thats too long. water will over heat, plants will suffer, unit leaks too......jk
That is incorrect, you can run 24/7 as stated just fine... but if temps without the pump running are gonna get u in the high 70's low 80's, it would be wise to add something like h202 or even regular 3% hydrogen peroxide to keep shit somewhat sterile-ish... but it's also a good move to add a timer but most certainly not necessary....
Hey guys, Im going to be using this aerocloner I built. Holds about 3-4gallons of water under where the mist nozzles will be. As you can see in my design I have the pump which is a fairly large 390gph mounted directly inline with my pvc piping. Also an air pump and air stone to keep things fresh and moving, but I doubt one 7" air stone will blow bubbles to wet the stems even during pump off? (experience on that one?) I am still waiting on my 360* misters and net pots/inserts in the mail.
I plan on running the pump 30on / 30off as that is the minimum setting on my timer. WIll this suffice? I will monitor water temps and place the unit where the temps are in the 75* range, which Im thinking may just be on the carpet in a heated room, but I have the option to run it on a cool basement floor, or I even have a reptile heat pad that is as large as the container.
The goal is to simply root cuttings and transplant to coco/fabric pots when I have good roots
I used to fill my over priced store bought cloner (that I wouldn't trade for anything but a bigger one if I had the need for more) with straight tap water, loosely add roughly a couple oz's of regular 3% peroxide, let it run for a day and then add my cuts, worked like magic... gorgeous roots with as little as 7-10 days and be ready to plant.. but I moved to a different town, and it obviously has different water... i started my first batch using my proven method as usual and the first go round at the new casa all died... not a good start.... then the following 2 or 3 batches took almost a month to produce barely plantable roots with roughly a 50% success rate...
I clean my cloner neurotically and have been using it the same way for as long as I've had it which it's been so long I couldn't even put a time frame on it with 99.9% success forever and then I had all these issues... I bought new pucks, tried cleaning it with bleach rather than the usual 29% h202... still no progress...then halfway through the first week of like my 4th batch a light went on and I figured out it could only be the water...
I decided to change the water out and use my RO water that I use for all my other plants... RO is wasteful so I try to not use it where I can get away with tap but the switch to RO, some GH rapid start along with tinkering with a timer... I got well rooted clones roughly 2 weeks after I switched up the water mid cloning session which I've never done...
But my first batch using the RO and rapid start from day 1 got me back into the 2 week time zone I was looking for...
I've found the best results with a timer to be 15 on 15 off... 30/30 is also fine.... but the shorter the start/stop cycle... the more you kill the pump... most all electric equipment, especially things like pumps and lights etc... the hardest part is start up... but that being said; I still run 15/15... even the people who made the ez cloner state you get the best results using a timer... aside from that don't go crazy with the bottles of snake oil even though I've currently resorted to using rapid start... either rapid start or power clone (mucho $$$) from botanicare are worth buying... some people say superthrive but I've had good results in the past without even using cloning gel..
Didn't enter aeroponics yet (got booster pumps and teflon misters) but isn't the point of aeroponics to have root zone suspended in FINE NUTRIENT MIST?
Yes aeroponics is using a fine nutrient mist constantly... but that's for plants that already have a root zone that need food etc... cloning and germing seeds works well with an drying off period as well as it keeps temps lower especially you're using a smaller resivoir... but as mentioned it beats the pumps up, but worth imo... I wouldn't go as far as some do with 1 on 4 off etc... I think the 15 minute point is the best so far but different conditions..water, room temp and humidity also play a role so different strokes for different folks...