my aero cloner -- stem rot??

When i run clones in my cloner they do fine around the foams with protecting against mold. i do get light green mold on foams probly due to light? i have a problem tho with my plants that i start from seeds. i first tried it as a test to run them in my cloner to save on soil and what not and it worked so i did a few batches of seeds already and 35-50% of the seeds get this rot (picture below ) my second batch i took the seedling out put it in a clean foam. this helped with the percentage of plants not making it. there is no water hitting there on the stem, when i change foams i move the plant down into the cloner more? any ideas on this??? roots are white as well.. we did have a heat wave water temps did get to 84 ish but for the most part the roots are well off....i'm using R/o water with light veg nutes i ran out o cal mag but i put a lil mag in there, some superthrive ph is usually 5.4-6 depending on how lazy i am haha but i keep it within there and my ppms are 450-550

the green mold you're referring to is most likely not mold. it's probably algae, which forms anywhere there is both light and water for an extended period of time. i haven't experienced the "rot" in your pic, but when i had problems in my cloner it was because my cycle timer had stuck on. are you using a timer? personally, i hate my cloner. i used it for a few batches, but i had better success in rockwool cubes. my cloner took around 2-3 weeks for roots, my cubes will show roots in 4-10 days. i also only used clonex at 150ml for my 5 gallons of water. balanced ph to 5.8, never below 5.5.

ya i meant algae haha. ya i know what you mean i have had 100% success with cubes. i did a little test tho with just one clone and it workd fine so i have that down. you can't have any air bubbles in the stalk when you cut the clone. cut it. put it in water, then recut underwater then instantly dip into clone root gel and it will seal off the bottom then the stalk swells up and shoots roots. my one test swelled up after like 5-6 days and roots should be out in a day or two. the algae doesn't really effect my clones tho, just my seedlings...and no i'm not on a timer. i heard 30 on and 30 off is good for cloner

sfarmer805 said:

ya i meant algae haha. ya i know what you mean i have had 100% success with cubes. i did a little test tho with just one clone and it workd fine so i have that down. you can't have any air bubbles in the stalk when you cut the clone. cut it. put it in water, then recut underwater then instantly dip into clone root gel and it will seal off the bottom then the stalk swells up and shoots roots. my one test swelled up after like 5-6 days and roots should be out in a day or two. the algae doesn't really effect my clones tho, just my seedlings...and no i'm not on a timer. i heard 30 on and 30 off is good for cloner

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the 30 min. off sounds a little scary. when my cloner worked the best i was using 1 min on and 4 min off. you may also consider adding an airstone to the cloner to help bring fresh air to the res. that's a little strange though that the algae can effect the seedlings but not the clones.

Do you put the clones right into the aeroponic cups right after you dip it in the cloning gel? wouldn't the water wash the gel off too quickly into the reservoir?

iceman30 said:

Do you put the clones right into the aeroponic cups right after you dip it in the cloning gel? wouldn't the water wash the gel off too quickly into the reservoir?

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yes i put the clones into the cloner right after i dip into gel. no the gel just seals up the cut, i also cut unde r/o water then immediatly dip in gel. air getting into the stem is bad. i have had pretty good success this way. and the gel falls into water and i just do a little bit of veg nute with calmag etc... but i dunno why it is having problems with the seedlings, clones are doing ok. i do have an airstone...it's running off of two air pumps so it's getting enough oxygen. also i noticed that ez cloners are a one tub unit, i have a two tub unit becuase i couldn't set the lid anywhere so i wanted a top unit and that had a problem with the 100 clones becuase there was no air movement really where the rootzone is so i installed a little fan that blew in through two of the 2" holes. the stems gt a gross grey muck on them and had to recut seceral times only about 20 made it out of 100 ha. i have learned a lot tho with 100 clones my first time in an aero unit! ha us sayin... anyways ya i dunno what could be causing this, myonly thought is the seedlings stem gets waterlogged i could try a timer to help with overall health of the clones, since i never really start from seed anyways, it was just a cheaper way to get like 30 seeds going