# A Batch of Clones in Rockwool



## Al B. Fuct (May 25, 2007)

A lot of people have trouble with clones in rockwool until they have done a few batches. Here's a photoessay on a batch of clones as they are done around here.

One of the biggest problems with rockwool cubes is that they can hold a LOT of water. If cubes are too wet, rooting will be slow or stem rot may set in. Think *damp*, never wet or saturated. A dry 40mm cube weighs 5g. A properly "damp" cube weighs 25-30g. Heavier than that is too wet. Remove water from overwet cubes by shaking excess out into a bucket with a snap of the wrist. A salad spinner is great for draining cubes after pre-soaking, without giving yourself 'tennis elbow.' Rockwool cubes must never be squeezed- removes airspaces.

Since I grow SoG style, I cut very tall clones. Taller clones become taller plants faster- important in SoG as no vegging time is given to clones before they are flowered. As soon as they have a good set of roots, they go in to the flowering area. 

My clones are too tall to fit in a humidome, but humidomes usually keep things TOO humid anyway, especially when using rockwool cubes on a heatmat. 

Clones do best in a controlled environment, so I built a clonebox with 3x twin 18W fluoros (on 24/7), a fixed-temp (30C) heat mat and a thermostatically controlled exhaust fan. The ballasts on the fluoro lights put a fair amount of heat into the box air. When the temp comes up to 26.5C, the fan kicks on.

So, here we go!

First, sterilise all plant contact surfaces (trays, inside of clonebox) with a 10% bleach in warm water solution. 1-2 drops of dishwashing soap helps make the cleaning solution "wetter," assuring every little nook and cranny is germ-free. Rinse and allow to dry. Don't forget to wash your hands thoroughly with the same solution- use a fingernail brush. 


These mother plants are about 6 weeks old. They've donated about 3 sets of cuttings and will be replaced with one of their 'kids' soon. 

Note that these are only two of my mothers. I keep 8-10 mothers to support donation of 30 cuttings every 15 days. Mothers are vegged under a 400 HPS (soon to be a metal halide).


Rockwool cubes are first rinsed well under running tap water then pre-soaked in a bucket of pH5.0 water for 24 hours. All the pre-soak water is removed with a salad spinner. 

Immediately before plugging in cuttings, cubes are each given about 25ml of a clone watering solution made from:

* 9-10L tapwater 
* 9-10ml H2O2 (50% horticutural grade)
* pH adjust as needed to 5.8 (correct pH last)

The nutrient is not entirely necessary- a plant without roots can't assimilate nutrients, only water- but nutes in the clone watering solution assures nutes are available to the plant as soon as it has formed root nodes. This gets nutes to the plant a day or two before you actually see the roots out of the bottoms of the cubes. Well developed mothers in good condition will have a couple of weeks worth of nutes stored in the leaves- and so will the clones you take from them.


A well developed mother plant about 4 weeks old. Has donated about two passes of cuttings.


Sterilise the scalpel blade by dipping in methylated spirit (aka denatured alcohol) before and between making cuts


I cut BIG clones. Stem length is about 9".

Cut the biggest diameter stems you can get for clones. This is how they look when just cut off the mother. Make the stem cut at an angle, about 45 degrees.


Cut off all the branching until you have something like this.


Split the end of the stem. Disrupted cells on the stem more easily become root nodes.


Gently scrape the last 25mm (1") of the stem in a few places with the back of the scalpel blade. 


Dip the stem in rooting powder. Gently knock off any excess; only a dusting is needed.

Powders work better than gels because they form a paste which stays put through several waterings. 

Gels can support pathogen growth in between batches. If you use gels, put a few ml in a small container and dip stems into that gel- not in the main container. Discard any excess. Even opening the gel container will admit a few pathogens. Once opened, keep gels in the refrigerator.


Plug the stem into the cube, using care not to poke through the bottom of the cube. 

It is important that the rockwool fits tightly around the stem. Some cubes are not very dense in some parts of the cube. Test the density of the rockwool by touch and plug the stem in the densest part of the material. Some cubes collapse when you try to plug a stem in them. Discard cubes like this. The air gap between the stem and cube will prevent proper rooting.

Clone #1 done!


Big clones work better in Sea of Green. There's no veg time given to clones in SoG before flowering. Bigger clones make bigger budstalks. As you see, these are about 9" tall.


Now, let's prune back the mothers. 

Some stems are too small to make cuttings with on this pass. We'll take cuttings from these stems when they have developed more in about 2 weeks. 

Snip off the growing tip to force growth to divide. Leave the leaves and the following nodes- these sites will develop into cloneable branches on the next pass of cuts in 2 weeks.


Mother plant pruning detail. Growing tips gone but the next nodes down are not disturbed.

 
Mother plant pruned and ready to go back in & veg for 2 weeks until the next batch of cuttings is needed. "Before" pic repeated here for comparison.


A freshly done batch of clones in the clonebox.


Roots pop on day 6-7.


Roots on day 8.


21/30 strikes on day 10.


And here we are on day 10. No yellow leaves! Yellowing leaves are a sign of excessively high air temp or overwatering. Cubes in the left-hand tray have not set root just yet. I only need 20-21 clones per flowering batch. Extras become mother plants- or compost!

The clonebox conditions and getting the watering right are EVERYTHING. Quick rooting with the plants in best shape is dependent upon several things; I consider a heatmat to be an essential. Thermostatic control of air temp makes striking time reliably 6-7 days, every time.


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## midgradeindasouth (May 25, 2007)

damn send some clone compost to me why don't ya


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## Al B. Fuct (May 25, 2007)

middie, I make POUNDS of cutting waste- and it _*does *_feed my veg patch out back very, very well.  

You don't really _*need *_a 400 over your mums just to get some cuttings, but I get really fat stems and bigger-than-your-hand fan leaves on the mums during the mums' 2-week recovery period with a big light. I use an HPS because that's what was on hand many years ago when it was retired as a flowering light when I got the 1000s- and it works fine, so I never changed it to MH. I'm thinking about an HPS-MH conversion lamp soon, though. 

I grow a lot more mother plant material than I REALLY need just to do the cuttings. Overgrowing the mothers a bit assures top quality material for cuttings, though there is a bit of plant material wastage.


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## mosberg911 (May 25, 2007)

ok Al if i put them clones straight into flower how much bud do you really get out of clones a good amount?>


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## Al B. Fuct (May 25, 2007)

We deliberately grow small plants in SoG; the per plant yield is thus rather small compared to other methods- but we grow greater numbers of plants than in other methods. One plant per 8" circle. This is made possible without crowding by aggressive pruning off of all the branching on the lower 1/3 of the plant. No branches more than about 25mm (1") long are left on a SoG style plant.

However, the buds you get from SoG are *ALL top colas* or the very large clumpy lumps attached near the top of the mainstem. They all live very close to the light, meaning no small, fluffy buds, only dense, top quality golfball or bigger nuggies.

I'm doing well to get 3/4-1oz per budstalk under 1000W lighting. Sometimes I do better but rarely worse. Out of my 20-21 plants per harvest, I normally get somewhere between 15-20oz. 

This room is still kinda new, only about 6 mos old since a rebuild in a new location, so I'm still tweaking and fixing things. I've made some improvements recently (better ventilation with a new exhaust blower) which are making my buds much denser as I'm better able to keep temps down. Running the flowering area at 25C now- and everyone likes it.


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## FlipAPenny (May 25, 2007)

You need to put this thread with the other threads that are written in red. This is great work Al! 

Thanks for the info.

I think I am going to have to fly you out so you can put a grow room together for me. I'm gettin' a chubby just thinkin' about that


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## Al B. Fuct (May 25, 2007)

FlipAPenny said:


> You need to put this thread with the other threads that are written in red.


Done. 



> This is great work Al!
> 
> Thanks for the info.


You're quite welcome, happy to share what I know. 



> I think I am going to have to fly you out so you can put a grow room together for me. I'm gettin' a chubby just thinkin' about that


heh, thanks for the offer, but I think I'm happy not moving around much at the moment.


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## Al B. Fuct (May 27, 2007)

Roots develop FAST.

 
day 10 ..................................................... day 12

Stem diameter of cuttings makes a difference with the vigor of rooting speed and development. Bigger is better. 



Thicker stemmed cuttings outperform thinner ones. The stack on the left all have stems of about 4mm or less. The stack on the right all are over 5.5mm.

If I grew a couple more mother plants, there'd be enough >5mm stems to do all my cuttings, but unfortunately the mother plant tray is full- so we'll just hafta get by with wot we got.


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## Al B. Fuct (May 27, 2007)

It's trouble that everyone should have, but I have a small complexity introduced by clones being ready to plant a little sooner than usual this time around. I've only recently added the thermostat to the clonebox. The more stable temperature has made it about 3-4 days quicker than before. The speed of first roots showing is about the same as before adding the thermostat, but the development of _*profuse*_ roots has come around much more quickly.

I would normally be doing a new batch of cuttings on the day I plant out the preceding batch. However, in this case, because the flowering area is on a 2-week rotation, I'll have to delay doing another batch to avoid feeding clones into the flowering room too quickly and having to remove plants from the other end of the pipeline before they are fully mature. 

Since the clonebox looks like it will have future batches ready for planting in 12 days instead of 15, I'll time my next batch of clones accordingly.


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## VictorVIcious (May 27, 2007)

I'm working on creating that problem. I did get one of my tables converted to flood and drain instead of drip. Will get one more converted this week and then I'll start building the last table I need to get it all set. VV


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## Al B. Fuct (May 27, 2007)

Sounds good, VV. Whatever you can do to automatically manage conditions will make things happen more reliably. I've gotten by for many years without a thermostat in the clonebox, but as you might expect, air temps were all over the shop dependent upon the ambient air temp around the clonebox. When ambient was around 23-25C, the lights warmed the interior of the box to an ideal 26.5-27C with the fan constantly running. When ambient was really low, I managed temp by running the fan on a timer, 15 mins on, 15 mins off. Worked sorta OK, but I expect the clonebox to be much more consistent now with the tstat installed. Moreover, minding the clones is easier when the temps are stable. An unexpectedly warm day might cause the cubes to dry out more quickly than usual, leaving me with wilted or cooked clones when I water at the usual time of day.

You'll like the improvement in reliability of a flood system- they simply can not clog from nute salts as there's no small sprayer or dripper apertures. Much less maintenance.


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## VictorVIcious (Aug 25, 2007)

I put the fourth table on flood and drain yesterday. Still have a few things to do. I have the mother table set and ready. Have clones in it now. The other three are all in flowering, two weeks apart. I replaced two of my 400watt lights with t-5 4' 8 bulb fixtures. I like what I see so far. The first harvest will be of those clones I took from the flowering plants, so they have multiple branches instead of the single cola so I will probably get a lower yield from them. We have had hot, humid weather for a few weeks now so everything has slowed down a little. I figure another three months I should have it all going smooth.


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## weedbro (Aug 26, 2007)

when you cut clones do you just give them water until they start growing roots by just spraying the leaves. Or do you start giving the clones nutes right away? Just wondering how the feeding process works for clones with no roots. thanks


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## TheConstantGardner (Aug 26, 2007)

weedbro said:


> when you cut clones do you just give them water until they start growing roots by just spraying the leaves. Or do you start giving the clones nutes right away? Just wondering how the feeding process works for clones with no roots. thanks


Nutes aren't needed until roots form. Until roots form, you are only concentrating on gaining roots and not foliage. I give my clones very mild nutes as soon as roots appear, then aggressively up the nutes as the plant starts producing new vegetation.


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## VictorVIcious (Aug 26, 2007)

Constant gardner is right you don't have to give nutes until roots are out. Al B uses mild nutes in the water he puts in his rockwool cubes. Since he has better results then I get I'm going to try his way. VV


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## potroast (Aug 27, 2007)

I use mild nutes and especially SuperThrive in the water that I soak cubes, rewet cubes, and foliar spray the cuttings with. I root 40 cuttings a month, and get near 100% rooting.

HTH


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## TheConstantGardner (Aug 27, 2007)

potroast said:


> I use mild nutes and especially SuperThrive in the water that I soak cubes, rewet cubes, and foliar spray the cuttings with. I root 40 cuttings a month, and get near 100% rooting.
> 
> HTH


I mist with a couple drops of superthrive and water, which usually ends up wetting the top of my medium. My clones are small, so it's getting down to the root zone. I may have to try the rockwool cubes soon. Perlite/vermiculite is as friggin messy as soil.


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## weedbro (Aug 27, 2007)

ya im going to be cutting some clones in the next couple of weeks and ill be sticking them in rockwool so its nice to know that you can soak the cubes with a little bit of nutes. i had have soil and half rockwool that i started seeds in and i didnt give the ones in rockwool anything for awhile and they are wayy behind the ones in soil


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## Al B. Fuct (Aug 30, 2007)

VictorVIcious said:


> Constant gardner is right you don't have to give nutes until roots are out. Al B uses mild nutes in the water he puts in his rockwool cubes. Since he has better results then I get I'm going to try his way. VV


Quite true that clones can't make any use of nutes until they have roots, but in rockwool cubes you don't see the roots from the very instant nodes have formed. You see them a couple of days later. Putting a weak nute soln (~400ppm, 5ml Canna Vega "A" & "B" in 10L water, corrected to pH 5.5) on the clones means they can get at the nutes a couple of days before you see them out of the bottom of the RW cube.

FYI, I'm not checking in here regularly these days. Check me out over here.


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## Al B. Fuct (Nov 12, 2007)

Just a quick followup on refining the cloning environment process.

I had a few batches root slowly and coincidentally came across anecdotal evidence of nitrogen slowing rooting performance. I stopped adding nutes to the watering soln, instead just correcting pH to ~5.5-5.8. The last batch done like that popped first roots at 6 days with profuse roots at 10 days. I'll do the next batch the same way and see if I get the same result. Then I'll try it again with a weak vega nute soln (~400ppm) and see if the strike time is slower.

I ran a small circ fan in the clonebox in the coldest months, where the ambient around the clonebox can get down to 10c. This moves some heat off the fluoro ballasts and raises the box to the setpoint of 26-27C. However, this fan caused the cubes to dry out much more quickly, requiring 2x day watering. As spring has come on, I have switched off the circ fan.


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## VictorVIcious (Nov 12, 2007)

Thanx again Al I will watch the watering closer, I do have a small fan circulating in there. VV


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## Al B. Fuct (Dec 6, 2007)

Al B. Fuct said:


> I had a few batches root slowly and coincidentally came across anecdotal evidence of nitrogen slowing rooting performance. I stopped adding nutes to the watering soln, instead just correcting pH to ~5.5-5.8. The last batch done like that popped first roots at 6 days with profuse roots at 10 days.


It seems that adding even a weak amt of veg nutes to the clone watering soln was in fact slowing them down. Now I'm just using pH 5.5-5.8 water on the clones until they have a good spray of roots, when they get chucked in the flowering area. Back to reliably seeing first roots out of the cubes in 7 days.


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## VictorVIcious (Dec 6, 2007)

Yes, all of the information I have felt was reliable said they use weak flowering nutes because it lower in N. This is the reason the author I read said you get better result cloning if you flush the mothers for a few days before taking clones. It drops the N 'which inhibits early root development'. Works out for me not using the mothers , thats another story. Good to see ya. VV


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## Harlesjohn (Dec 10, 2007)

Al B. Fuct said:


> It's trouble that everyone should have, but I have a small complexity introduced by clones being ready to plant a little sooner than usual this time around. I've only recently added the thermostat to the clonebox. The more stable temperature has made it about 3-4 days quicker than before. The speed of first roots showing is about the same as before adding the thermostat, but the development of _*profuse*_ roots has come around much more quickly.
> 
> I would normally be doing a new batch of cuttings on the day I plant out the preceding batch. However, in this case, because the flowering area is on a 2-week rotation, I'll have to delay doing another batch to avoid feeding clones into the flowering room too quickly and having to remove plants from the other end of the pipeline before they are fully mature.
> 
> Since the clonebox looks like it will have future batches ready for planting in 12 days instead of 15, I'll time my next batch of clones accordingly.


what kind of nutrients do you use? and what is the mix per gal? im having a hard time coming up with a good level mix


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## ccodiane (Dec 10, 2007)

Excellent thread! All good info, thanks!


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## potroast (Dec 11, 2007)

VictorVIcious said:


> Yes, all of the information I have felt was reliable said they use weak flowering nutes because it lower in N. This is the reason the author I read said you get better result cloning if you flush the mothers for a few days before taking clones. It drops the N 'which inhibits early root development'. Works out for me not using the mothers , thats another story. Good to see ya. VV


I've heard about cutting back on the nutes for the mothers before taking cuttings, and I've done that for the last couple of years. Really don't know if it helps or not. And I use a weak *flowering *nute for rooting cuttings because of the higher Phosphorus, I thought. I've read in some nutrient regimens to use their PK Booster product for a rooting nutrient.

HTH


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## VictorVIcious (Dec 11, 2007)

I think both are correct. The higher phosphorus content helps. Actually I think it was you that suggested the flowering nutes originally and I followed that when I used the rockwool cubes. VV


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## lowerlevel (Dec 11, 2007)

VictorVIcious said:


> I put the fourth table on flood and drain yesterday. Still have a few things to do. I have the mother table set and ready. Have clones in it now. The other three are all in flowering, two weeks apart. I replaced two of my 400watt lights with t-5 4' 8 bulb fixtures. I like what I see so far. The first harvest will be of those clones I took from the flowering plants, so they have multiple branches instead of the single cola so I will probably get a lower yield from them. We have had hot, humid weather for a few weeks now so everything has slowed down a little. I figure another three months I should have it all going smooth.


? did u switch to the t-5 because heat was a issue, and if so what type of heat did u have with the hps lights?


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## Hiesman (Dec 11, 2007)

very impressed with your findings, i believe that i will try SoG method of growing here soon and after reading this thread i am more than confident that i will be successful.. great work Al B.!!


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## Al B. Fuct (Dec 15, 2007)

VictorVIcious said:


> Yes, all of the information I have felt was reliable said they use weak flowering nutes because it lower in N.


The pH adjuster sauce I use is simply phosphoric acid. No N at all compared even to weak flowering nutes.



Harlesjohn said:


> what kind of nutrients do you use? and what is the mix per gal? im having a hard time coming up with a good level mix


I use Canna Vega and Flores. Mix rate is 400ml each A & B in a 125L tank of tap water. Yields 1400ppm @ pH 5.7 with pH 7.1 makeup water. Tanks are dumped every 2 weeks. 

Tank 2, which of course feeds tray 2, for plants in wk2-4, gets 50ml of Canna PK-13-14 in week 3. Plants are only exposed to PK for 1 week before the tank is dumped and the process repeated for when the next batch advances from tray 1 (wk0-2).


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## Al B. Fuct (Dec 30, 2007)

lowerlevel said:


> ? did u switch to the t-5 because heat was a issue, and if so what type of heat did u have with the hps lights?


VV has this weird affection going on for fluoros, beats the crap out of me why! The only real reason to flower with flo's is because you can't adequately vent the space to cool an HPS. 

You can cool a single 400HPS with a 100mm fan (pref centrif) and dryer vent hose, as long as you can put the exhaust where it won't get sucked right back into the grow. Placing the ballast outside the grow airspace helps loads as do cooltubes. I've seen cooltubed 400s in a grow op airspace the size of a fridge. 

Requirement #1 for any realistically productive indoor grow op is the ability to ventilate the space adequately. If you have enough airflow to keep the plants healthy, chances are you've got enough for a small HPS. 

Flo's in flowering are really a last resort; if you simply don't have access to a space with adequate ventilation, flo's will get you through. They can make the difference between growing a little weed with not-so-dense buds, slowly- or none at all. 

It's all in the light intensity. Flo's are low intensity light sources; HPS is a high-intensity source, which at optimum spacing isn't too far off from the intensity of sunlight. In some ways HPS is better than sunlight as you never have a cloudy day in a grow op!

Flo's do have good uses in every op- they're THE light for clones and can veg your mums adequately as well. However, if you want solid nugs and lots of them in the quickest way possible, you need HPS in flowering.


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## Al B. Fuct (Mar 31, 2008)

If there's any moderators pssing by, my lead post in this thread needs an edit. I can no longer edit the post. 

The text 



> * 10L tapwater
> * 3ml H2O2 (50% horticutural grade)
> * 5ml each Canna Vega "A" and "B" nutrient, should yield a (weak) 400ppm solution
> * pH corrected to 5.3-5.8 (correct pH *after* adding everything else)


should be amended to



> * 9-10L tapwater
> * 9-10ml H2O2 (50% horticutural grade)
> * pH adjust as needed to 5.8 (correct pH last)


I've found the weak nutes slowed rooting and eliminated the step some months ago. 50% grade H2O2 should be applied at 1ml/L. Instruction is amended to 9ml to suit the ultra common 9L bucket size. 

If you keep a bucket of clone watering soln for more than a couple of days, check pH after a couple of dip waterings- RW cubes may have some limestone dust which has a tendency to raise the pH of the watering soln as cubes are dipped in it. Correct down as needed. Add H2O2 every 3-4 days to keep soln sterile. 

The hardest thing about cloning in RW cubes is not overwatering them. A damp 40mm cube should weigh no more than 25g. Heavier than that is too wet. 

I water cubes by dipping only a corner of the bottom of the cube for less than a second until the clones have sent out first roots. They will want a LOT more water once they have a good spray of roots and are actively growing. Cubes with advanced rooted clones may have to be immersed to get them wet enough to carry the clone through 12 hours!


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## Enigma (Mar 31, 2008)

lowerlevel said:


> ? did u switch to the t-5 because heat was a issue, and if so what type of heat did u have with the hps lights?


 
I've got a 24" dual T5 setup for seedlings, a 48" Quad T5 for clones, getting a 600w HPS for mothers, and a 1000w HPS for flowering.

T5's keep small bushy plants, slow veg, plenty of nodes. If I mixed in some red light they'd be taller than they are now; I'm using all blue lights right now.

The HPS on the mothers will help with making nice big clones for DWC.. thanks to Al's example.



Enigma


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## Al B. Fuct (Mar 31, 2008)

Heat is not an issue with HPS lighting if the ballast is located outside the airmass and cooltubes are used.


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## Al B. Fuct (Mar 31, 2008)

Enigma said:


> getting a 600w HPS for mothers,


That's a lot of light for mums. I am supporting 10 mums with a 400HPS and probably could do with a 250.


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## Enigma (Mar 31, 2008)

Al B. Fuct said:


> That's a lot of light for mums. I am supporting 10 mums with a 400HPS and probably could do with a 250.


 
Really?

I'll post a pic of my new idea.. later.



Enigma


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## VictorVIcious (Apr 16, 2008)

... Hey everyone, I just reviewed this thread after posting my 4000th post in Al's other required reading thread, Get A Harvest Every Two Weeks. Couple thing I had forgotten to do, good thing I practiced on those male's. And I still have them damn T-5 lights hanging around.lol Props Al. VV


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## Al B. Fuct (Apr 18, 2008)

Well done, VV. 

You realise that one day I am going to show up at your place and force you at bongpoint to install some HPS lights.


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## VictorVIcious (Apr 18, 2008)

I will make it there before you get here. My wifes next business trip is going to be to Australia. They usually stay in two different cities, 3 to 4 days each. Don't know the details yet. You did notice I still have one of the 400 watt hps lights in use right? I am going to use it for about 10 mothers here in the next few months. IF you have the time I would appreciate it if you could post one of your clone pictures in my blues thread. I want to use it to explain the difference between running an op that is alreay set up and going and the shoestring operation I am running and I think having the picture right there will help drive the point home. VV


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## mreverything (Apr 18, 2008)

I have a question that is sort of relevant to this topic, but i didnt think it was worthy of making a thread, does rockwool germinate seeds well? *BEcause i had tried to germinate in rockwool and it didnt work, so i threw it in a wet paper towel and in a bag and it germinated in 24 hours but i left it in for an additional day, but i only left the seed in the rockwool for about a day and a half, i think i was being impatient and didnt give it time, but does it work in rockwool bc i dont think i left it in for long enough.*


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## Al B. Fuct (Apr 18, 2008)

VictorVIcious said:


> I will make it there before you get here. My wifes next business trip is going to be to Australia. They usually stay in two different cities, 3 to 4 days each. Don't know the details yet.


coolio. 


> You did notice I still have one of the 400 watt hps lights in use right? I am going to use it for about 10 mothers here in the next few months


No, I didn't see that. You have a 400HPS for mums but fluoros over your flowering plants? 



> IF you have the time I would appreciate it if you could post one of your clone pictures in my blues thread. I want to use it to explain the difference between running an op that is alreay set up and going and the shoestring operation I am running and I think having the picture right there will help drive the point home. VV


Nothing stopping you from linking to imgs in my gallery, mon.  Will get to it myself if I can.



mreverything said:


> I have a question that is sort of relevant to this topic, but i didnt think it was worthy of making a thread, does rockwool germinate seeds well? *BEcause i had tried to germinate in rockwool and it didnt work, so i threw it in a wet paper towel and in a bag and it germinated in 24 hours but i left it in for an additional day, but i only left the seed in the rockwool for about a day and a half, i think i was being impatient and didnt give it time, but does it work in rockwool bc i dont think i left it in for long enough.*


I use the old 'damp paper towel in a partly open plastic bag in a warm place' method, myself. Works a treat, as you also found. 

Putting a seed on a block of damp anything probably won't provide a humid enough environment to crack the bean. Even on a heatmat, a small (40mm) RW cube won't warm all the way to the top, where you might put the seed. 
For as rarely as most growers will be cracking beans, the old standard low-tech method is great.


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## VictorVIcious (Apr 18, 2008)

You are right Al I can copy the picture, And I will credit your for it. No, I don't have it over the Mothers yet because I don't have the mothers yet. I am switching strains because of the flowering time for the WW, Ice and Crystal I did have, I have three blue berry varieties now, two weeks in flowering on 4/20. I started with 3-400 watt hps lights. And like you said I could always go bigger, I am satisfied with the income at this level running about 2000 watts max for the 12/12 cycle and less than 800 right now for the veggig lights, fans etc. Remember I went from 60 amp service, having to be careful about what was turned on to 200amp, haven't blown a breaker since type service. And during that time all three of my wifes cildren moved in, soo use is already up enough for right now. VV


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## Al B. Fuct (Apr 19, 2008)

Way cool, VV. 2kW in the flowering area (and some dedicated effort) will butter your bread without leaving home.


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## Mr. Marge (Apr 25, 2008)

Question for you Al. 

I'm in the 10th day of flowering with two BC Big Bud plants. Soil grow, using 1000w MH. Have just determined that one is male, one is female. 

I decided that I'd just finish out the flowering to get seeds from the female for my next attempt. 

But then...I got to thinking about cloning....and was wondering if cloning the female, pulling the male, and going back to veg for a few weeks. Would this work well? You're an expert I'd say (from reading many many many of your posts and threads) so I thought you might be the guy for this advice. Thanks for your time.


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## Al B. Fuct (Apr 25, 2008)

You can do some cuttings off the female, but do more than you think you will need- and do them sooner than later. Because the plant has been flowering for a while, your strike rate may be low. 

When you do get them to strike, they will take several (6- weeks in veg cycle light and a few passes of pruning before they return fully to veg habit. In the interim, you will see some odd, mixed veg & flower growth such as single bladed fan leaves or large seed bracts at the nodes. This habit will eventually resolve to a more normal veg pattern, just keep cutting the plant back rather severely every couple of weeks until it decides to play nice.


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## Mr. Marge (Apr 25, 2008)

Thanks. 

I've got a friend who works in at a vineyard and said he'd hook me up with gel, its what they use for the grapes. You say powder is better? Should I clone straight into the soil, or use the rockwool cubes? I've got quite a few mason jars I can use for domes. Your thoughts?


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## Al B. Fuct (Apr 26, 2008)

Mr. Marge said:


> Thanks.
> 
> I've got a friend who works in at a vineyard and said he'd hook me up with gel, its what they use for the grapes. You say powder is better? Should I clone straight into the soil, or use the rockwool cubes? I've got quite a few mason jars I can use for domes. Your thoughts?


You can get both gels and powders with varying concentrations per kg of butyric acid rooting hormone. 8g/kg will do for cannabis. Stronger than that is used for rooting woody stems, as one may find in a vineyard. If looking at a shelf full of rooting powders, select one labelled for green or soft stems instead of for woody stems.

Yes, powders form a paste which stays put better than gels through waterings, particularly in rockwool cubes. Gels tend to wash off after a few waterings. 

RW cubes work better than soil as they can be used with a heat mat. Their shape allows heat to be transferred efficiently into the damp cube. They also allow you to keep very tight control on watering. RW cubes will protect new roots better than soil when moving new clones about or planting them in the grow media.

 Domes are not necessary. If the clone can get sufficient water uptake from the medium through its stem cut, it won't wilt. If the stem cut is not neat (use a sharp scalpel, scissors crush capillaries) or the blade/watering solns are not sterile, water uptake can be blocked. Stem tip rot can be exacerbated by excessively wet media- and it's very easy to overwater RW cubes. If your clones show signs of wilt in 3-5 days post cutting, they can be recut- just take 2-3mm off the tip, dust it again in rooting powder and poke it in a new cube which has been soaked in a sterile pre-soak soln.


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## Enigma (Apr 26, 2008)

Al B. Fuct said:


> Yes, powders form a paste which stays put better than gels through waterings, particularly in rockwool cubes. Gels tend to wash off after a few waterings.
> 
> RW cubes work better than soil as they can be used with a heat mat. Their shape allows heat to be transferred efficiently into the damp cube. They also allow you to keep very tight control on watering. RW cubes will protect new roots better than soil when moving new clones about or planting them in the grow media.
> 
> Domes are not necessary. If the clone can get sufficient water uptake from the medium through its stem cut, it won't wilt. If the stem cut is not neat (use a sharp scalpel, scissors crush capillaries) or the blade/watering solns are not sterile, water uptake can be blocked. Stem tip rot can be exacerbated by excessively wet media- and it's very easy to overwater RW cubes. If your clones show signs of wilt in 3-5 days post cutting, they can be recut- just take 2-3mm off the tip, dust it again in rooting powder and poke it in a new cube which has been soaked in a sterile pre-soak soln.


_I would like to add my personal experience to the Guru's advice._

*Soil is shitty for cloning.*

*Sterlizing is the most important next to the rooting powder.*

*Rockwool cubes and a heat mat are essential.*

Nutrients aren't necessary, but phosphorous does help in the root development. 

Al, could I add some P nutes in a very light concentration to aid in root stimulation?

Say, after day 3-5?





Enigma


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## Al B. Fuct (Apr 27, 2008)

Enigma said:


> Al, could I add some P nutes in a very light concentration to aid in root stimulation?


I think I would wait until after they have some roots before feeding them anything. You can have roots out the bottom of 40mm cubes in 5 days with pH 5.8 water, H2O2 and controlled conds, including a heat mat. If you are getting good roots in 7-10 days with a profusion of roots in 14, you're doing OK.

You certainly can play around and see what happens. By experimentation, I found that veg nutes in the watering soln for pre-rooted clones slowed rooting, corroborating other anecdotal evidence I'd seen. I did a control group and a test group with 400ppm nutes, the test group was about 5 days slower and less profuse, but caught up with the control group when in the flowering area.


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## Enigma (Apr 27, 2008)

Al B. Fuct said:


> I think I would wait until after they have some roots before feeding them anything. You can have roots out the bottom of 40mm cubes in 5 days with pH 5.8 water, H2O2 and controlled conds, including a heat mat. If you are getting good roots in 7-10 days with a profusion of roots in 14, you're doing OK.
> 
> You certainly can play around and see what happens. By experimentation, I found that veg nutes in the watering soln for pre-rooted clones slowed rooting, corroborating other anecdotal evidence I'd seen. I did a control group and a test group with 400ppm nutes, the test group was about 5 days slower and less profuse, but caught up with the control group when in the flowering area.


I figured you would say that.

Thanks Guru!





Enigma


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## Mrgrow626 (Apr 27, 2008)

Hey AL B great post!

Im also doing Sog style grow but had a question about the cloning.
Im want to use kind of like a aero cloner, and then put them in a small bucket or net pots with hydroton rocks in a flood table. 
Is there anything wrong or less effective by doing this?


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## Al B. Fuct (Apr 28, 2008)

Mrgrow626 said:


> Hey AL B great post!
> 
> Im also doing Sog style grow but had a question about the cloning.
> Im want to use kind of like a aero cloner, and then put them in a small bucket or net pots with hydroton rocks in a flood table.
> Is there anything wrong or less effective by doing this?


You can certainly use aerocloners if you like, but I've used them in the past and get more consistent results in RW cubes on a heat mat. RW cubes also work to stabilse and protect new roots as well as gives the clone some mechanical stability when planting into pots of media.

I've run my system in the past in pots of pellets. Using pots of pellets in a flood system has ups and downs. On the upside, you can flood pots of pellets more often than you can flood absorbent media, which allows you to move more oxygenated nutrient soln through the rootmass than you can with absorbent media like RW floc or Fytocell. 

If you do use pellets, make sure that your RW cubes are placed so they are 1/2" ABOVE the flood line. The flood level must not be allowed to touch the RW cube; this will saturate the RW cube. Saturating a RW cube with a small plant in it 3x/day will cause overwatering-like symptoms. Plants newly placed in pots of pellets can have the pellets (not the cubes!) handwatered for a week or so until roots seek their way down into the damp pellets.

The downside to pellets is that they are about 2-4x heavier and thus harder to dispose of by comparison to floc and Fytocell. Pellets are technically re-usable but in practise are difficult to sterilise and clean totally free of old root matter, meaning root diseases and pests can be transferred from crop to crop in re-used pellets. Even if you do clean and sterilise them, pellets will accumulate nutrient salts and will eventually have to be disposed of and replaced with new material.

Absorbent media like floc & Fytocell are disposable and so you use new, sterile media for every crop. Floc can carry the plant through a watering failure (dead pump, timer, etc) for up to 48 hours, giving you time to catch the failure before the plant wilts. 

Fytocell holds less water than floc, so a 175mm dia pot of the stuff will only hold about a day's backup supply worth of water. However, Fytocell is about 40% air and is very hard to overwater. It allows you to flood more frequently than in floc. Floc can only be flooded about 1x/day, where plants in pots of Fytocell can be watered 2x a day, 3x for advanced plants, about the same as in pellets. 

Fytocell has its downsides, of course. Having so much air content, naturally the stuff floats! Pots which float can also fall over and tip out the medium, making a hell of a mess in the flood trays. Fytocell is a crumbled polymer foam material and will fall right out of the drain holes in pots. I found one good workaround was to tightly pack about 50mm of RW floc in the bottom of my pots. Floc holds enough water to weight down the pot, stopping buoyancy. It also allows water to pass through itself but blocks the Fytocell crumbs from falling out.


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## grandpabear3 (Apr 28, 2008)

YOU, SIR, ARE AN INSPIRATION!!! IF YOUR EVER IN FLORIDA MY WIFE AND HER SISTER ARE HOT AND AVAILABLE TO YOU 24/7


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## Al B. Fuct (Apr 28, 2008)

heh, I'll keep that in mind.


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## Mrgrow626 (Apr 28, 2008)

thanks al b! I just like the idea of the areocloner for its simplicity
What would i need to do if i place rooted clones from the areocloner directly into the pellets without rw? Thanks!


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## Al B. Fuct (Apr 29, 2008)

Mrgrow626 said:


> thanks al b! I just like the idea of the areocloner for its simplicity
> What would i need to do if i place rooted clones from the areocloner directly into the pellets without rw? Thanks!


I like aerocloners too. You'll see the root nodes as they happen, can be as little as 3 days. Important to dose your aerocloner soln with H2O2, 50% grade @ 1ml/L every 3-4 days to keep pathogens controlled in the warm, damp rooting chamber and also to shield the chamber from light if using a transparent or translucent plastic container as an aerocloner. 

Once well practised with them, I found cubes gave me more consistent results, but I can see why one would want to eliminate them. They are very absorbent and that causes problems for ppl not accustomed to using them. 

They also can cause problems when used in pellets, unless they are nested in the pellets such that they are about 1/2" above the flood level. Pellets need flooding about 3x day. If the cube gets saturated 3x/day, young plants with few roots will have overwatering probs. 

If you're in pellets, I can see why you want to go medialess. It would be an improvement over using cubes in pellets- the placement of the clone _vis a vis_ the flood level is no longer a critical issue. Nute soln would reach the entire rootmass from day 1 in the pellets.

Downside is that roots outside of media are delicate and the plant needs either mechanical support to remain vertical- or to be handled gently until the roots knit in the pellets. 

Pellets are great because you can flood often with no fear of overwatering. Gets more oxygenated nutes to the roots than by my method, in Fytocell. Downside is the weight and disposability as well as little backup moisture in pellets. 

I don't use pellets because I have 92 plants in flower, harvesting 23 every 2 weeks. Each pot is about 3.5L (a bit under 1 US gallon). That's about 86 litres of media to dispose of or clean and recycle every 2 weeks. Getting all the root material out of pellets is *tedious*, almost as bad as manicuring, IMNSFHO. 

Fytocell is about 20% of the weight of pellets, with similar airspace content. I bet a litre of pellets weighs about 250-300g. A litre of dry Fytocell weighs about 50-60g. Anyone could carry 2x 100L bags of Fytocell with one hand. This makes a big difference when you use the volumes of media I do and have to dispose of it, too. Fytocell has its own drawbacks, the worst of which is that it floats- but there's a workaround for that by packing 50mm of RW floc in the base of each pot, which also keeps hte Fytocell from falling out of the drain holes.


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## Enigma (Apr 29, 2008)

Al, I'm sure you covered this.. but there is a sale on these peat cubes.. like 76 for $6 with the trays and lids.. jump on 'em?


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## Al B. Fuct (Apr 29, 2008)

Put them in the rubbish bin before you jump on 'em. 

Please don't use peat pots, jiffypots, etc in a recirculating hydro op. They tend to go to bits and the bits can foul pumps. Organic media can also support mould, where inorganic material like RW cubes cannot.


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## Enigma (Apr 29, 2008)

Al B. Fuct said:


> Put them in the rubbish bin before you jump on 'em.
> 
> Please don't use peat pots, jiffypots, etc in a recirculating hydro op. They tend to go to bits and the bits can foul pumps. Organic media can also support mould, where inorganic material like RW cubes cannot.


Shit.

What if the pump used a filter?

Clean the filter after every rez change (every 2 weeks)?

E


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## Al B. Fuct (Apr 30, 2008)

yeah, drop the pump in a knee-hi nylon stocking. Good enough. Check often if there's enough debris around to plug the filter.

Nylon stocking material is a pretty good all-purpose air & water filter for particulates down to about .01mm. 

Tell the gf you want her old stockings (mind the ones with really bad runs, they go in the bin).... but it's not because you're a chair sniffer or anything...


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## Enigma (Apr 30, 2008)

Al B. Fuct said:


> yeah, drop the pump in a knee-hi nylon stocking. Good enough. Check often if there's enough debris around to plug the filter.
> 
> Nylon stocking material is a pretty good all-purpose air & water filter for particulates down to about .01mm.
> 
> Tell the gf you want her old stockings (mind the ones with really bad runs, they go in the bin).... but it's not because you're a chair sniffer or anything...


 
Niice.. thanks.. there are three trays already acquired of the Jiffy cube things.. in all it cost $0.09 per jiffy cube (including the two trays and lids).

That was a steal in my opinion.. I think I will just have to get a nice pump with a nice filter and put plenty of clay pebbles around it in 3" pots.

The plan is a monthly harvest with two rubbermaid/sterlite opaque tubs with aero sprayers. Two rez's, two pumps, running 24/7.



Thanks again Guru,

E


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## Al B. Fuct (Apr 30, 2008)

well, hope it goes OK.

I do have to say that I _*CRINGE*_ every time someone calls me 'guru,' etc. I fuck it up OFTEN. I am faaaaaaaaar from perfect. 

I can call you Eddie, and Eddie, when you call me, you can call me Al.


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## Enigma (Apr 30, 2008)

Al B. Fuct said:


> well, hope it goes OK.
> 
> I do have to say that I _*CRINGE*_ every time someone calls me 'guru,' etc. I fuck it up OFTEN. I am faaaaaaaaar from perfect.
> 
> I can call you Eddie, and Eddie, when you call me, you can call me Al.


Haha, I hear ya. We all live and learn.. it is just that I look at your perpetual op.. and my itty-bitty tent.. 

You cut clones every week, with great success.

You produce enough in one cycle to last me a year.

When I have a question that I can't find the answer to first, I come to one of four people:

Al B. Fuct
Earl
CALIGROWN
Garden Knowm

There is a reason why they are listed as such.

I'm building on your design.. I've wanted a perpetual grow for years, I've had to settle with guerilla ops.. which has made me very security concious.

Earl, another hyrdo/aero op.. very strict in calculations and design.. a premier example of my linear track of thought.

CALIGROWN, for the pure fact of yield and simplicity.

Garden Knowm, the fact he produced such nice bud and numbers using CFL's.. I love fluoro's for their advantages.. but I agree with you in the perpetual side of the HID's.

Shit, the only reason I purchased the cooltube was from your example. The batwing to be bought later, or built. 400w for mum's.. 48" Quad T5's for two 10"x20" clone trays.. 24" Dual T5's for seedlings.

The 600w was great for the size, a 400w would suffice.. but I like a little overkill (75w per sq. ft.).

I was thinking.. maybe the jiffy cubes could be used to root them.. then wash away the material and place them into the clay pebbles using the aero sprayers.. no need to water from the top since they will be sprayed continually in the rooting tub. I can also use the cut-out plastic from the lid to cover the 3" net cups to prevent light from damaging roots!



E


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## VictorVIcious (May 1, 2008)

you could wash it out, why bother? You probably can't get it all out without damaging the roots and none of it will stay suspended, it will either float or sink to the bottom, and as Al has stated a nylon over the pump will keep it from getting into the pump. If it washes out let it. VV


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## Enigma (May 1, 2008)

VictorVIcious said:


> you could wash it out, why bother? You probably can't get it all out without damaging the roots and none of it will stay suspended, it will either float or sink to the bottom, and as Al has stated a nylon over the pump will keep it from getting into the pump. If it washes out let it. VV


I was going to get a pump with a filter anyways from the local aquarium shop. 

I think I might use the nylon (sterlized of course) around the jiffy cubes.. letting the roots go through that and then through the peebles into the aero tub.


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## ryan miller (May 2, 2008)

Thats great info you have posted. im in need of some couse my clones suck dick and keep dieing on me!
Are you feeding your moms up till and threw cloning or just for the first week after taking cuts?


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## Al B. Fuct (May 2, 2008)

ryan miller said:


> Thats great info you have posted. im in need of some couse my clones suck dick and keep dieing on me!


Overwatering is newb mistake *numero uno*. Slow rooting, slow growth, yellow leaves, last about 14 days before croaking? Overwatering. 



> Are you feeding your moms up till and threw cloning or just for the first week after taking cuts?


The mums live in a tray which is flooded 2x/day (every 12h) from a tank running Canna Vega, 1500-1800ppm @ 5.8. Never changes.


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## Enigma (May 3, 2008)

I think we will use up these Jiffy cubes in soil first.. we have so many and plenty of soil.. first we need to see if these things will allow for roots.

The directions say to fully soak them.. but I know if they are they will promote root rot. I'm thinking just enough moisture to get them to expand and then clone from there.


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## Al B. Fuct (May 4, 2008)

Even RW cubes have to be soaked for 24h before use, The trick is not to keep the cloning media saturated post plugging stems in them. You'll certainly get roots in jiffy pots, they just can be problematic later on in a recirculating system. You won't be using recirculation with soil, so don't fret.


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## Enigma (May 4, 2008)

Al B. Fuct said:


> Even RW cubes have to be soaked for 24h before use, The trick is not to keep the cloning media saturated post plugging stems in them. You'll certainly get roots in jiffy pots, they just can be problematic later on in a recirculating system. You won't be using recirculation with soil, so don't fret.


I'll keep that in mind.. 24 hours.. and I'll use my scale to see what kind of water-mass needs to be in them before rooting clones!

Someone might want to know this...



E


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## Al B. Fuct (May 4, 2008)

Use your scales, yeah- but what weights are you shooting for in jiffypots? I have no idea what the water content by weight should be in those things to make them damp and not saturated. Come to think of it, I actually think it may be hard to saturate a jiffypot because of the nature of them. 

I can give you chapter and verse on how to make roots pop (nearly with a BANG! ) in RW cubes in 7 days every time, but with jpots, you're pretty much on your own.


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## Enigma (May 4, 2008)

Al B. Fuct said:


> Use your scales, yeah- but what weights are you shooting for in jiffypots? I have no idea what the water content by weight should be in those things to make them damp and not saturated. Come to think of it, I actually think it may be hard to saturate a jiffypot because of the nature of them.
> 
> I can give you chapter and verse on how to make roots pop (nearly with a BANG! ) in RW cubes in 7 days every time, but with jpots, you're pretty much on your own.


Well, I said RW cubes.. someone got Jiffy.

It seems like your recorded success wasn't enough to convince someone.. oh well.

Besides, I think it worked out for the best.. a hydro op is out of the question.. the funds won't allow anything more. There is plenty of soil to go around.. and Jiffy-thingies are made for soil.

I will play with them and see how much is needed to fully expand one.. I might just have to squeze some moisture out of them when they are fully expanded.

The scale will help with determining the optimum mass of cube to water ratio.

Right now I've got a razor blade, denatured alcohol, and rooting hormone in powder form. The only thing I think is left is a heating mat for the 10x20 tray, which has a huge dome just in case. The light in the clone box is a 24" Dual T5.. I think that will be enough.

Should I get some H2O2 for the water used in expanding the Jiffy cubes?



E


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## Al B. Fuct (May 5, 2008)

Yep, get a heatmat, but I have my reservations about how well the heat will be conducted into the rootzone with jpots. Can't hurt.

Wouldn't squeeze them. That would crush the material and remove airspaces. 

Skip the dome. A clonebox which is several times the volume of a typical plastic humidome, with a thermostatically controlled exhaust fan, is better for controlling the leaf area air temp and doesn't allow sauna-like 80-100% humidity levels, which are simply not needed- and often cause problems. 

Bear in mind that the air temp isn't as critical as the rootzone temp when cloning. A clonebox is really just as good for keeping drafts from removing heat from your cloning media as it is for moderating the leaf-area air temp. 

Yes, use 50% grade H2O2 at 1ml/L in all solutions. I'm not so sure that jpots should be soaked for 24h before use as are RW cubes, though. You'll have to ask someone who has used them more than I have, which is only a few times, many years ago.

Save your pennies. Hydro is very much worth doing when the budget permits. Try to accumulate the gear slowly so it doesn't pain your wallet so much at once.


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## Enigma (May 5, 2008)

Al B. Fuct said:


> Yep, get a heatmat, but I have my reservations about how well the heat will be conducted into the rootzone with jpots. Can't hurt.
> 
> Wouldn't squeeze them. That would crush the material and remove airspaces.
> 
> ...


My clone box isn't muc more than a book-stand and some panda film with velcro.. I'll test it with and without.

Is it worth spending the extra on the thermostat heat mat.. or just go with one that is preset?

Hydro is an option.. the main problem now is ventilation.



E


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## Enigma (May 5, 2008)

Is there no way to use the off-the-shelf H2O2?

I heard it has other chems that are bad stuff.. and does the aquatic store have everything for pH up and down and H2O2 that is safe for plants?



E


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## grandpabear3 (May 6, 2008)

hey on a side note-ish....my ph up and down doesnt give instructions on how much to put in...is there a formula i can use to determine how much is needed? i would hat to just dump and sample!


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## cmak40 (May 6, 2008)

ya a ph pen to test the water after adding a little bit....invest in one now, a digital waterproof one to be safe. YOULL need one anyway. eventually youll figure out how much goes in your tanks.

ph is different in every city as every city has different water filtration and mineral additions.


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## Al B. Fuct (May 7, 2008)

Enigma said:


> My clone box isn't muc more than a book-stand and some panda film with velcro.. I'll test it with and without.
> 
> Is it worth spending the extra on the thermostat heat mat.. or just go with one that is preset?
> 
> Hydro is an option.. the main problem now is ventilation.


 Sounds like a great way to cook up a clonebox, very creative. 

The fixed temp mats are generally good enough. They are usually fixed at 30C. 

Ventilation is problem #1 for any grow op. It should be your very first consideration when deciding on a location for your grow.



Enigma said:


> Is there no way to use the off-the-shelf H2O2?
> 
> I heard it has other chems that are bad stuff.. and does the aquatic store have everything for pH up and down and H2O2 that is safe for plants?


 3% H2O2 from the pharmacy is impractical to use because of the volumes required. At 1ml/L, my 125L tanks need 125ml of 50% grade H2O2 per application. You need 17x more (!) of the 3% stuff to get the same concentration of H2O2, so 2125ml (2.125 litres) for a 125L tank. 

Common pharmacy 3% grade H2O2 packaging size is about 250ml. I'd need 8.5 bottles per tank, per application, every 3-4 days. I have 4x 125L tanks and a 50L for the mums. That would be more than 9 litres of 3% per treatment. Do you think I'd raise any eyebrows at the local chemist if I bought 38 bottles of their 3% H2O2 every 3-4 days? 

I've also heard mention of stabiliser chems added to pharmacy grade H2O2 but no one seems to know what these chems are nor do such things appear on the label. I frankly would not worry about it if you had to use 3% in a pinch. 

Look for 50% 'horticultural grade' H2O2 at hydro shops. You may also find 35% 'food grade' H2O2 which is used for sterilisation of food prep equipment. Application rate for 35% is 1.4ml/L.



bugsrnme said:


> hey on a side note-ish....my ph up and down doesnt give instructions on how much to put in...is there a formula i can use to determine how much is needed? i would hat to just dump and sample!


I'd hate for you to 'dump and sample,' too! It only takes about 10ml of pHDown to adjust my 125L tanks from about 7 to 5.8. You should be applying with a 10ml syringe or even an eyedropper for small tanks, not dumping it out of the bottle!

Yes- you need an electronic pH meter. Strips get you in the ballpark but are just not very accurate. I've compared strips to a calibrated meter- strips can vary as much as .5 from the meter reading.

Correct pH AFTER adding nutes to water. Many (if not all) hydroponic nutrients include pH buffers already. I run Canna Flores at 1400ppm in my flowering tanks (400ml each parts A&B in 125L tapwater). At 1400ppm, pH sets right about 5.8-5.9, requiring no correction, when my tapwater is at 7.1. Sometimes the pH of my municipal tapwater jumps up to about 8 after heavy rains. I suspect this is due to the water util more heavily treating water for pathogens as heavy rains tend to wash junk out of the catchments. When the tapwater pH is that high, it will require some downward correction.


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## Lestat2888 (May 7, 2008)

question for you man. I tried cloning several clones without a heat mat and i oversoaked the rockwool. they were at like 70 g's. I cut them an inch shorter, redid the process with 30g damp cubes. I dont have an agricultural heat mat. Can i use my girlfriends period heating mat instead? also, how often should i change the rockwool water and how do i do this without getting them to damp and up to 70 g's. thanks.


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## Al B. Fuct (May 8, 2008)

Lestat2888 said:


> question for you man. I tried cloning several clones without a heat mat and i oversoaked the rockwool. they were at like 70 g's. I cut them an inch shorter, redid the process with 30g damp cubes. I dont have an agricultural heat mat. Can i use my girlfriends period heating mat instead? also, how often should i change the rockwool water and how do i do this without getting them to damp and up to 70 g's. thanks.


Heating pads for people are not ideal- they usually get too hot. You might be able to mickeymouse it by putting your cubes in a tupperware or other heavy plastic container and separate that from the heat mat with a couple layers of bath towel. 

When the cubes have lost about half their water weight, water by dipping only a corner of the cube quickly, for about a half a second or so, in pH 5.8 water with 1ml/L 50% grade H2O2. Should get up and go for you if the rootzone temp runs about 28-30C.


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## doggiepaddel11 (May 11, 2008)

Hey AL, what is the optimum humidity level to root clones?


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## Al B. Fuct (May 11, 2008)

doggiepaddel11 said:


> Hey AL, what is the optimum humidity level to root clones?


Doesn't matter. Avoid humidomes. If the cutting is getting sufficient water uptake through the stem cut, they're not needed- and usually cause problems. 

Pay more attention to rootzone temp (a heatmat fixed on 30C takes care of that) and air temp (26-27C). A clonebox should serve only to limit drafts/air motion to keep the temps stable around the cuttings.


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## DrGreenFinger (May 15, 2008)

Al,

Can you reply to this thread?

https://www.rollitup.org/general-marijuana-growing/70682-thrive-alive-rooting-clones.html

Thanks much.


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## DrGreenFinger (May 16, 2008)

Al B,

I don't know where to get at you, but I want to ask you about breeding G-13 seeds. Check this out:

https://www.rollitup.org/general-marijuana-growing/73826-breeding-g-13-clones-seeds.html

As you know, you ARE appreciated.


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## Sponge Ass No Pants (May 17, 2008)

Al, I've never used this forum or any other except for browsing untill now and I think you sound like a pretty experienced grower, so I would like to know is your clone tray fed manually or on a timer and roughly how much how often, also how tall do your mothers get (from the bottom of the stem) before they're replaced? cheers pal, all the best


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## Al B. Fuct (May 17, 2008)

DrGreenFinger said:


> Al B,
> 
> I don't know where to get at you, but I want to ask you about breeding G-13 seeds.


I'm not the guy to ask about breeding. I sprout beans and propagate by cuttings. I let others do the breeding work.



Sponge Ass No Pants said:


> is your clone tray fed manually or on a timer and roughly how much how often,


Please read the entire thread. Your questions all are answered in the discussion, but I'll cover them here out of courtesy.

I water clones by hand. Each cube is watered by dipping only a corner of the cube into a bucket of a watering solution made from 10L tapwater, 10ml 50% grade H2O2 and pH corrected to 5.8. I water cubes 2x/day at 12h intervals. 

The trick is to keep cubes damp, never wet. A 40mm cube weighs 5g dry and 20-25g when properly just damp and not wet. Saturating cubes drives all air out of them. Oxygen is necessary for the formation of root nodes on stems and also to prevent opportunistic anaerobic pathogen problems, which can cause stem tips to rot. Overwet cubes will cause slow rooting if not the death of the cutting. Get it right and you will have roots out of the bottom of the cubes in as little as 5-7 days.



> also how tall do your mothers get (from the bottom of the stem) before they're replaced? cheers pal


The height of a mum on retirement is kinda hard to say as I am always cutting them back and really quite severely. I retire them when they are no longer vigorous or have signs of having picked up some gnats in the rootmass. 










Before cuttings and after. Mums recover this entire mass of veg material in 14 days. They're about 500-600mm tall before cuttings, perhaps 225-300mm after. 

After a number of passes of cuttings, despite repeated severe pruning back, the woody mainstem of a mum gets so long that there's not enough vertical room in the mum area for them to veg through 2 more weeks without the new material getting up into the light. I do retire mums that get too tall in this way. I always have at least 2 replacement mums being vegged up at any given time. I prune those back as needed, without necessarily using the clippings for clones. Usually takes about 3 weeks and at least a couple passes of maintenance pruning to get a new mum into shape to deliver cuttings in the style I need them. 

With a flood system beneath them, the mum area needs about 1900-2100mm (~6.5'-7') vertical height from the floor to allow sufficient lamp-leaf spacing.


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## Al B. Fuct (May 17, 2008)

I don't spend a lot of time talking about the mums- perhaps I should. 

Grabbed the cam when doing the last batch of cuts. 



The two on the left are young mums, only having had a maintenance pruning so far in their roughly 3 weeks in the veg area, when they went in as ~200mm tall clones. About 550-600mm as shown. These two haven't delivered any cuttings for clones yet, but are ready now as pictured. Check the 12mm thick mainstems- those fatties will make some nice clones. The thinner stems will be cut back to a lower node, the material discarded and new, thicker stems will shoot up to replace it all in the coming 14 days. 

The two on the right have delivered several passes (perhaps 3-4 post their ~3 week veg-up time) of cuttings. Note thick, woody mainstems. These are getting a bit long in the tooth and will soon be replaced by the ones on the left. As they lose vigor, mums tend to deliver thinner stems that don't root as profusely nor quickly. They can also become too tall, such that they're up into the light before the 14 day cutting interval has passed. I say so long and thanks for all the cuttings- as they go sailing into the compost bin, which feeds my all-organic veggie patch out back just fine, thanks. 

Here's the whole mob. 



Pretty obviously, there's a lot more veg material there than absolutely needed to deliver 30 cuttings. I do compost a LOT of vegged material. However, I get more stems to choose from to get the best quality for clones.



With plants out of the mum area, you can see just how small it is. It was built around the tray, which (I'm guessing) is about 300mm x 900-1000mm. Covered by a 400HPS, ventilation by a thermostatically controlled 150mm axial (200CFM) fan, passive intake. 

The mumzone is built in one corner of the flowering area. The tent-like walls are formed by a single piece of 250micron pandafilm thrown over a 2x4 screwed to the ceiling, with white sides outward. This assures no light leakage into the flowering area.


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## Sponge Ass No Pants (May 17, 2008)

My apologies Al I've just finished reading this thread in full as i only just realised there were multiple pages (wot a dumbass, but i am learning) and this typing buisiness is quite time consuming. Thanks for the info, its more than i thought to ask so here's another thanks. 

I would like to show you my op at some point when i get round to asking my brother how to get pics from my phone, to this poxy laptop. please dont waste your time explaining it, i would appreciate it but probably wouldn't understand. I need to be shown an re-shown, im sure you know what i mean.

I think I might tackle the famous '2 week thread' now i have new knowlege, but its getting late here and the missus needs servicing, saying that i would like to iron the last few unanswered questions......

" Up the chair sniffing "


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## StinkBud (May 18, 2008)

It costs under $40.

All you do is take a cutting, stick it in the neoprene sleeve and your good to go. Run straight water and you will have a 100% success rate.


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## Al B. Fuct (May 18, 2008)

StinkBud said:


> It costs under $40.
> 
> All you do is take a cutting, stick it in the neoprene sleeve and your good to go. Run straight water and you will have a 100% success rate.


Yep, I've done aerocloners before. They worked generally well for me, though I found dosing the water with 50% grade H2O2 @ 1ml/L improved the consistency across each batch. An aquarium heater in the rez, set for about 25C helps, too. 

I went back to RW as I found I could get 100%, every time, with cubes on a heat mat as opposed to about 80-90% in aero. Glad you can get 100% every time out of aero- I never could. 

Does your $40 account for lighting, enclosure and fans?


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## VictorVIcious (May 21, 2008)

I'm guessing thats a no. lol VV


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## ryan miller (May 26, 2008)

Al B. Fuct said:


> Yep, I've done aerocloners before. They worked generally well for me, though I found dosing the water with 50% grade H2O2 @ 1ml/L improved the consistency across each batch. An aquarium heater in the rez, set for about 25C helps, too.
> 
> I went back to RW as I found I could get 100%, every time, with cubes on a heat mat as opposed to about 80-90% in aero. Glad you can get 100% every time out of aero- I never could.
> 
> Does your $40 account for lighting, enclosure and fans?


ive had zero success in rockwool, it stays to wet. Are you getting 100% in rockwool on a heat mat? also if you put em strait on a heat mat it gets way to hot, you need the prop trey in between which will put your cubes in the mid 70's. still i had no success. good luck


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## bongjockey (May 27, 2008)

Al is on holiday so I will take the liberty of answering while I am babysitting his grow (but not the thread!). We both grow the same way (well mostly). Both Al & I get 100% nearly every time in 40mm rw cubes. We both use heat mats, Al has his clones in a thin plastic tray on the mat, I don't bother with the tray. What temp is your mat set to? Should be 30C. Is it a horticultural heat mat or are you using something else like a heating pad for people? Heating pads get too hot even on low. I tried to use one and it always got too hot. 

You're watering your cubes too much. See the 1st page of this thread for info on how to water rw cubes. Dip only a corner of a rw cube in watering solution for a second or so. 

Overwatering will cause slow rooting, yellow leaves, floppy leaves etc.


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## cmak40 (May 28, 2008)

bongjockey said:


> Al is on holiday so I will take the liberty of answering while I am babysitting his grow (but not the thread!). We both grow the same way (well mostly). Both Al & I get 100% nearly every time in 40mm rw cubes. We both use heat mats, Al has his clones in a thin plastic tray on the mat, I don't bother with the tray. What temp is your mat set to? Should be 30C. Is it a horticultural heat mat or are you using something else like a heating pad for people? Heating pads get too hot even on low. I tried to use one and it always got too hot.
> 
> You're watering your cubes too much. See the 1st page of this thread for info on how to water rw cubes. Dip only a corner of a rw cube in watering solution for a second or so.
> 
> Overwatering will cause slow rooting, yellow leaves, floppy leaves etc.


is this why i also get yellow burnt tips?

mine go straight on a horticultural heat mat and im doin good for succes rate they are just kind of droopy and yellow burnt tips. my watering skills could need honing as im still pretty new...


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## bongjockey (May 28, 2008)

cmak40 said:


> is this why i also get yellow burnt tips?
> 
> mine go straight on a horticultural heat mat and im doin good for succes rate they are just kind of droopy and yellow burnt tips. my watering skills could need honing as im still pretty new...


yes sounds like overwatering as well. Yellow tips and margins (edges) on lower leaves as well as that sickly undercurl are indicative of starvation of water. 

'Overwatering causing STARVATION of water,' you say? Yep. Overwet conditions favour pythium and fusarium which will rot the stem tip and block the capillaries, causing wilt. Very often people conclude the wilt is because the clones are too dry, so they set about giving even more water and perhaps misting too, which of course makes things worse. 

You can rescue them. Recut the affected stems and plug into new cubes that have been soaked in pH5.0 water for 24 hours. Drain as much of the water as possible by shaking the water out of the cubes. Never squeeze. Dip the stems in rooting powder & plug into new cubes. Water clones immediately with a mix of water, 50% grade H2O2 @ 1ml/L, pH to 5.8, use about 15-20ml per cube. A 60ml syringe is pretty good for accurate watering.


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## kochab (Jun 15, 2008)

great thread al.b, and even better tutorial. Its key that you stress not to overwater the cubes, glad to see you did that
I hate rockwool but its made me consider making an attempt with cloning with it again. I almost kind of miss it


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## Al B. Fuct (Jun 15, 2008)

Yep, the trick with RW cubes is simply to not allow them to suck up all the water that they are capable of sucking up. A dry 40mm cube weighs 5g. When properly just 'damp' they weigh 20-25g. Heavier than that is too wet- water will have displaced too much air from the cube, causing slow rooting and stem rot.


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## bigal10 (Jun 15, 2008)

al why did you close the thread up.


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## Al B. Fuct (Jun 16, 2008)

It was a thread about a 2-week rotation SoG op- I described that any number of times. The thing got too long to use as a reference and folks were not bothering to read what was already there. I wound up answering the same questions over & over, even stuff that was covered in post#1.


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## firsttimegrowerr (Jun 16, 2008)

Are you going to start a "ASK ALBFUCT" thread?
we need you! haha
Thanks for all the great advise!


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## Al B. Fuct (Jun 16, 2008)

Thanks for that. 

Whatever I write seems to turn into an 'Ask Al' thread. 

I probably should make some sort of 'Ask Al' thread to keep folks from hijacking threads I've commented with queries directed at me instead of the thread's topic.


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## DR. VonDankenstine (Jun 16, 2008)

Al B. Fuct said:


> Thanks for that.
> 
> Whatever I write seems to turn into an 'Ask Al' thread.
> 
> I probably should make some sort of 'Ask Al' thread to keep folks from hijacking threads I've commented with queries directed at me instead of the thread's topic.


Ran into a couple of problems---Maybe you can help sort it out?

1. I soaked the cubes in 5ph for 24hrs----had to add ph down a couple of times(the rinse solution wanted to keep climbing).
2. shook the water out of each cube till the weight was about 25grams
3. took cuttings and used fresh powder---stuck cubes.
4. put in trays and set heat mat to 82 deg.
5. Today is day10, and only 2 out of 10 showed roots.
You posted to use about 1 ml of 50% h202 per liter of water If I read correct-I was only able to source 35% h202-I don't think that would have made that much of a difference though---what do you think? I would like to get this method down--the 10 plants were just a test run but I was hoping to get 80-90% success rate.


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## Al B. Fuct (Jun 16, 2008)

Of course, you've done everything right. 

One thing you've varied from my process is adding pHDown as the pre-soak soln rose in pH. I only set the water to 5 and chuck the cubes in. 

35% is used at 1.7ml/L, compared to 1ml/L for 50%, but that would not have made much difference.

What was the air temp in your clonebox?


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## DR. VonDankenstine (Jun 16, 2008)

Al B. Fuct said:


> Of course, you've done everything right.
> 
> One thing you've varied from my process is adding pHDown as the pre-soak soln rose in pH. I only set the water to 5 and chuck the cubes in.
> 
> ...


 The temp is always 78deg-----the only other thing is we have hard----716ppm's h2o out of the tap----could that make a diff?---I do have an RO if needed----The clones are very healthy that I tried for the test.(their still very green and healthy----just no roots on 8 of them at day 10).--I'm going to set up another test run---any help would be very appreciated(I'd like to get this method down before the 1st). I will set the ph to 5 and toss the cubes in for 24/hrs(no-phdown)


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## xsupel2chrisx (Jun 16, 2008)

Do clones stay under the light 24/7 while theyre growing theyre roots ?


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## VictorVIcious (Jun 16, 2008)

Al B. Fuct said:


> Thanks for that.
> 
> Whatever I write seems to turn into an 'Ask Al' thread.
> 
> I probably should make some sort of 'Ask Al' thread to keep folks from hijacking threads I've commented with queries directed at me instead of the thread's topic.


I have often wondered if we could have a format for that type of a thread. Hubert started one like that a few months ago, I know I visited it several times. 
Hope you enjoyed your vacation, I am sure you did since your op was being 'run right' while you were gone, BongJockey was spectacular as your stand in, is that were you learned your patience? 
An Ask Al thread sound right. VV


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## firsttimegrowerr (Jun 16, 2008)

Hey Al when you got time check out my growjournal 

https://www.rollitup.org/grow-journals/76513-harvest-every-2-weeks-sog.html

any advise 
thanks al


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## Al B. Fuct (Jun 21, 2008)

You know what happens when you come back from holidays? You get the flu from hanging around in airports with kids sneezing their heads off. Bleah. In bed all weekend. 



DR. VonDankenstine said:


> The temp is always 78deg-----the only other thing is we have hard----716ppm's h2o out of the tap----could that make a diff?---I do have an RO if needed----The clones are very healthy that I tried for the test.(their still very green and healthy----just no roots on 8 of them at day 10).--I'm going to set up another test run---any help would be very appreciated(I'd like to get this method down before the 1st). I will set the ph to 5 and toss the cubes in for 24/hrs(no-phdown)


The high ppm you're seeing is coming from dissolved Ca & Mg. I have personally confirmed anecdotal evidence that N in clone watering solution seems to slow down rooting by several days, but I've not heard of nor confirmed the same using water high in Ca & Mg. 

2/10 isn't good at all. Did you get more popping out in the following days? 

I forgot to ask, do you have a heat mat? A proper heat mat set for 30C will speed things along and help consistency of rooting.

Puzzling over this one.


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## DR. VonDankenstine (Jun 21, 2008)

Al B. Fuct said:


> You know what happens when you come back from holidays? You get the flu from hanging around in airports with kids sneezing their heads off. Bleah. In bed all weekend.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


_ had one more pop in the first run 3/10----The second test came out 5 out of 10-------I do use a heat mat------seems the strain super silver haze a little sensitive to this cloning tec. I have an idea-------If you give me your tap water ppm I will dilute mine to match with RO( I think this will be as close to what your doing as possible) I will also add 1.7ml/L h202 instead of the 1ml/L I used the last 2 times. also------what is the ph of your tap water?_


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## Al B. Fuct (Jun 21, 2008)

*Aha. *The difference is the heat mat. Gotta get a proper horticultural heat mat. 

My tapwater is about 140-200ppm (that's all the resolution you get out of a Truncheon) and 7.1 at the moment. 

Doubt it's the strain. I've never had trouble cloning anything when I get the conditions right. 

It's midwinter here now and I'm having a spot of trouble because my clonebox isn't staying warm enough, averaging 10 days right now.


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## DR. VonDankenstine (Jun 21, 2008)

Al B. Fuct said:


> *Aha. *The difference is the heat mat. Gotta get a proper horticultural heat mat.
> 
> My tapwater is about 140-200ppm (that's all the resolution you get out of a Truncheon) and 7.1 at the moment.
> 
> ...


My heat-mat is a 4 tray width from GENERAL HYDROPONICS, it has a thermostat with a medium probe-----I have an exergen therm gun that I have checked it with---the mat is within + or - 2 deg of were I set it. Tell me about the proper horticulture heat mat you are talking about???----does it have a temp sensor in the mat itself? And thanks for the prompt reply-----The water info will help me replicate your set-up-----maybe this time 8/10---------one more question----do you give them any other water or mist during the ten days of cloning ?


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## gonfarmin (Jun 21, 2008)

bravo bravo good thread my sir


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## Al B. Fuct (Jun 22, 2008)

DR. VonDankenstine said:


> My heat-mat is a 4 tray width from GENERAL HYDROPONICS, it has a thermostat with a medium probe-----I have an exergen therm gun that I have checked it with---the mat is within + or - 2 deg of were I set it. Tell me about the proper horticulture heat mat you are talking about???----does it have a temp sensor in the mat itself? And thanks for the prompt reply-----The water info will help me replicate your set-up-----maybe this time 8/10---------one more question----do you give them any other water or mist during the ten days of cloning ?


hang on, how did I get the idea you didn't have a mat? *sigh* Jet lag + flu sux. 

Right, back to the dwg board. 

No, I don't mist anything.

OK, your clonebox temps are ~78F (25.5C), just a bit cool, but should be close enough for rock'n'roll, heat mat is at 28-30C, cubes not overwet, everything sterile when doing the cuttings... you got me, Charlie. With conds like that you ought to be getting 100% in 7-10 days. Let me know what you get when using different water. 

OK, back to bed for me... yuk.


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## firsttimegrowerr (Jun 22, 2008)

Hey al do you think mini RW cubes or hydroton rocks are better as a medium?
Also my mohter plants are in 6in pots right now and there getting kind of big, should i transplant to a bigger pot or theyll be fine in the 6in. THANKS AL!


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## Al B. Fuct (Jun 23, 2008)

firsttimegrowerr said:


> Hey al do you think mini RW cubes or hydroton rocks are better as a medium?
> Also my mohter plants are in 6in pots right now and there getting kind of big, should i transplant to a bigger pot or theyll be fine in the 6in. THANKS AL!


They will be OK in 6" pots for a while. Eventually, after taking several batches of cuttings from them, they will become rootbound. At that point, it's time to replace them with one of their 'kids,' but you can repot into bigger pots if you like, provided there's no nest of gnats which have taken a liking to your rootballs.

If you don't need a batch of cuttings within the next couple of weeks, I'd prune back your mums to about half their present size. The regrowth will have thicker stems. 

Pellets allow you to flood 3-5x per lights-on cycle; RW will only let you flood about 1x per 'day.' Because you can flood pellets more often, you can get more oxygenated nute soln through the roots, which will improve vigor and yield. However, RW holds more water, a good insurance policy if there's a watering sys failure.

still sick, back to bed, cya


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## firsttimegrowerr (Jun 23, 2008)

is pruning them, just basically topping the whole plant?
Wont my plants get to bushy? I have alot of vertical space but not alot horziontaly.

Thanks AL! hope you feel better and glad that your back!


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## firsttimegrowerr (Jun 23, 2008)

Sorry AL came up with another question,

I decided to change my medium to hydroton rocks so i can flood more often.
How high and how often do you suggest i flood them?
Since im using hydroton should i flood higher then 2-3in up the pot?

THANKS!


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## DR. VonDankenstine (Jun 24, 2008)

Al B. Fuct said:


> hang on, how did I get the idea you didn't have a mat? *sigh* Jet lag + flu sux.
> 
> Right, back to the dwg board.
> 
> ...


Brother-get felling better---I'm going back in----wish me luck---rockwool-cubes---here I come!!!


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## XabiAlonso14 (Jun 25, 2008)

new to the forum. trying to clone for first time, great advice Al B, my question is can i put my clones in my glasshouse outside for their veg stage, it varies in temp. usually about 70-80 degrees, i cant see anyone mention greenhouses, are they too hot? or is it that they are outside and people are security concious


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## ct420 (Jun 27, 2008)

where could i get rockwool?


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## fitzyno1 (Jun 27, 2008)

Ebay, any amount of the stuff


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## firsttimegrowerr (Jul 5, 2008)

al b where are you =(


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## DR. VonDankenstine (Jul 7, 2008)

First off let me ask-----how are u brother? I read a post where you said something to the point of wheelchair( you must be sick as hell)---again hope you get well soooooooooooon-------Check this out------------I did a mix of 35------clones----------Island sweet skunk/super silver haze/og kush/Godzilla-----------all took fast-----under 10 days with your method-----except----once again-----the super silver haze-not one rooted again---it has to be the strain----going to let them go for three weeks-after that the mother is going into the flowering room and I'm done with the strain(done a lot of cloning and never had a problem like I've had with the SSH. 
p.s.-----ordered a ten pack of "spice of life--sweet tooth #1".


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## khackylacky (Jul 17, 2008)

hey i had a quick question...i've built the same bubbler and it works terrific my question to you is can i plant the rooted cutting in soil? im using styrofoam for inserts which i remove once the cutting has rooted which basically leaves me with a non-supported cutting. so do i just lay the roots in the spot where i plan on putting the cutting and pile the soil o till the stem is sturdy? i jus wanted to be sure that i can place the unsupported (when i say unsupported i mean there is nothing that supports the cutting except the strofoam insert which definitely doesnt get planted) roots in the soil! help....


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## DR. VonDankenstine (Jul 19, 2008)

I don't want to answer for AL B. FUCT but since he has not been around I will answer this one question---Yes you can, just be careful not to smash the roots---just pour in you soil slowly and work your way around the pots----don't press the soil down but water with a ultra-mild B or thrive alive with b or even super-thrive----this will settle the soil a little----loose soil is what you want anyway.


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## Al B. Fuct (Jul 29, 2008)

firsttimegrowerr said:


> is pruning them, just basically topping the whole plant?
> Wont my plants get to bushy? I have alot of vertical space but not alot horziontaly.


 Yep, just lop the mainstem. Use that bit for a clone. The branches will then grow more vigorously and in about 2 weeks (given a big light like a 400HPS over them), you'll have several thick stems for your next batch of cuts.



firsttimegrowerr said:


> Sorry AL came up with another question,
> 
> I decided to change my medium to hydroton rocks so i can flood more often.
> How high and how often do you suggest i flood them?
> Since im using hydroton should i flood higher then 2-3in up the pot?


 Flood up to about 1/2" BELOW the level of the rockwool cube you have nested in the pellets. DON'T let the rockwool cube be flooded/saturated. You want the pellets to be dampened- only. The roots will find the damp pellets in a few days. Roots in pellets can be flooded very frequently as the pellets have plenty of airspaces between them. Start with 3x/day, up it to 5x with vigorously growing plants. 

Oxygen to the roots is the name of the game for vigorous growth and high production. The more often you can bathe the roots with oxygenated nute solution, the better they like it. You can only flood often when you are *not *using an absorbent medium. If using an absorbent medium, frequent flooding will displace air and drown roots. Pellets are great for frequent flooding. 

However, pellets have a practicality problem. They must be thoroughly cleaned and sterilised if you intend to re-use them. Even if you do diligently clean them, they will still accumulate nutrient salts, which you won't be able to remove. Then you have to dispose of the stuff. Being heavy, you should double or triple bag them when disposing in rubbish collection. You don't want the bags splitting when they're put in the truck... Lightweight media is easier to dispose of.



XabiAlonso14 said:


> new to the forum. trying to clone for first time, great advice Al B, my question is can i put my clones in my glasshouse outside for their veg stage, it varies in temp. usually about 70-80 degrees, i cant see anyone mention greenhouses, are they too hot? or is it that they are outside and people are security concious


 Clones do best in a tightly controlled environment. That means 18-24h/day, low-intensity light, air temp control at 28-30C, 30C heat mat for the rootzones. 70-80F just isn't controlled enough and you have no control over your day length in your glasshouse. You will get strikes but it'll take longer than if you present perfect conditions all the time. You will most easily get tightly controlled conditions by making up a clonebox with fluoro lighting, a heat mat and a small exhaust fan with a thermostat.



ct420 said:


> where could i get rockwool?


 Any hydro shop. 



khackylacky said:


> hey i had a quick question...i've built the same bubbler


same bubbler as what?



khackylacky said:


> and it works terrific my question to you is can i plant the rooted cutting in soil? im using styrofoam for inserts [...]


Did you mean to ask this question in another thread?


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## CustomHydro (Aug 21, 2008)

Hey AL, Great thread, just thought I would try and squeeze in a few questions since u get bumrushed with them, y not by me too...
I'm starting a sog op (4 4x8 flood tables). I have a shit ton of BioBizz Soil, Do u think I can put RW cubes in 25% soil and 75% perlite or is this a bad idea?
If so do I ph for soil or for Hydro? 

If not, how about rw into all perlite?


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## Al B. Fuct (Aug 21, 2008)

You won't want to put any soil in a flood op. You'll end up with mud in your trays and pumps killed by silt. 

Save the potting soil for growing some nice tomatoes in containers in the back yard. 

RW cubes into perlite is fine.  Keep the cubes 1/2" above the flood level.


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## CustomHydro (Aug 22, 2008)

Hey Al , is this a good way to drain the res'?


I'm worried about fitting the connections to be water tight? Can u recommend a good way to do this?

How many liters of sauce do u keep in each res?


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## Al B. Fuct (Aug 22, 2008)

Try it this way instead:







Alternatively, each system can have its own run of garden hose to a drain. Sharing the drain line slows things down when all the tanks are draining at one time. 



CustomHydro said:


> I'm worried about fitting the connections to be water tight? Can u recommend a good way to do this?
> 
> How many liters of sauce do u keep in each res?


These drain lines carry very little pressure. Barbed plastic 'tee' fittings in the sections of garden hose will be fine. Use hose clamps if you're nervous. 

Each of my tanks is 125L, supporting 23 plants per tank. About 5L of res cap for each plant is a good plan. 
​


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## CustomHydro (Aug 22, 2008)

That is way better! I was only worried about leaks becuz the way I thought about doing it I would have had a drain on the bottom side of the rez, and I would have needed an inline pump. Thanks a ton!


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## Al B. Fuct (Aug 22, 2008)

Yep, it's wise NOT to put fittings through the wall or floor of your rez tanks. It is a potential leak point in the future.


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## CustomHydro (Aug 24, 2008)

Al B. Fuct said:


> Yep, it's wise NOT to put fittings through the wall or floor of your rez tanks. It is a potential leak point in the future.


Thanks Al, u inspired me to put away my aero setup (I spent countless hours on) and rebuild my grow room to fit a 2k watt/ sog/ flood op. It was like a calling, my room is 8x9x8 Perfect for 4, 4x4 tables
Not to copy u, but man u got a good thing going!... Wait, I am copying u! Shit, I hope u don't mind, cuz I just dropped a grand on remodeling the grow room...
Another grand and I'm in business 
How many CFM will I need to cool each 1kwatt light?


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## Al B. Fuct (Aug 24, 2008)

CustomHydro said:


> Not to copy u, but man u got a good thing going!... Wait, I am copying u! Shit, I hope u don't mind, cuz I just dropped a grand on remodeling the grow room...


You're absolutely allowed- nay, _*encouraged-*_ to copy my op! That's why I post this stuff. I suggest to everyone that they should find a productive op (though not necessarily mine) and copy it to the letter. The surest way to succeed is to emulate success. 



> How many CFM will I need to cool each 1kwatt light?


A single 150mm axial fan (200CFM) will run two cooltubes in series with no drama. Each lamp will cause the air drawn through the cooltubes to rise 7C per lamp. If the intake air is 20C, the outlet air, after passing 2x 1000 lamps will be about 34C. 

You'll need a separate exhaust blower which is sized based on the rooms airmass volume. Should be able to shift the room airmass in 3 mins or less. A 500cu ft room needs a min 167CFM exhaust blower. This is one of the very rare cases in a grow op where more is better. My op is 500cu ft and has a 600CFM centrif on exhaust with a couple of 150mm, 250CFM axials as intake blowers. I fairly well have a wind tunnel going.


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## CustomHydro (Aug 25, 2008)

Al B. Fuct said:


> You're absolutely allowed- nay, _*encouraged-*_ to copy my op! That's why I post this stuff. I suggest to everyone that they should find a productive op (though not necessarily mine) and copy it to the letter. The surest way to succeed is to emulate success.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Thanks for the encouragement to work off of your plans!

I'm running a 150mm Vortex(450cfm)for my main exhaust
I will be getting a few 150mm coaxil's for intake and cool tubes.

How about res temps? I hope I don't need four chillers or do they stay in check with good air temp control.


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## Al B. Fuct (Aug 25, 2008)

CustomHydro said:


> Thanks for the encouragement to work off of your plans!
> 
> I'm running a 150mm Vortex(450cfm)for my main exhaust


That's one WHOOSH of a 150mm blower! Most 150 axials are closer to 200CFM.



> How about res temps? I hope I don't need four chillers or do they stay in check with good air temp control.


Should stay OK with good air temp control- the exception being those systems which pump constantly like some aero or NFT systems. A submerged pump motor can put a lot of heat in the water.


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## CustomHydro (Aug 25, 2008)

Whoops I have one last question after all...
My pots ar 9 inches tall 8.5 inches across the top, Are they too big?
My tables only flood to 3 inches...
Should I cut the pots down?


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## Al B. Fuct (Aug 25, 2008)

CustomHydro said:


> Whoops I have one last question after all...
> My pots ar 9 inches tall 8.5 inches across the top, Are they too big?
> My tables only flood to 3 inches...
> Should I cut the pots down?


Depends on the media you're using. 

If you have an absorbent medium like RW, your arrangement is fine. RW has a very strong wicking action that will draw water up to within an inch or so of the medium top surface even if only a couple inches of the bottom get flooded. 

If you're using something like clay pellets, make the overflow tube taller so the flood level comes up to within 1/2" of the bottom of the RW cube (presuming you're using cubes). 

If you have a medialess cloning arrangement and you raise them in pellets, you can flood nearly to the media surface. 

However, flooding so that the media surface gets wetted frequently will encourage a green slime of algae on the media tops.


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## DR. VonDankenstine (Sep 4, 2008)

Al- Did a new batch of clones to the T per your instructions---The only difference this time is I left more leaf on the stems---the clones wilted within one hour---heat mat---30C---air--26.5C--Do you think it was due to the extra leaf?--I have always used humid domes and this time I wanted to try it your way as you say---what is the humidity in your room?---thanks.


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## Al B. Fuct (Sep 4, 2008)

hmm, odd. 

I usually give mine about 6 hours in the dark right after cutting to prevent that immediate wilt. Once water uptake is established into the stem cut, they do OK with 24/0 light. 

Did you give them a 6 hour dark period right after cutting?

Excessive leaf would have made a greater water demand. 

I usually don't leave more than this much foliage:



I don't control the RH in my clonebox, it is what it is. I only control the temp to 28-30C.


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## grandpabear3 (Sep 4, 2008)

swing and a miss for rockwool again al......

totally kidding...i know better, but i'm glad i'm not the only one who has problems with it.


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## Al B. Fuct (Sep 4, 2008)

oh man, everyone has trouble with RW cubes until they're well practised (and sometimes even after then...), but wilt right after cutting isn't unique to RW. The 6hr dark period post cutting usually prevents it.


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## Al B. Fuct (Sep 4, 2008)

Dr VonD reasonably should kick my ass. I have gone back over the early part of this thread and have found that I omitted the instruction to give clones 6h in darkness immediately post-cutting. 

It's not all lost, though. If the clones don't 'inflate' with water soon, they can be re-cut and then given a 6h nap. They should come good.


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## DR. VonDankenstine (Sep 7, 2008)

Al-
I think you did mention the dark period in your original clone post-I just forgot but for some reason I was thinking that your clone box was close to or part of your flowering room and had a really high R/H---I saved the wilted clones by spraying with water and throwing a humidity dome over them. Next time I will try the 6 hours of darkness without the domes-It wasn't that big of a deal-just replacing my old mothers. All the suggestions and info makes a lot of sense but I would still have to guess your humbility is fairly high in your clonebox area--->50%R/H ????. Anyway thanks again and talk to you soon(more copies of the FUCT engineering DIY's going on as well as some studies into max cfm rating's of different sizes and lengths of ducts)


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## Al B. Fuct (Sep 7, 2008)

Well, I couldn't find my mention of the dark period. Sorry about that. 

There's 2 ways of coping with the immediately post-cutting wilt, either temporarily increase the humidity (as you did) or temporarily reduce the transpiration (as I do). 

The RH in my clonebox varies, depends on how often the vent fan has to run to hold the temps at 30C. I don't control it and don't usually pay attention to the RH, either. Keeping the temp consistently at 30C helps more than keeping the RH high. I'm sure that evaporation from the damp cubes raises the RH some, but I don't do anything purposeful to raise it.


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## toast master (Sep 7, 2008)

Hey Al , and DR. D .... I live in a relitive dry rh area.... i always make sure i take clones less than 2 hrs. after watering .. if i dont ,i wilt every time... i can really tell the diference between cutting in the am or pm ... just one of those quirks you have to figure for your area , no 2 grows are the same, you must experiment .. I can only get al's clones to work at all ... small clones are gone in 10 min. good luck


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## DR. VonDankenstine (Sep 7, 2008)

Toast Master-
I get alot of pm's about cloning and refer about 99% of them to Al- Rockwool and cloning is not my forte----it's Al's as along with many other things--just like the Thomas registry or a good set of encyclopedias. The method works very well just some little tweaks I had to make for my area-As AL said the dark period would stabilize the water in the cutting. All my cuttings are doing well now without the humidity dome.


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## toast master (Sep 7, 2008)

Ya.. I dont do the dark period.. never needed to i guess...always something different , good luck


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## Al B. Fuct (Sep 7, 2008)

You guys have sorted out a pretty big issue with cannabis boards. Growers are located all over the planet with damn near every ambient condition you can have on any day of the year. There's invariably going to be some differences between how ops in different places operate. However, none of those differences should be attributed to mere personal preference, rather to differing available ambient conditions. Almost no grow room is a totally environmentally controlled chamber which presents perfect conditions all the time no matter what's going on outside. 

When I was working in R&D, we DID have some environmental test chambers which you could set for an exact temp & RH and air volume exchange. Had heaters, aircon, humidifier and adjustable rate vent fans all built in and computer controlled. You could plunk it in the middle of the desert & make ice cubes in it or grow Spanish Moss in Antarctica. I would have _*killed *_for one, but they were worth $250,000 and were the size of a pickup truck...


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## waterwitch (Sep 7, 2008)

Another great class by, DR.AL.B.FUCT !!!!

Thanks again, DOC


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## toast master (Sep 7, 2008)

Yaaaaa enviro chamber ohhh ya.. my wife says the bath room is my enviro chamber..she says if i turn that fan off im a dead man. lol....

one thing i have had to do latley is the clone stem is wobbling out the cube after a few handlings... dont know why.. i think the cubes have not been a dense as the last batches... ive been wraping a rubber band around the cube to keep it tight against the stem, seems to be working so far....


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## CustomHydro (Sep 9, 2008)

Al, u ever use this stuff...
It's Rockwool, but it's 2 different kinds. 
One absorbs water, one repels water. 
They say to mix togethe or use seperately.
Do u think this is a good idea or???


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## Al B. Fuct (Sep 9, 2008)

Yep, you can get both water absorbent and water repellent RW. I used the absorbent type for years before I found out there was a repellent type.  

I'm not sure I would buy both sorts, the absorbent type alone seems to work.


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## CustomHydro (Sep 9, 2008)

Cool, that is exactly what I needed to know...!!...


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## corral hollow kid (Sep 9, 2008)

Al B. Fuct said:


> You guys have sorted out a pretty big issue with cannabis boards. Growers are located all over the planet with damn near every ambient condition you can have on any day of the year. There's invariably going to be some differences between how ops in different places operate. However, none of those differences should be attributed to mere personal preference, rather to differing available ambient conditions. Almost no grow room is a totally environmentally controlled chamber which presents perfect conditions all the time no matter what's going on outside.


 I am growing at 7K ft above sea level. The outside RH is usually about 12%. I am struggling right now with nute levels...I think the difference in the DO of the solution is causing me to have to "throttle back" the juice. I can't wait until it starts snowing and the outside temp is always around -2C and the humidity is <10% all the time!!!

Just another example of how each grow op is different. I wish I could "hermetically" seal my room and artificially control EVERY aspect of the environment...as U did Al!!! But for now, I have to modify my MO to match the environment I have chosen to grow in!

Thanks again Al!!!


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## Al B. Fuct (Sep 9, 2008)

I haven't succeeded in controlling every environmental aspect of my op, but the last time I moved it, I raised its elevation close to 3000ft above its last location.... like free aircon. 

I still want one of those environmental chambers.


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## saturnlily (Sep 14, 2008)

hey, i know this isnt the right thread but the other closed i have fungas gnats and read using h2o2 and water mix will kill them but cant find how much to use per gallon of water... could you tell me?


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## Al B. Fuct (Sep 14, 2008)

H2O2 will not be effective as an insecticide. Don't know who told you that, but they are mistaken. H2O2 will control mould & fungus, eliminating a food source, but won't kill larvae or adult gnats.


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## CustomHydro (Sep 14, 2008)

Hey Al, I almost have my room done...
Just a few more Q's for u if u have a sec...

1 gal pots will be sufficient for SOG, correct?

Do I need to change the nutes/res water every week or every 2 weeks?

Do I need to flush with plain water for a week at the end?


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## grandpabear3 (Sep 14, 2008)

dont forget the molasses in the last 4 weeks of flower!!!


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## Al B. Fuct (Sep 14, 2008)

bugs, if I didn't know you were having a bit of a laugh, I'd pour unsulphured blackstrap molasses in your knickers and throw you to the ants.


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## Al B. Fuct (Sep 14, 2008)

CustomHydro said:


> 1 gal pots will be sufficient for SOG, correct?


yep 



> Do I need to change the nutes/res water every week or every 2 weeks?


yep, every 2 weeks. 



> Do I need to flush with plain water for a week at the end?


Nope. You can if you want to, but it's not necessary.


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## sparkafire (Sep 14, 2008)

bugsrnme said:


> dont forget the molasses in the last 4 weeks of flower!!!



Hey bugs don't forget the lemon juice in your RO water for PH down!


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## sparkafire (Sep 14, 2008)

CustomHydro said:


> Hey Al, I almost have my room done...
> Just a few more Q's for u if u have a sec...
> 
> 1 gal pots will be sufficient for SOG, correct?
> ...


Hey there 

I started a thread about SOG show us your room. 

https://www.rollitup.org/hydroponics-aeroponics/109497-sog-growers-wanted.html


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## grandpabear3 (Sep 14, 2008)

we better stop screwin round on the bossmans thread....i was castagated by him earlier....i'm getting over it but man it stings.


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## sparkafire (Sep 14, 2008)

bugsrnme said:


> we better stop screwin round on the bossmans thread....i was castagated by him earlier....i'm getting over it but man it stings.


I thought you said castrated when i first read it. 

Yes you are right. I don't want a rebuke from ABF would be kinda like BatMan bitch slapping Robin. Sorry AL


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## DR. VonDankenstine (Sep 14, 2008)

stopping by to say hello---the clones came out very nice even after the first wilt---I'm going to try the 6 hours of darkness on the next batch but I'm getting a lot more handy with the rock-wool cubes--Once I get your method down close to 100% i'm going to make me a hempy cloner and give it a shot. Since i'm on your thread whats your opinion on light movers say with your set-up but longer tables--throw down your 2cents brother, most importantly and by the way-----hope you are well. Take care brother I'm off on another adventure...


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## butterflykisses (Sep 15, 2008)

hey al my first fytocell grow was more than i could have hoped for and it seems every thing i grow in it does better than any other. thanks for the advice and pointing it out your the best! if i could rep u again i would. it does almost as good as aeroponics with out the worry of killing a pump. even my artichokes grew better.


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## Al B. Fuct (Sep 15, 2008)

butterflykisses said:


> hey al my first fytocell grow was more than i could have hoped for and it seems every thing i grow in it does better than any other. thanks for the advice and pointing it out your the best! if i could rep u again i would. it does almost as good as aeroponics with out the worry of killing a pump. even my artichokes grew better.


Wow, that's all great news! Thanks for that. 

On the suggestion of the package labelling, I am trialling disposing of used Fytocell by digging it into my veg garden soil to help with water retention. It is supposed to change colour from stark snow white to match the colour of the soil. Will let you know how it goes.


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## sb101 (Sep 16, 2008)

somebody linked me to this thread while i was asking about clones in rockwool, very informative al b. i've just realized i've been keeping my rockwool waay to wet, so i emptied out the reservior and am gonna let it dry out a little bit. my clones definitely haven't been growing as fast as that. i'm 2 weeks in it 6/8 showing roots, only 3 really developed roots. think you have some advice for me?

https://www.rollitup.org/hydroponics-aeroponics/110176-2-inch-difference.html


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## CustomHydro (Sep 16, 2008)

If you read the thread, you have already been advised. You got roots, to get em faster just water less, and keep the temps where they should be, and your golden...


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## Al B. Fuct (Sep 16, 2008)

sb101 said:


> think you have some advice for me?


None that you have not already put to good use. 

Hope things keep going better for you.


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## CustomHydro (Sep 17, 2008)

butterflykisses said:


> hey al my first fytocell grow was more than i could have hoped for and it seems every thing i grow in it does better than any other. thanks for the advice and pointing it out your the best! if i could rep u again i would. it does almost as good as aeroponics with out the worry of killing a pump. even my artichokes grew better.


 Great, I just bought 80 lbs of RW, and the new thing comes around...


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## Al B. Fuct (Sep 17, 2008)

CH, you'll still need some RW floc even if you switch to Fytocell. Packing about 25mm of floc tightly in the bottom of each pot keeps the Fytocell from escaping.


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## CustomHydro (Sep 17, 2008)

Oh okay, not a total waste then. Now I just need about 500lbs of Fytocell to even it out... lol... 
Al, I bought 4 4x4 flood tables but my room will only allow 3- 4x4's and 1- 3x4. I never figured in the O.D. of the tables. Do u think I could still start 20-25 plants and just use the 3x4 table for the first 2 weeks or will that get too crowded??


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## Lord Dangly Bits (Sep 17, 2008)

Al B Fuct, Do you like Rock Wool better then Rapid Rooters for your cutting, because of ease of use or cost or what?


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## Al B. Fuct (Sep 17, 2008)

CustomHydro said:


> Oh okay, not a total waste then. Now I just need about 500lbs of Fytocell to even it out... lol...


I know you're cracking wise, but 500lb of Fytocell would be about 100x 100L bags. 

I go through about 8-10 bags of Fytocell to one 12.5kg bale of floc.



> Al, I bought 4 4x4 flood tables but my room will only allow 3- 4x4's and 1- 3x4. I never figured in the O.D. of the tables. Do u think I could still start 20-25 plants and just use the 3x4 table for the first 2 weeks or will that get too crowded??


You will have a bottleneck in the process which means you can't put any more numbers every 2 weeks than the capacity of the smallest tray.No matter, though... If you're duplicating my op, you won't really need trays that big. 

If you took the 4'x4' figure from the lead post in https://www.rollitup.org/hydroponics-aeroponics/6592-get-harvest-every-2-weeks.html I hope you got through to the point in the thread where I discovered that my trays are not 4'x4'. I have not had to use imperial figures for many years and simply estimated when writing that post. They looked like 4x4! They're not. They're 900mm x 900mm, about 2'7" and change square.


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## Al B. Fuct (Sep 17, 2008)

Lord Dangly Bits said:


> Al B Fuct, Do you like Rock Wool better then Rapid Rooters for your cutting, because of ease of use or cost or what?


I am not fond of any organic materials in a recirculating hydro op. Rapid rooters, Jiffy Pots etc are made from compressed peat, coco coir or similar. Organic materials can support mould growth as well as can break down with exposure to H2O2. The stuff can fragment and bits may foul water pumps, etc.


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## DR. VonDankenstine (Sep 18, 2008)

shot you a question about 8 posts back. Please check it out when you get a moment---thanks.


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## CustomHydro (Sep 18, 2008)

Al B. Fuct said:


> They're not. They're 900mm x 900mm, about 2'7" and change square.


No SHIT! No wonder your one gallon pots looked so big... lol... That almost makes me sick to my stomach, but I will make the best out of it... Looks like I need to have about ten moms! It's bad news, but at the same time it's good. I guess I can have about thirty plants instead of 20-25.


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## Al B. Fuct (Sep 18, 2008)

DR. VonDankenstine said:


> Since i'm on your thread whats your opinion on light movers say with your set-up but longer tables


See https://www.rollitup.org/hydroponics-aeroponics/94811-al-b-faqt-106.html#post1334828


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## Al B. Fuct (Sep 18, 2008)

CustomHydro said:


> No SHIT! No wonder your one gallon pots looked so big... lol... That almost makes me sick to my stomach, but I will make the best out of it... Looks like I need to have about ten moms! It's bad news, but at the same time it's good. I guess I can have about thirty plants instead of 20-25.


Sorry about that. 

If I could edit the early posts, I would. That info doesn't come out until about 50odd pages into that thread, so I would expect most ppl will miss it.


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## CustomHydro (Sep 18, 2008)

Al don't sweat it man! Shit happens and it does for a reason. I have an idea to solve this tiny mixup. Instead of moving the plants tray to tray, I could just change the nute mixture in the resevoirs, couldn't I. I hope I'm not overlooking something, cuz this would solve every one of my current problems. Then I can start growing!!


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## Al B. Fuct (Sep 18, 2008)

Sure, you can leave them in the same tray for the whole flowering period, no worries. I move plants from tray to tray so I have an excuse to clean the trays, but there's no real need to move them if you don't want to. 

I can't tell you how sorry I am about the 4x4 figure. I wish I could fix it. When I was running that thread, I constantly barked at ppl to read the whole thread to catch all the changes and updates, but the thread got to be hundreds of pages long and that became a rather big ask.


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## CustomHydro (Sep 18, 2008)

Really, don't worry! 
In all actuality you probably helped me out by me thinking they were 4x4. So I will have 3 4x4s and a 3x3. The 2 1000watt lights should be plenty still, and I can clean the tables every 8 weeks, or if I have to I can just move them to a different table and back after the cleaning...
If I wouldn't have come across your thread I would be 8 weeks into an Aeroponic growing nightmare/disaster! So I would have much rather read it and missed that page than to never read it at all.. .


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## Al B. Fuct (Sep 18, 2008)

I guess it could be worse, but that makes me no happier. I'm really annoyed at myself over that error.


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## VictorVIcious (Sep 18, 2008)

I wish we could make you feel better about it. Maybe the mods can fix the first page or so or put a note at the front of it, a little sticky type deal?? VV


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## Al B. Fuct (Sep 18, 2008)

VV, the lead post in the 2 weeks thread and also the RW cloning thread both need some fixes. Maybe I'll bug potroast about appending some notes to them.


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## VictorVIcious (Sep 18, 2008)

Al B. Fuct said:


> VV, the lead post in the 2 weeks thread and also the RW cloning thread both need some fixes. Maybe I'll bug potroast about appending some notes to them.


 He did edit that clone mix h202 booboo, or someone did. I know I have given folks the correct sizes whenever I have seen it mentioned. I have to say that light does cover enough for 8' length, I am more comfortable with the 3' width though, maybe because the cooltube kind blocks the ends. The other (2) tables are going to stay the 4' by 32" (950mm by>810mm) Thanx again for the measurements for the reflector. Those adjustment cables? got any pictures. lol VV


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## Al B. Fuct (Sep 18, 2008)

> Those adjustment cables? got any pictures.


you need pix of the cables?


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## VictorVIcious (Sep 19, 2008)

I am kinda wondering if I could make something that 'adjust the width'. Probably won't work with the angle I used to stabilize the sides, just curious, maybe I could build the next one a little different? VV


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## Al B. Fuct (Sep 19, 2008)

Yeah, the AAW is not shipped with a bend in it. It's two flat panels that when drawn together by the cables holds its shape by the spring tension of the bent panels. With your copy, you could bend the parabolas wide and pull them together in the same manner with some wire or small open link chain.


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## VictorVIcious (Sep 19, 2008)

Thanx, got it now, instead of the aluminum angle, just use small cable and attach it instead. A lot less weight, $14.00 less cost. I used eye hooks at the corners of this one in case it didn't hang straight, it would be easy to use them. I'll post it when I build it, probably not for a month or two. As we get closer to winter my a/c will run less, the slight increase won't be one and by the time we get to summer again......VV


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## davidgrimm (Sep 20, 2008)

About 5 days ago you mentioned that you were going to try disposing of Fytocell in your outside soil (as opposed to the rubbish bin) and that it was supposed to change it's color to a more soil like color. 

Did you get a chance to do this yet and, if so, would you enlighten us please on the results?

As always, thank you for taking the time to give us the benefits of your experience and knowledge.

David Grimm


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## Al B. Fuct (Sep 21, 2008)

davidgrimm said:


> it was supposed to change it's color to a more soil like color.


yep, I've mixed some used Fytocell in the soil in the veg patch up the back. It's only been in there for 4-5 days, if that, and I haven't run the rotohoe through it yet, just turned it over with the spade. Will keep you updated as I know more. 



> As always, thank you for taking the time to give us the benefits of your experience and knowledge.


No worries


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## HiGHLiFE28 (Sep 21, 2008)

got any tips for rapid rooter clones?


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## Al B. Fuct (Sep 21, 2008)

yep, keep rapid rooters & Jiffy Pots out of hydro systems. They're made of organic matter (compressed peat, usually), which can support mould growth as well as may decompose & fragment when exposed to H2O2.


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## CustomHydro (Sep 22, 2008)

Hey Al, I finnally finished my room and started my seeds. I just wanted to stop by and say thanks for all your help, I wouldn't have been able to do it w/o u. When selecting my mother for the operation what are some characteristics I want to look for?
Thick branches, short height, tight internode spacing???


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## Al B. Fuct (Sep 22, 2008)

cool CH, great to hear. 

I'm guessing you're selecting between mums that have been grown up from seed. It's as simple as choosing the best looking plant. The healthiest one/s will do fine.


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## davidgrimm (Sep 26, 2008)

Al B. Fuct said:


> yep, I've mixed some used Fytocell in the soil in the veg patch up the back. It's only been in there for 4-5 days, if that, and I haven't run the rotohoe through it yet, just turned it over with the spade. Will keep you updated as I know more.
> 
> 
> Just wondered if you had noticed any change yet ?
> ...


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## Al B. Fuct (Sep 26, 2008)

I've run the rotohoe through it and it does mix into soil amazingly well. 

After the first couple of waterings and about a week in the soil, a couple pebble sized chunks (from about 20L of material turned into the soil) surfaced and they are still stark white, but smaller bits have incorporated into the soil very well. It has yet to fully change to soil colour, but you'd never know there was 20-odd litres of waste Fytocell incorporated in this soil. 

If for stealth reasons you're looking for a way to make the stuff totally disappear, soil incorporation may not be the way. I suspect there always will be a bit or two of it popping up now and again, we'll see. 

However, it does work in very well and definitely has improved the water retention of some sandy/silty loam soil, at least as well as an equivalent volume of compost. The water holding quality will continue with Fytocell until it breaks down, said by the maker to be about 10 years until it is fully biodegraded. Compost won't last quite that long as a soil conditioner.


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## grandpabear3 (Sep 27, 2008)

i have decided to do a three way side by side comparison of cloning techniques. one will be the aerocloner, the next will be rapid rooters in a humidome on a heat mat and the third will be albfuct style rw cubes on a heat mat. i'm gonna settle it once and for all for me personally. i'll start a cloning journal and post pics like crazy. it'll be a hoot
__________________


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## Al B. Fuct (Sep 27, 2008)

It'll be a fair comparison if you've mastered all three techniques.  Ambitious, though! 

Will be very interesting.


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## Phinxter (Sep 27, 2008)

Al B. i have noticed my clones not talking root for about day 12 this last round and i belive the cause to be too cool on the temps of the rooting zone. 
i dont / didny have a heat pad .. it was warm and i didnt need one.
winter is starting now and temps are 15.5C . so i bought the hot pad and thermometer for it.
what temp should the pad be set to ?


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## Al B. Fuct (Sep 27, 2008)

phinxter said:


> what temp should the pad be set to ?


30c

.......


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## LostInSpace... (Sep 27, 2008)

Hey Al howz things mate?

I'm still struggling to get my clones to take root, I'm following your photo essay as close as I can but still no luck... heres a photo of one thats 10 days old and no sign of roots at all, any insight?


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## Al B. Fuct (Sep 28, 2008)

Can't see a lot of detail in the pic, but it looks like the media has been kept too wet. Is the stem tip rotted?

Are you using a heat mat? H2O2 in watering soln?


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## LostInSpace... (Sep 28, 2008)

> Can't see a lot of detail in the pic, but it looks like the media has been kept too wet. Is the stem tip rotted?


I don't think its rotted, it was still firm where I made the cut. I'm using your watering method ie "dip" in a bucket when its lost more than 50% of its weight. 5.8pH water, 1m/L 50% h202.



> Are you using a heat mat? H2O2 in watering soln?


Got a heatmat set to 30C, thermo controlled clonebox set at 29, and everything is sterile when I make the cuts and the rockwool is pre-soaked and shaken out(i will be investing in a salad spinner lol).

The only thing that I use which is different to you is the rooting powder, I got a packet from Bunnings for soft wood, reckon this could be it?

I'm not really sure what I'm missing but I'll keep trying. I'm gonna make this work!

Cheers mate


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## davidgrimm (Sep 28, 2008)

As always, thank you very much for taking the time to address everyone's questions here.

I am starting on my cloning activity. I have an area (approx 3' X 5' ) that is unused (old veg area now no longer needed) that I would prefer not to section off smaller (physical reason of the area but also because I am lazy and not prone to do any work that is not really necessary).

I had thought to light the entire area with a 400W MH set-up (over the mothers but also the freshly cut clones). Is this gonna be a major problem with the clones? The light will be hung at the height for the mothers and I assume the clones will be at least several inches further away. Any thoughts ??

Also the guy at the hydro store (minimum wage, I know) said that metal halides don't give off much heat (nothing like HPS'ers) and therefore do NOT need to have cool tubes installed. I am skeptical but have never used a MH before. Do you have any insights to offer?

The store wants me to buy a Sunleaves Pioneer VIII Bloom SPB10 for about $ 300 US (which appears to be about 2 times the cost for a 400W MH). Costs aside, will this fluor work as well as the MH? [tech specs are here http://www.sunleaves.com/senddoc.asp?id={744CFF94-4C19-401D-A03A-D629D5434497} ] Sorry that link doesn't work  Wish I knew more about computers etc. Anyway, you can see the specs at Sunleaves :: Indoor and Outdoor Gardening Products, Light Systems, Hydroponics Systems, Organic Fertilizers, Growing Media and more. look at their fluors and then click for that particular light.

Again, thank you.

David Grimm


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## Al B. Fuct (Sep 28, 2008)

LostInSpace... said:


> I don't think its rotted, it was still firm where I made the cut. I'm using your watering method ie "dip" in a bucket when its lost more than 50% of its weight. 5.8pH water, 1m/L 50% h202.
> 
> Got a heatmat set to 30C, thermo controlled clonebox set at 29, and everything is sterile when I make the cuts and the rockwool is pre-soaked and shaken out(i will be investing in a salad spinner lol).


goddammit, will you PLEASE quit doing everything _*right *_so these probs are easier to sort out? 

If you have got all your conds right and it's still not working, I'm more than a bit mystified. 

How long after cutting is the clone pictured?

I know you're letting the cube weight drop by 50% before watering again. How long does this take? 

How much does the cube weigh after watering? 40mm cubes weigh 5g dry and 20-25g when properly 'damp' as opposed to 'saturated.' 



> The only thing that I use which is different to you is the rooting powder, I got a packet from Bunnings for soft wood, reckon this could be it?


You probably have the very same thing I do. The stuff I get is called 'Rootex-P', your ordinary average butyric acid rooting powder. 

All very curious.


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## LostInSpace... (Sep 30, 2008)

Thanks for the reply Al,



> How long after cutting is the clone pictured?


That pic was taken 10 days after I cut it, I didnt see any roots so I just broke the rockwool away, presto... nothing.



> I know you're letting the cube weight drop by 50% before watering again. How long does this take?


About 12 to 18 hours, but I'm doing it by 'feel', this answers the next question too i spose.



> How much does the cube weigh after watering? 40mm cubes weigh 5g dry and 20-25g when properly 'damp' as opposed to 'saturated.'


I have got a set of scales but I'm not sure if I need to calculate the cuttings weight into the equation or should I weigh the rockwool with the cutting in it and just add 20-25 grams(mils) of water?


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## LostInSpace... (Sep 30, 2008)

I almost forgot the rooting powder I have is INDOLE ACETIC ACID / NAPTHALENE ACETIC ACID, it's Yates brand, in a 15g packet.

I can post a pic if you need it...


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## Al B. Fuct (Sep 30, 2008)

Hmm... acetic acid based? The stuff I use is butyric acid based. Indole-3 acetic acid is a phytohormone, I guess it's just another way to get round the block. 



> I have got a set of scales but I'm not sure if I need to calculate the cuttings weight into the equation or should I weigh the rockwool with the cutting in it and just add 20-25 grams(mils) of water?


Yes, you'd have to subtract an estimation of the cutting weight from the cube, water & cutting weight measurement. 40mm wrapped cubes (5g dry) are indeed properly 'damp' when they weight 20-25g (15-20ml water + 5g dry cube weight).


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## thegoods217 (Oct 1, 2008)

Al, 

Is it necessary to pre-soak in tapwater for this method of cloning? I don't have a salad spinner so I wouldn't have a way of getting the excess water out.

Could I just use your dipping method of the cube w/ the h202 and 5.8 ph balanced water?

I am trying to make 4 clones off my blue rhino mothers (2). I am going to be using a DWC setup w/ hydroton as the medium.

Thanks AL!


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## Al B. Fuct (Oct 1, 2008)

thegoods217 said:


> Is it necessary to pre-soak in tapwater for this method of cloning?


Yes. RW cubes have a small amt of limestone dust remaining from manufacturing. The cubes must be soaked in water which has been adjusted to a fairly acidic pH5.0 for 24h to react with the Ca dust and neutralise it. Adding H2O2 50% grade @ 1ml/L to the pre-soak soln assures the cubes are sterile.



> I don't have a salad spinner so I wouldn't have a way of getting the excess water out.


You can shake the 5.0 water out of the cube by hand with several sharp snaps of the wrist (like flicking a yoyo), but this can cause muscle strains and doesn't remove all of the soaking soln, so I suggest using a salad spinner. You can get salad spinners at most any grocery store or dollar shop, I think I paid $5-6 for mine. 


> Could I just use your dipping method of the cube w/ the h202 and 5.8 ph balanced water?


Use that technique for subsequent watering of cubes, once the stems have been plugged in them. 



> I am trying to make 4 clones off my blue rhino mothers (2). I am going to be using a DWC setup w/ hydroton as the medium.


When learning cloning techniques, cut far more clones than you need. It's better to have spares to compost than not as many plants as you need to flower or turn into replacement mums. 

When nesting your cubes in the pellets, make sure there's at least an inch of pellets between the cube and the mist from your DWC. The RW cube must not be allowed to be saturated by the DWC mist. it may be necessary to handwater the pellets around the cube (but not the cube) for the first week they are in the pellets.


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## thegoods217 (Oct 1, 2008)

Thanks AL, I'm going to get a salad spinner right now along w/ some h202. 

Would I be better off cutting the clones, putting them in rockwool and waiting until they grow roots before I put it in the DWC? This way I wouldnt have to worry about getting the rockwools wet or the roots not finding the water.

I was going to put the clones in a small tray and water twice daily w/ your dipping method. The lights I would be using are fluros for the clones then switching over to a 400w MH for the DWC.

Thanks again for the wealth of knowledge AL!


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## Al B. Fuct (Oct 2, 2008)

thegoods217 said:


> Thanks AL, I'm going to get a salad spinner right now along w/ some h202.


cool, just make sure taht whatever nutes you select are standard, inorganic type. Organic nutes are not compatible with H2O2. 



> Would I be better off cutting the clones, putting them in rockwool and waiting until they grow roots before I put it in the DWC? This way I wouldnt have to worry about getting the rockwools wet or the roots not finding the water.


Not sure what you mean; standard practise is to start the clones in RW cubes and once they have roots, nesting them in whatever main media you plan to raise them to harvest in. 

If using pellets in a flood sys, it looks like this:

 

Will be similar in a DWC, except the pot is smaller. There must be about an inch of pellets between the RW cube and the mist. RW can not be directly exposed to mist or it will saturate- this will kill the plant. 



> I was going to put the clones in a small tray and water twice daily w/ your dipping method.


ok, just make sure the RW cubes don't sit in a puddle. 



> The lights I would be using are fluros for the clones then switching over to a 400w MH for the DWC.


yep, they can go under the 400MH as soon as they have their 2nd set of true leaves. 


> Thanks again for the wealth of knowledge AL!


no worries.


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## grandpabear3 (Oct 2, 2008)

dammit al i gotta say that kindergarten art of yours is pretty darn good


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## Al B. Fuct (Oct 2, 2008)

we aim to please!


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## thegoods217 (Oct 3, 2008)

Thanks AL, I just made 8 cuttings today, 6 blue rhino and 2 off my bagseed. I immediately put them under the light, forgetting about your 6 hr period of darkness. 

I have a heat pad from a pet store that is for lizard tanks, I will be using it temporarily until I get a horticulture grade heat pad. A thermometer is on the tray to measure the heat coming off the pad. The pad is placed underneath the tray. When I get the horticulture heat pad, do I place the clones directly on the pad or underneath the tray?

Hopefully I'll be seeing roots in the next 7-14 days!


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## Al B. Fuct (Oct 4, 2008)

thegoods217 said:


> I immediately put them under the light, forgetting about your 6 hr period of darkness.


Hope they don't wilt...


> I have a heat pad from a pet store that is for lizard tanks, I will be using it temporarily until I get a horticulture grade heat pad. A thermometer is on the tray to measure the heat coming off the pad. The pad is placed underneath the tray. When I get the horticulture heat pad, do I place the clones directly on the pad or underneath the tray?


What is the temp of the lizard heating pad?

If you have a very thin (0.2-0.3mm) blow moulded plastic tray, put the tray on the pad and the plants in the tray.


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## LolipopCrop (Oct 5, 2008)

i was reading thru some of ur threads and i recognize ur op from og... ur still the man huh?! i learned a lot from you and i owe you big time! u turned me away from complicated grows and onto ebb&flos i'm finnaly coming out of retirement since og. i got a little spooked cuz i never took online security seriously. glad to see u are well


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## Al B. Fuct (Oct 5, 2008)

Yeah, the OG thing was both scary & tragic. All it took was Canadian voters being silly enough to elect a conservative govt. Harper allowed the US DEA to march right in and do whatever they want. Let's hope that's over soon and Canadian federal politics returns to being a bit more normal, instead of tonguing a bunch of US neo-con shitpipes.

Glad I was of help then, hope you get back on the road again soon.


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## LolipopCrop (Oct 11, 2008)

Al B. Fuct said:


> Yeah, the OG thing was both scary & tragic. All it took was Canadian voters being silly enough to elect a conservative govt. Harper allowed the US DEA to march right in and do whatever they want


yep the usa fucked up alot more than just og in canada. 


> Let's hope that's over soon and Canadian federal politics returns to being a bit more normal, instead of tonguing a bunch of US neo-con shitpipes.


yes hope is there, history will repeat my friend.

so where can i get some nice aluminum like u have for your batwing over the cool tubes? it looks like u have the aluminum that prevents hot spots, is that correct? or am i seeing things?


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## Al B. Fuct (Oct 12, 2008)

My reflectors are Adjust-A-Wings with cooltubes replacing the socket included with the AAWs.


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## LolipopCrop (Oct 12, 2008)

al b. Fuct said:


> my reflectors are adjust-a-wings with cooltubes replacing the socket included with the aaws.


 sweet!....


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## Al B. Fuct (Oct 24, 2008)

> [SIZE=+1]"The time has come," the Walrus said,
> "To talk of many things:
> Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax--
> Of cabbages--and kings--
> ...


Dear ladies and gents, I've been commenting and advising folks on growing their own cannabis via discussion forums since 1994, including 6 years (1999-2005) as a mentor on the now defunct but legendary Overgrow.com. 

Not only is 14 years quite enough time spent on that voluntary pursuit, I have, unbeknownst to you, concurrently been a widely published albeit freelance and usually unpaid writer on several other topics including civil liberties, cyber-liberties, social justice and related matters. 

Thanks very much to all the readers of cannabis boards who have been appreciative of my efforts over the years, but it's time to move on. 

After many years of pounding away at it on my own, I've been finally been offered a paying gig as an editor for an advocacy group's website. Clearly, I can't tell you about the outfit which has hired me, for plain and obvious reasons. This work will consume all the time I have to date been available to comment on helping individuals with their cannabis grows. 

I have unsubscribed from all RIU threads and this one will be closed in a day or so. I have confidence that the basic concepts I have been covering for some time here on RIU have been understood and practised by quite a number of folks and will be carried forth.

I wish you all the very best of luck, the very best of yields and hope that you will take the fight to re-legalise cannabis to the op-ed pages and legislators who perpetuate this oppression, which has bases only in political dogma, not science or commonsense. You _*will*_ win if you just keep hammering, but I've hammered enough in this format. I will continue to fight this good fight, but just not here. 

Keep your lights bright.

Cheers,

-Al B.


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