# clones not rooting in aeroponic cloner



## Chemtrailed (Jun 15, 2011)

I recently built a 21 site aeroponic clone machine. Its been about 5 days and nothing has happened. 
The clones look good still, are standing up nicely and the machine appears to be working like its supposed too.
But no roots yet.
Whats the deal? I thought these things rooted clones faster than rockwool cubes?
The strain is double bubble kush berry- bubba kush X bubbleberry.
I took the cuttings, trimmed the excess, cut at 45, split the stem up center 1/2", dipped in rooting powder, and placed in cloner under a small CFL.
Should i recut them and try again or just wait?
How long do these thing take to make roots?


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## NatureaFinest (Jun 15, 2011)

I haven't ever messed with an aero cloner bro but I'd wait a lil while. A lot of factors in it, it may just take a clone from the strain u chose a bit longer to root. If they're still standin straight up I'd say wait it out. Hopefully an experienced aero cloner will chime in for u


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## BendBrewer (Jun 15, 2011)

A buddy of mine uses one and he claims it's 12 days but after 12 days they are ready. If they're looking healthy still, have to think they are doing their thing. I go 16 days in Rapid Rooters.


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## PeaceFarmer (Jun 15, 2011)

It takes around 10-15 days for roots to pop....just keep misting the leaves daily and keep a humidity dome over them.


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## wiseguy316 (Jun 15, 2011)

Hang in there it can take up to 2 weeks, i think they will be fine. Do you see little white bumps yet? At 10 days if you don't it might be your water. I use spring water in my aero cloner, the city tap water sucks for cloning.


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## wiseguy316 (Jun 15, 2011)

PeaceFarmer said:


> It takes around 10-15 days for roots to pop....just keep misting the leaves daily and keep a humidity dome over them.


I don't mist mine or use a dome for aero and it works great, want water? grow roots bitches!


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## Chemtrailed (Jun 16, 2011)

I think i have to make a change or two.
After reading some other posts, i figured out what i might be doing wrong.
If i understand right, the stems should not be directly in the sprays and also not dripping.
I had my spayers adjusted to high and was to wet. Next i will retry with the spays adjusted down.
So i guess these cloners work on humidity in the box rather than sprayed direct.
I will see how this works and let you know what happens.


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## 303 (Jun 16, 2011)

Chemtrailed said:


> I think i have to make a change or two.
> After reading some other posts, i figured out what i might be doing wrong.
> If i understand right, the stems should not be directly in the sprays and also not dripping.
> I had my spayers adjusted to high and was to wet. Next i will retry with the spays adjusted down.
> ...


 NO. I have my sprayers spraying the bottoms of the stems I cut. Even in a nice EZCloner were talking 5-10 days before roots show. Mine take about 14-20 days before it looks like this. as you can see the roots are being sprayed all the time as they should. I don't need a dome either just ph'd water with sprayers always spraying stems. You need patience bro. They don't work on humidity inside the aero, I hope you read this in time because your about to axe your whole tray of clones. I check on mine often, the other day since they're drinking water because they're rooted and are in need I ran low on water causing the sprayers to stop spraying directly, this very same tray I posted a pic of, they all looked dead, drooped down looked like I just cost myself 2 weeks, since it was within few hours I filled back up with ph'd waterand only lost 3. What I'm saying is those sprayers must be in contact all the time with your stems if you want them to make it, or they will do what mine did, I suspect mine were without water for just a hour or two any longer who knows..? You think if you actually got roots that they don't need water sprayed onto them? They can't and won't survive on humidity. Forget about what you read about humidity domes, as I think you are confused.


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## 303 (Jun 16, 2011)

Also its not always true aerocloners are faster than rockwool just easier and less maintence. EZCloners have some magic powers I've seen roots in less than a week, I made mine just like it but somethings different not sure what? In fact look the first pic close at the top there's two humidity domes with trays of clones behind the aerocloner, its my all else fails option in case something fails, sometimes I even move rooted clones that rooted quicker in the rockwool into the aerocloner to let the roots take off. I like straight out the aerocloner vs cubes because the way the roots drop, I do hydro and they go in net cups that need to sit in recirculating water, rockwool molds on me and the roots are never abundant and long enough. Also having a healthy mother and different genetics has all the factor in when they'll root. I have a durban poison in the pic I posted that I know I can expect 35 rooted clones in less than 3 weeks. Grape ape, forget it, I'm lucky to get my whole table rooted in the time I need them.


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## Dr. Bigbud (Jun 16, 2011)

Make sure to check your water temperature in the aeroponic cloner, 74 is ideal but I have been able to root at 82 it just took 5 days longer. Your clone stems should be getting direct spraying from the sprayers and you do not need to mist at all, the cloner will not work oh humidity alone, you stems need to be dripping with water. Just look out for root rot, if the stems get black and mushy. To prevent root rot I use a beneficial bacteria solution that I add to the reservoir at the beginning when I clone. I never split my clones down the middle so I dunno what effect that may have on roots, but its not necessary. Just watch the tips where you cut them and watch them callus over and turn thick and white, if this is happening then you should get roots soon. Check my seed to smoke log where I use my aerocloner like yours. good luck


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## Kevdogg5555 (Jun 16, 2011)

ya bro I ONLY clone use my aero cloner and Ive never hard roots as fast as 5 days.. my success rate is 95% and it takes 10-12 days to get nice 4 inch inch roots. Be patient. Also I dont cut the stem down the middle. I scrap the very outer layer of the stem, exposing the lighter softer tissue then dip it in rooting gel. This gives me are huge mass of roots. Good luck


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## Chemtrailed (Jun 17, 2011)

Thanks guys for all your info.
303 you were right. I didnt get to read your post before i made the changes and i FUKD it all up. 
I came back a few hours after rolling the sprays down and they were dead or dying. 
Humidity alone DOES NOT work. 
Lucky for me i only lost 4. I wasnt sure how this was gonna work, so i did an experiment before committing a large number.
They were lower cuttings off an outdoor project, so no big loss.
Im going back to the way i had it earlier and will heed all of you guys' tips. 
Thanks


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## panhead (Jun 17, 2011)

I must cut 40 clones every 7 days or my tables empty up real fast,out of the 40 i cut i cherry pick the best 32 for insertion in a flood table,i use an aero cloner but i also use jiffy sponge plugs under a heat mat humidome as back up.

When you listed your cutting technique i see you left out a very important step,after taking the cutting do you re-cut the end under water ? if not you may be in for a bumpy ride with a low success rate.

With that said i think your expecting too much from the aero cloner,they are not faster than a good humidome set up as a whole.


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## Chemtrailed (Jun 17, 2011)

panhead- no i did not cut them under water. 
Does that make a difference?
This is the first time ive used a cloner machine, i usually buy my clones for my outdoor projects, but i am just about done setting up for indoor and will need to get this going for my sog project.
I have cloned many times in the past though using a humidity box and spray technique.
I never even used to do the 45 cut either and still had pretty good success.
Do you recommend cutting the 45 under water and same with the center cut?
Chem


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## Cali chronic (Jun 17, 2011)

make sure your PH is at 5--- 5.5 max the water needs to be a bit warmer then the ambient or outside temp. Do not use too much light. Dim, you want roots not vegging.


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## 303 (Jun 19, 2011)

panhead said:


> I must cut 40 clones every 7 days or my tables empty up real fast,out of the 40 i cut i cherry pick the best 32 for insertion in a flood table,i use an aero cloner but i also use jiffy sponge plugs under a heat mat humidome as back up.
> 
> When you listed your cutting technique i see you left out a very important step,after taking the cutting do you re-cut the end under water ? if not you may be in for a bumpy ride with a low success rate.
> 
> With that said i think your expecting too much from the aero cloner,they are not faster than a good humidome set up as a whole.


 I hate to argue with a RIU vet that I have a lot of respect for but I don't need to recut the ends under water to get roots, my ride has been all but bumpy and have 100% rates. That is completely unnecessary.. I've heard of a lot of technique but thats a first.


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## 303 (Jun 19, 2011)

Chemtrailed said:


> panhead- no i did not cut them under water.
> Does that make a difference?
> This is the first time ive used a cloner machine, i usually buy my clones for my outdoor projects, but i am just about done setting up for indoor and will need to get this going for my sog project.
> I have cloned many times in the past though using a humidity box and spray technique.
> ...


 45 degree cut yes, under water no. How does that do anything good?


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## panhead (Jun 19, 2011)

303 said:


> I hate to argue with a RIU vet that I have a lot of respect for but I don't need to recut the ends under water to get roots, my ride has been all but bumpy and have 100% rates. That is completely unnecessary.. I've heard of a lot of technique but thats a first.


Hmmm,i cant explain why you have never heard of that technique but i assure you it is not only a real technique it is also a foolproof technique & is also taught in the propagation portion of many botany classes.

Ever give your girl or guy flowers & have them die in just a few days ? We all have & it's because they cant uptake water due to embolism's ,re-cut the ends underwater & the same flowers will last 2 weeks every time.

Even if your current cloning technique is sound you can still benifit greatly from re-cutting the ends under water,the benifit s come from roots appearing faster with a greater success ratio,

For the OP ,first try it without re-cutting the ends underwater ,then when you do another batch do em underwater,you will see the light ,IT IS flat out the best cloning technique out of them all beacuse its foolproof.

Air embolisms are not only real they are the main reason why we see so many threads asking for help with cloning.


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## 303 (Jun 19, 2011)

panhead said:


> Hmmm,i cant explain why you have never heard of that technique but i assure you it is not only a real technique it is also a foolproof technique & is also taught in the propagation portion of many botany classes.
> 
> Ever give your girl or guy flowers & have them die in just a few days ? We all have & it's because they cant uptake water due to embolism's ,re-cut the ends underwater & the same flowers will last 2 weeks every time.
> 
> ...


 Thanks for the info, I will give it a try next tray I cut.


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## panhead (Jun 19, 2011)

303 said:


> 45 degree cut yes, under water no. How does that do anything good?


Your asking redundant questions besause of conflicting information,i'll try to shed some light.

How you cut the end of the stalk is damm near meaningless,your goal is to disrupt cells within the plant,the cells that must be disrupted are all within the center of the stalk,on thick stalks it will appear as a white layer dead middle of the stalk.

Now that you understand that cell disruption is a must for a cutting to produce roots lets talk about how to cut the end of the stalk.

When people say to cut the stalk at a 45 degree angle the reason is to give the cutting more surface area with the disrupted cells,an angled cut has more surface than a straight cut yes ?

Surface area is also the reason for splitting the stalk,when you split you double the surface area with the disrupted cells the cutting must have to produce roots.

Now look back at my initial post,see where i scrape the stalk to remove all green plant matter ? The reason i do this is to obtain as much surface as possible & to disrupt as many cells as possible.

The whole goal is to disrupt as many cells as possible & to give maximum surface area,no matter what combination of cutting techniques you choose to use the only part of the stalk that will produce roots is where you disrupted cells within the center of the stalk.

When deciding where to take a cutting remember cell disruption,larger branches have more cells that can be disrupted & the small wispy branches at the bottom of the plant contain way less surface area, which means less cell disruption.


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## kanx (Jun 19, 2011)

Give them some time , also I would highly recommend hxxp://www.progrow.co.uk/acatalog/info_3000.html.

Since iv'e used the cloner's with just rhizotonic 1ml per litre, and that stuff listed above(just misting them once a day with that stuff) ,I leave them for 1-2 week. I genuinely feel I would need to go out my way to kill the cutting using this system.

Where as before it I had prob the worst track record for cutting's you could ever imagine . I'm a monster when I think of all the baby's I killed .


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## piped piper (Jun 26, 2011)

OP,
i too have done the same. it took me 3 weeks to get roots out of the girls but it was all my fault.
the container i used was letting light in big time.
testing for light is easy just take a clone so you can see inside, if it's not dark inside you have a light problem. 
you'll need to cover the walls and lid of the container with black bags until you can replace it. 

the other problem i had was that some clones rooted faster than others. the rooted clones wanted nuts and the leaf tips turned yellow.
you can use a tablespoon of bloom nuts to feed them.

out of 80 clones 79 root now. the one that dies is because of my spray system, it doesn't get to it so i'm just going to run the air line into that hole next time. 
also you may want to swap around the rooted clones with the non rooted ones i think that sometimes some spots are better for the clones to root than others, it maybe the way i cut them but it gives me something to do too .

if after 6 hours the clone is standing that means it's getting water and it's ok. if after a week there's still no roots i'd be thinking of light leaks or ph (best not to let it go a week). but you have to keep an eye on the ph too and don't have the sprays 24/7 because you want them to go looking for the water 15min on and 15 min off is fine, you can even turn off the pump at lights out too but i like to have a mid night spray after 2 hours (just to keep them wet) there's is another problem i noticed with the 24/7 systems, the pump heats up the water too much, you don't want to cold but you do want to try and keep it around room temperature

imho i think it's best not to use rooting powder in a homemade aero cloner. i have tested it on mine and i get better results with just gel on the steams and plain water (ph fixed). i tested with just power, with just gel and a combo of power and gel. the one's that turned out the best results were the gel only clones. it maybe a brand problem but your better running your own tests too.

i was getting the clones into veg midway week 4 (3.5), but now midway week 2 (1.5)they are ready for veg.

hope this helps.
happy growing.


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## DrtyBngWtr (Jun 26, 2011)

you guys are funny. i actually do have 5-7 day roots... I use both a bubble cloner and a homemade aero cloner...they root in roughly the same time but some strains are a little harder to root so they get set in the bubble cloner.... 

OP get yourself a 30 dollar panda timer off of ebay... 1 minute on 4 minutes off.... throwing a timer on gives a slight time to dry... this doesnt dry them out enough to hurt just enough to make them shoot roots to search for water. OR a fun experiment, throw them in complete darkness for a day or 2 and then look for roots....


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## Sir Loin (Mar 30, 2013)

DrtyBngWtr said:


> you guys are funny. i actually do have 5-7 day roots... I use both a bubble cloner and a homemade aero cloner...they root in roughly the same time but some strains are a little harder to root so they get set in the bubble cloner....
> 
> OP get yourself a 30 dollar panda timer off of ebay... 1 minute on 4 minutes off.... throwing a timer on gives a slight time to dry... this doesnt dry them out enough to hurt just enough to make them shoot roots to search for water. OR a fun experiment, throw them in complete darkness for a day or 2 and then look for roots....


 
a panda timer eh? ...these don't use programs ? just xxmins on xx mins off? ...the problem with my timers they only have 20 prg pr day..... so setting them 5on5off would use up lots of programs....


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## BleedsGreen (Mar 30, 2013)

I have has some strains take up to 28 days in my aerocloner. If I let em stay they all seem to root eventually.


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## pizzapuffer (Apr 1, 2013)

maybe give it another week. my aero ccloner works great. the only problem i ran into was i got some clonex cloning solution. not the gel stuff for cloning but nutrients for cloning solution. i read the instructions and they were all wrong. started getting salt buildup. always go weak if using a cloning solution. probably would even just work with water. i know plants cant take in the nutrients anyway until they have roots unless you foliar feed. also when using my aero cloner i never mist or even use a humidity dome. i cut them 2-4 inches but also do fine cutting them bigger. when the roots get an inch or so long i transplant to soil or my single DWC.

you say your plants still look healthy and all. you're probably doing everything right, just wait a bit more. also you have an air stone right? i tried without one once wiht terrible luck. after adding one it made a world of difference. even with aero you should always keep the water oxygenated.

my instructions for my sunleaves aero cloner say to run it 24/7. i've tried putting it on a timer and noticed no difference in time. shouldnt need to let your roots dry out if you keep enough oxygen in the water. i've only did this test once and it wasnt really that scientific though so i really dont want to say for sure.

all you should really have to do it check the ph, keep it 5.8-6.2. i usually only have to change mine the next day after the water temp is more stabilized. then it stays around 6.


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## SwissBliss (May 12, 2014)

http://www.ebay.ca/itm/Ez-Cloner-Cloner-Aeroponic-Short-Interval-42-Second-Timer-/251527837988?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_2&hash=item3a903a3924


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## SwissBliss (May 12, 2014)

excellent pin timer for 42 second intervals, 33 min cycle timer


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## Oo ee oo ah ah (Sep 12, 2018)

Following closely. About to cut some clones for the first time.


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## BobBitchen (Sep 12, 2018)

Oo ee oo ah ah said:


> Following closely. About to cut some clones for the first time.


7yr old thread


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## Oo ee oo ah ah (Sep 16, 2018)

Eek


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## overdose420 (Sep 26, 2020)

303 said:


> Also its not always true aerocloners are faster than rockwool just easier and less maintence. EZCloners have some magic powers I've seen roots in less than a week, I made mine just like it but somethings different not sure what? In fact look the first pic close at the top there's two humidity domes with trays of clones behind the aerocloner, its my all else fails option in case something fails, sometimes I even move rooted clones that rooted quicker in the rockwool into the aerocloner to let the roots take off. I like straight out the aerocloner vs cubes because the way the roots drop, I do hydro and they go in net cups that need to sit in recirculating water, rockwool molds on me and the roots are never abundant and long enough. Also having a healthy mother and different genetics has all the factor in when they'll root. I have a durban poison in the pic I posted that I know I can expect 35 rooted clones in less than 3 weeks. Grape ape, forget it, I'm lucky to get my whole table rooted in the time I need them.


The difference with the rockwool cubes is that the stems are still sitting in the rooting hormone untill it does its thing. With the cloners, you get an initial dose of the hormone and its popped in the cloner where its constantly sprayed. That gel or powder hormone you just used is at best highly diluted into the water circulating through your system. Add Temperature fluctuations, and inability to maintain proper ph in your reservoir and you add days on to your wait. Humidity domes for rooters, but not needed for the cloners. In my experience these are facts! Instagram @Jethro_Clampett707 
FU*KCOVID


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## Galvatron1 (Sep 26, 2020)

I've never used a cycle timer but this one looks interesting and easy to program.





VIVOSUN Short Period Repeat Cycle Timer Intermittent Timer 3 Cycle Mode for Day, Night, 24 Hour - - Amazon.com


VIVOSUN Short Period Repeat Cycle Timer Intermittent Timer 3 Cycle Mode for Day, Night, 24 Hour - - Amazon.com



www.amazon.com


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## go go kid (Sep 26, 2020)

yep need callus material to form over the cut and the rest of the chem the plant sends to that freshly cut area will become roots. mine took over 2 weeks to take, and that was a kush, but i may have fed it with a nitrogen rich feed b4 i took the cuts, that could have played a big part in it. did you feedc them b4 you took them?
you said water they shouldn't have it dripping from them?????? thats ok, its the oxygen in the water thats important. they could be submerged in the water and as long as the oxygen is there your good. so no matter how much they get on them from sprayers, your still good


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## HighFlow (Oct 5, 2020)

Holy necro-thread Batman


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