Hey guys, this will be my first time posting/asking questions publicly about growing, I've been growing for the last.. jeez probably 7 years now and I've kept completely solitary about everything. I've done years worth of reading and studying many aspects of growing, about 7 years of actual practice, but now I'm faced with a question that I'd really rather go public with than just trial and error it alone. This is my first time attempting to clone, every single grow I've ever done has all been from seed, but now I'm looking to make the move to cloning. I cut 6 or 7 clones about 4 days ago, they all started to do "the droop" within the last hours of the first day of cutting them, now 4 days later they're all drooped to hell and I've cut more clones. Apologies for the long post, I'll try and get to it now.
I'm using 1.5" rockwool plugs, not cubes, individual plugs soaked in a very weak nute solution (1/8 tsp per gallon) 5.5 pH solution for 12 hours before use, then I take the plugs out and shake (don't squeeze) them over my sink precisely 8 times until a nice amount of water has been flung out, I then rehydrate them in the same solution I soaked them in, but brought up to 6.5 pH, then repeat the 8 shake step with the plugs again.
●The first time cutting the clones●, I make a general (not 45°) cut on the cutting that I want, and immediately throw it into a cup of water which is never more than 6" away from me (to cut the cutting and have it in water in under a second) I then brought the cuts out of the water, made the 45° cut and dipped it into the gel (Rapid Clone by Cropmax, came with my humidome, .6% IBA content) and placed into the plugs and that's it. That's how I did the first round of clones that haven't bounced back yet.
The second round of clones that I just cut this morning (4 days after the first batch of clones) followed the same soak procedure, except I made my general cuts off of the mother plant and threw it in the cup of water, BUT, I made my secondary 45° cuts underwater and scraped all my stems underwater aswell (didn't scrape the first batch of clones) and I also wish-boned one of my new cuts aswell.
So here we are, 4 days in with the first batch of clones that haven't bounced back, and less than a couple hours of the second batch of clones being cut. They're under a "humidome", but also sitting on a macroplug tray to keep them off of the bottom of the dome, they're sitting under a 125w blue cfl that's kept roughly 1.5' - 2' above the dome, and the dome gets sprayed 2 times a day, the clones have just recently been getting a very light misting during those 2 times aswell, the vent holes have been completely closed on the dome since day 1 (as far as I know, they need to be kept closed until clones start to bounce back) and now I'm really just waiting. Waiting and searching for answers as to what I did wrong or if they'll bounce back.
So thus ends my hour or so long explanation, apologies for the length of this, but I'm really just throwing this out there without expecting a response at all, though thank you very much in advance to anyone who does