By the way, awesome work on the scrog contraption, and the dollar tree is awesome, its like Lowes on "Cheap Steroids"
That is a slight pro and con of vermiculite. It retains more moisture than perlite, which is why you see so many recommending to mix. This would be great if the mix would stay throughout. But the perlite tends to rise up when watered, pushing the vermiculite to the bottom. You can clone in 100% perlite, but it is light and airy and the clones dont have the medium totally encompassing the stem at all times. I am fortunate that I am using 9 ounce cups and I bottom feed from the same rez. So I just transplant from the cloning mix to the same mix straight into flower and it stays pretty good throughout. All things considered, I am really hydro now, but passive. Once I get my pump setup, soon hopefully, I will be active hydro in an Ebb system till I engineer the Flo part of Ebb and Flo.