As a side note, if your tanks are undersized, the plants will use up water faster than they will use up nutes. This will cause the nute ppm to rise while the water level drops.
You must top up with plain water frequently in between bi-weekly tank dumps to keep nutrient strength from rising beyond your desired point (I use 1400ppm). There's a way to do it that will keep your nutrient strength more constant.

When topping up with plain water, put your nutrient meter in the tank and monitor the nute strength while adding water. When the meter reading drops to the correct point, stop filling the tank. The pH will have risen, so you will need to check it & adjust it down.

If your tanks' ppm persists in jumping up and requires a lot of attention as above to keep the nute strength down, get bigger tanks.

If tank sizes are ideally suited to the plants they are supplying, ppm will stay relatively constant even while the water level drops.

I accidentally happened upon this when rebuilding my op in a new location and had to replace 100L tanks with 125L units due to availability. The extra 25L was just enough to stop my tanks ppm from jumping up. Saves a lot of hassle messing with them.

Each tank serves 23-24 plants, so at present, there's about 5L of tank volume per plant. That's enough to keep ppm constant and leave about half of the mixing-day water level by day 14 of the life of the tank of sauce, assuring the pump remains submerged when the tray is being flooded.

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Get a harvest every 2 weeks - A batch of clones in rockwool - Al B. Gone

ok al...i've read almost everything you've written and like a stubborn ass still try to do it my way...you once said everything you do should be replicatable and i've done my mums just like you...tried cloning in rw like you do but i sucked at it. built an aerocloner and damned if it aint workin and makin me feel pretty darn pimpish (that's a good thing) but i have neglected you on the nutes...so if you please sir 1 more time for us slackers out here....your complete line of nutes so i can quit screwin round and go get em'.

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while i'm at it is there any other nutes you would recomend, that i can still run sterile with that might even be easier then cannas part a-b and pk13/14 bla blka bla???
would love it if i could just pour 500ml of xxx and would get my 1400ppm for flower. then 650 of xxx for my mums running around 1500-1800 (1600 usually) just lookin for any shortcut i can take to keep it simple!

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Aerocloners can work pretty well, I've used one before. I raise my plants in absorbent media instead of pellets and also had more reliable results from RW cubes and so ditched the aerocloner.

It is especially nice to have a rooted clone with no media attached for when you are going to raise the plant in pellets. A RW cube is a bit of a problem in pellets as it can be saturated frequently if not placed above the flood level, potentially causing overwatering-like problems in newly introduced rooted clones. If it works for you, good-o!

I use Canna nutes. Outside of Australia, the type I use is probably labelled 'Substra' but within Aus is only labelled 'Flores' or 'Vega.' Outside of nutes, I dose tanks with 50% grade H2O2 @ 1ml/L every 3-4 days and correct pH as needed on mixing day.

I've been sorting out the cause of a few leaves with cooked margins at the very end of flowering and have temporarily stopped using Canna's PK-13-14 in wk 5-6 to remove it as a possible cause. I'll probably start using it again soon. I think my leaves may just be getting a bit of wind damage from circ fans. Only plants near the circ fans are showing this and it's not really that bad.

That's it. No magic sauces.

If you have powdery mildew or bud mould happening in your op, get a sulfur 'burner.' The 'burner' doesn't really burn sulfur, rather evaporates it, making a very fine aerosol mist which totally stops any mould or mildew.

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Get a harvest every 2 weeks - A batch of clones in rockwool - Al B. Gone

There are some 1-part nutes out there- they are pretty rare. I have no idea why they are not more popular. May have something to do with the compatibility of the different nutrients in storage, but I'm not privy to all the ins & outs of nutrient chemistry to that level.

I do know that if you mix multipart nutrient concentrates directly together without first dissolving them in a large volume (say, a half full res tank) of water, the mixes will react and you actually can see crystallised materials fall out of solution.

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Get a harvest every 2 weeks - A batch of clones in rockwool - Al B. Gone

i tried you rw cube cloning and followed your guide to a T...1.7ml/l 35% h2o2(cant get 50%) proper heat mat with thermostat set at 27c i used olivias cause i had it instead of powder. i raised 6 moms that are big and angry and provide those trademark huge ass clones of yours...everything!!! and promptly killed about 60 clones in short order...but i made a diy aerocloner/sprayer/misty-doo thingamabob and 9 days later....it's a girl!! other than the clones i have read your entire 2 weeks thread and followed it. so everything else is great.i am just running out of my food and wanna replace it with yours or something even easier if possible.

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i used rapid rooters at first and i use perlite since i couldnt get flytocel but i still use the floc in the bottom just like you. now when i transplant on monday i will put the rooted clones fromhere into here with just the perlite to support them. i think this will work. i just wann make sure i can still have mobile plants....these are my mums, all 6 of em' in a 2x4 tray.
here's a side shot of my clones ...big and healthy!!
neway the rest of my pics are in my signature feel free to look. thanks for doing what you do.

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Sounds great! Nice work.

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Get a harvest every 2 weeks - A batch of clones in rockwool - Al B. Gone

Hi Al I got a quick question about your thermostat, I just bought the same one from Jaycar for my new clone box and I was wondering could you post a picture of how you wired it with the unit open? Also does it need to be inside the box? Thanks

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The instruction manual is pretty good. See pg 8.

The relay has 3 connection points, NO (normally open), COM (common) and NC (normally closed). The relay connects the COM point to either the NC or NO depending upon the relation of the ambient air temp to the present temp setpoint.

If you want to switch a cooling fan, cut the line (brown) wire in the fan's power lead. Strip the insulation on the two ends you now have.



Connect them to the COM and NC points on the thermostat's junction block.

You can also install the thermostat on an extension cord or power strip. This makes it a lot easier to replace a fan connected to the thermostat later on. You then need only unplug the old fan from the extension cord or power strip and plug in the new one. Also allows you to switch more than one device if you have installed the thermostat in the lead of a power strip. Don't put more than a 5 amp load through the relay contacts.

Yes, the thermistor (temperature sensing element) is fitted inside the thermostat's housing, so it will sense temp wherever the thermostat body is mounted. It won't sense temps inside your clonebox while mounted outside of it- unless you modify the thermostat.

Bear in mind that the thermostat unit will work perfectly fine mounted inside your clonebox; you do not need to do this mod unless you want the thermostat unit mounted on the outside of your clonebox. My clonebox has the entire unmodified thermostat mounted inside the clonebox. Only my bud dryer needed this remote thermistor mount modification, so I could adjust and monitor temperature without opening the dryer while it is running.

If you can use a soldering iron (25watt, no larger), you can remove the thermistor, fit an extension lead and mount the thermistor remotely at the point you would like to sense the air temp.

You can destroy the thermostat you stuff this up, so unless you are competent with hand tools and a soldering iron, stop here!

Keep in mind that this modification will void the unit's warranty, whether you do it successfully or not!

Click any image for a larger size.



1. Remove the battery door and the unit's snap-on front cover per the instruction manual.



2. With a small flat bladed screwdriver, prise out the 4 snap-in tabs holding the display module to the relay circuit board. Only two tabs shown here.



3. Flip the display module over and to the left, using care not to wiggle the 5 conductor ribbon cable around too much- you don't want to break the ribbon cable nor the soldered connections.



4. Remove these 4 screws which hold the display module circuit board to the plastic housing with a #1 Phillips screwdriver.



5. Lift the circuit board out of the housing. The LCD unit may stick to the circuit board when you lift it out or it may stay with the housing. If it sticks to the circuit board and must be put back in the housing, handle it by its edges to avoid fingerprinting the display, pull it free and drop it and its zebra strip back into its position in the housing, with the zebra strip rubber connector toward the top of the housing.



6. Flip the display circuit board over and locate the blue thermistor on the upper right corner of the front of the display circuit board.

7. Desolder the thermistor from the circuit board. Do this quickly- heat both the soldered connections at the same time and pull the thermistor free with fine-point needle nose pliers, while the solder is liquefied.

WARNING!

• Do not heat the soldered connections for more than about 5 seconds at a time. Applying excessive heat or heating for too long will peel the copper traces off the circuit board and destroy the unit.
• Do not pull on the thermistor's leads unless the solder has liquefied. You will pull up the fine copper traces on the front side of the display circuit board and destroy the unit.

8. Use #20-22ga (small, thin), 2-conductor wire to create an extension lead for the themistor. This can be up to several metres long if you need it to be so.



9. Strip and tin the ends of the 2-conductor lead and solder them on to the copper lands where the thermistor was fitted. Solder the wires on to the circuit board from its back (component) side.

10. Solder the thermistor's two leads to the far end of the extension leads. Cover the connections to the thermistor with individual pieces of thin heat-shrinkable tubing. Do not put heat shrink tube over the blue body of the thermistor, only on the leads.

11. Route the extension lead out of the opening in the thermostat's housing where the junction block for the relay is located.

12. Reassemble the display module by fitting its circuit board back into the housing and reinstalling the 4 small screws. Make sure the rubber buttons are working and not pinched in the housing before reinstalling the 4 screws.

13. Snap the 4 tabs of the reassembled display module back into the relay circuit board.

14. Install batteries and test.

If you have accidentally solder-bridged the extension's connections together, have not made good soldered connections or worst, have damaged the copper traces on the circuit board, the unit simply will not work. Verify that there are no solder bridges on the circuit board nor on the end of the extension lead where you fitted the thermistor. Assure you have not damaged the copper traces.

If the display circuit board has not been fitted properly back into its housing, the rubber zebra strip connector may not make contact between the circuit board's gold contacts and the glass LCD unit, causing the LCD to be erratic or inoperative.

Assuming all has gone well, you can now mount the thermostat body to any surface and put the thermistor at the location you would like to monitor.

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Get a harvest every 2 weeks - A batch of clones in rockwool - Al B. Gone