first time Aeroponics Q:

this is my first time growing with Aeroponics and but not with hydro I have made a cloner / grower how long do I keep the water on in cloneing / veg / flower stages
thx

in cloning you can change the water daily, or every 2-3 days especially at the start of cloning since thats the most delicate phase. if thats a problem and you want to save water, you can just top the cloner with water and get H2O2 to keep it clean. this way you could go the whole cloning period with same water. in veg and flower stage you can change your water anywhere between 10 and 30 days some might even go the whole grow but a general rule of thumb is every couple weeks

thank you for that but I really wanted to know how long to keep the pump on spraying the roots in cloning veg and flowering

from what ive read and my current expeirience you can leave them on 24-7 if you have a bubble stone or air source. i leave mine on 24-7. i have read about a few guys that turn them on and off in 1 minute cycles. which seems kind of odd but they say it works as well.

I run mine 30sec - 1 min ON (depending on size of plant) 5 min OFF. This allows the hydroton/roots to dry out a little between each spraying and for the magdrive pump to cool down. Running it 24/7 would strip the water of all the iron (from what I'm told) and heat the water up promoting bacterial growth (the bad kind). You will need a good timer for this, and they aren't cheap. I use a CAP ART-DNe. You should put a cheap waterpump in the reservoir to recirculate the water and keep your nutes properly mixed.

For clones it seems reasonable to spray them constantly until they root, i'm a bit of a noob. I cloned into Rapid rooters and stuck those in net pots.

Bobull: There's always another way of doing it. If you're not trying for a high volume crop many of you might consider this. I use a starter tray with a two foot T-5 light rack over it for cloning. I like it because it's so simple.

I treat my rock wool cubes, make my final cut under water, immediately dip my cuttings in Technaflora's cutting gel and stick them in the holes I made in the cubes with a skinny bamboo bar-b-cue skewer. I run the lights on them 18 on and 6 off.

My cloning system is a combination of three trays and a dome. The bottom one is your standard black plastic tray about three inches deep. The second one fits neatly inside the first one and it has a coarse plastic screen bottom that roots can get through. The top one has fifty squares with drainage holes at the bottom for cloning or starting seeds. It's all topped off with a large humidity dome with adjustable vents. I think the whole things cost me about twenty bucks, if that much, and it makes a lot more than I can use.

The cuttings are already saturated so I just fill the nutrient level to the screened bottom of the middle tray and cover it with the humidity dome. I use Technaflora's cutting and seedling formula and I change it about every week or so. I foliar feed my babies two to three times a day and I've had about a 75% success rate. I was happy with that but my friends at the hydro store said if I could improve my average if I used a heat mat. I bought one and next time around I'll try it. I haven't added an air pump because so far I haven't felt the need for it.