner as it gives amazingly fast results. I paid about $125 for mine which is 55 clone machine. Even if I had to pay 3 times this it would be worth it. If you are going to clone, build yourself one of these.
So five days ago I built the aeroponic cloner. I transferred all of the clones none of which had roots and within two days I had several clones with roots nearing a half inch. Three days later and most of my plants have roots. Most of these little clones have 2 inch roots and it hasn't even been a week.
It worked so well, I carefully pulled my seedlings out of their rockwool and put them in the cloner. They were doing well but now they are thriving and have incredibly healthy roots.
I would absolutely recommend a aeroponic cloner as it gives amazingly fast results. I paid about $125 for mine which is 55 clone machine. Even if I had to pay 3 times this it would be worth it. If you are going to clone, build yourself one of these.
Mine are about 8 inches below the net pot. If you think you are going to be too far away make your legs longer test it and then cut the legs down to work.
It is not as important as in hydro but I would and have ph'd mine. They work amazing!
I leave it on 24 7. Lights are on the same schedule. I will introduce a cycle once they have 4 sets of leaves which is when they get transferred to the veg room.
The simplest cloner is using an air pump + quality air stones. In the pic I am using a 3g bucket to feed my babies in twin totes. Since I use air stones to aerate the nutes I let the bubbles serve double duty to develop roots on my cuttings
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Clones now maturing
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View attachment 309306
Clones now maturing
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u know i seen some things that lead me to say that ph in the cloner does have some importance on root development. then if there is light nutes in the cloning solution, an ph is off, it could prevent nute uptake when the roots do develop. simple hydro fact.
just last week, i checked in at like day 8, some bark type bumps no roots, i left for 4 days an when i checked again it was the same. now at day 12. i normally see action by then, especially with the stardawg, i usually get action by day 8 or so.
i checked the ph, it was 7.4. i ph'd down to 5.6 knowing it would slowly rise. 2 days later roots where shooting out. So ya, i think ph does have an effect. 5.6-6.2 seems best for me...
bsafe
just last week, i checked in at like day 8, some bark type bumps no roots, i left for 4 days an when i checked again it was the same. now at day 12. i normally see action by then, especially with the stardawg, i usually get action by day 8 or so.
i checked the ph, it was 7.4. i ph'd down to 5.6 knowing it would slowly rise. 2 days later roots where shooting out. So ya, i think ph does have an effect. 5.6-6.2 seems best for me...
bsafe
AirCanada Seeds
New member
figured I would add a few tips i learned the hard way. I built a 60 site aerocloner. I didnt test it anywhere near enough, it worked really well in testing but i added air stones which caused havoc for along time until i figured out the issue.
Firstly i had too many heads. Less is more for certain. i would take the gph of the pump and divide it by 50 or so and that should tell you how many heads you can use (i suggest less). thats also assuming you use easy clone brand heads.
my mister heads ended up much too high up in the container and it led to many clone sites getting drenched, i would recommend having a seperate reservoir and cloner with an external pump. I couldnt get my water temps down to where i wanted (around 70f) and it was sitting on cold concrete floor in canada and still was 80f so i cant imagine anyone managing to get a good temp with an all in one cloner with pump on 24/7.
I guess maybe a simpler way would be to explain how i will rebuild it better.
I will be running 3/4" pipe through the side of the tupper ware container with a grommet low to the bottom which will seperate into two 1/2" lines which the heads are attached to. the cloner will sit over top of the reservoir and an external pump will pump the fluid into the cloner and gravity will drain it back to the reservoir.
I used ez clone collars which worked well and held in well but i would have liked netpots since they can be used to block spray if the stem is getting drenched, hydroton could also be added to block spray if needed.
Majority of the roots i had grow came from inside the collars probably because the stems were too wet so i would add extra rooting hormone to the area going in the collar since its pretty much the only place you can prevent it washing off right away.
If you make an all in one aerocloner and want to add airstones then be sure you must add ways for the air to escape easily or it will blow out your seals and push water out places that used to be sealed.
I will add with all the issues i had I did have around a 93% rooting percentage but i thought i had screwed up badly with so many issues due to incomplete testing and last minute additions and I potted at around day 10 and the shock will probably caus me to lose some but they did have atleast root nubs growing on basicly all of them. For a first time using one i was pretty shocked at how many rooted. I think i could have hit 100% if i had some experience with the cloner.
Firstly i had too many heads. Less is more for certain. i would take the gph of the pump and divide it by 50 or so and that should tell you how many heads you can use (i suggest less). thats also assuming you use easy clone brand heads.
my mister heads ended up much too high up in the container and it led to many clone sites getting drenched, i would recommend having a seperate reservoir and cloner with an external pump. I couldnt get my water temps down to where i wanted (around 70f) and it was sitting on cold concrete floor in canada and still was 80f so i cant imagine anyone managing to get a good temp with an all in one cloner with pump on 24/7.
I guess maybe a simpler way would be to explain how i will rebuild it better.
I will be running 3/4" pipe through the side of the tupper ware container with a grommet low to the bottom which will seperate into two 1/2" lines which the heads are attached to. the cloner will sit over top of the reservoir and an external pump will pump the fluid into the cloner and gravity will drain it back to the reservoir.
I used ez clone collars which worked well and held in well but i would have liked netpots since they can be used to block spray if the stem is getting drenched, hydroton could also be added to block spray if needed.
Majority of the roots i had grow came from inside the collars probably because the stems were too wet so i would add extra rooting hormone to the area going in the collar since its pretty much the only place you can prevent it washing off right away.
If you make an all in one aerocloner and want to add airstones then be sure you must add ways for the air to escape easily or it will blow out your seals and push water out places that used to be sealed.
I will add with all the issues i had I did have around a 93% rooting percentage but i thought i had screwed up badly with so many issues due to incomplete testing and last minute additions and I potted at around day 10 and the shock will probably caus me to lose some but they did have atleast root nubs growing on basicly all of them. For a first time using one i was pretty shocked at how many rooted. I think i could have hit 100% if i had some experience with the cloner.
Thanks for starting this thread. I have a 54 site aerocloner as well. I did not add air stones to my cloner because I figured the water is being shot through the air in mist form and landing on root/stalk suspended in air. It felt incredibly redundant to use an air stone. I could see how a well-sealed cloner would need to have some pressure relief.
This is interesting to me. I have about 20 sprayer heads and would not mind having 20 more due to them getting clogged over time. How many gallons of water does your pump push every hour? Mine does about 600 gallons.
I think there are some issues that one could face when deciding how many misting heads to buy given a pump. My biggest concern has been if I have too few heads then the pressure would be too great and the water would cut into tender roots. Too few heads would also mean that I would not get the coverage that is needed.
Having too many heads also introduces issues the main one I see is that the pressure would drop too low and not work at all.
Height is a huge concern. The nozzels spray up about 4-6 inches. I did not know this when I built mine but thankfully I "dry fit" everything and then tested the water sprayers. I had my level a little off. As long as everything was soaked I was happy.
Water temps are a constant issue with all-in-one cloners. There are a few ways to deal with this. One, add ice or a frozen jug of water to it every day. 2. get a chiller (expensive) 3. change the water weekly.
That being said, it is not a huge concern for me. As long as I change the water once every month and add water to it the clones do well and can stay in their for quite some time. I currently have some in the cloner that has been there for at least 6 weeks. I haven't changed the water. I have added nutes and cold water but I have only changed the water once in the past six weeks. It is probably time to do it again. This is not ideal but they will live and they will thrive once they are moved into the RDWC/DWC/Soil depending on what I feel like.
However, the cooler the water temps the better. 60 degrees would be great.
If I under stand this right the idea is that if you removed the pump it would remove the heat source of the cloners root environment. I think it will help but I do not think it is going to help out as much as one might think because it is a sealed environment it will naturally build heat (without anything but water and air), what it needs is to pump that stagnant air out and replace it with cooler air. If you could build an air manifold that has a fan attached to it to suck out the hot air and a cold air intake that would help out quite a bit. It may be easier than trying use an external pumping system.
I assume "ez clone collars" are those foam collars that you put your cutting in and then stick it in a hole. I use those in a net pot but I have to cut the bottom out of the net pot so the roots do not get tangled in them.
*I like to take remove the clones from the mediums when transferring them to the next stage. I take them out of rockwool, netpots, and collars when I transplant them.
I don't use rooting compound in the cloner, usually. If you do use it, let the plant sit in it for 10 minutes before putting it in your cloner so that the plant will absorb some of the active ingredients. I have tried it both ways and found that it made no difference in my cloner to use cloning powders/solutions/gels. I usually just put tap water in the cloner without any sort of nutrient. I also cut 1/3 off of the leaves so that it forces the plant to grow roots quickly.
That makes sense to me. I had leaking issues with my cloner the first time I used it. I fixed that by taping plastic sheeting that hangs down and is tucked between the cloner frame and the container. Water tight!
Aerocloners are awesome for the success rate and as you have pointed out there are some challenges with them. I would do it all over again with the cloner. It is a very successful method though there are some things that quite frankly are a pain in the ass.
