Aerocloner help needed, perpetual harvest......

Hi all its been a long time since ive been on here but since ive been away ive been very busy.

Ok so im basically running a perpetaul harvest with 2 Titan Budboxes now harvesting 2 1m2 trays every 2 weeks, and at the mo im pulling about 13oz per tray so 26oz every 2 weeks. The strain i am growing these days is Blue Cheese, it is so potent and absolutely stinks and its what everyone is going mad about where i live......

I have a mother room with 1 tray with 6 plants in, and also 2 x 36 site x-stream aerocloner.......

I take 72 cuttings every 14 days but recently quite a few have been dying, so i am left with between 50-60 which is still ok but some of them take longer than 14 days to clone.......WHAT AM I DOING WRONG??

MY CONDITIONS:

Timer Cycle - 15min on / 30min off

Cutting stem at an angle, scraping a little off bottom, and then cutting the stem about 1cm then dipping in clonex and into the neoprene collar and then cloner.

I also only use ph'd water and the ph is always set between 5.8-6.0.......

Ok so has anyone got any suggestions, ive seen ppl get roots in 7 days and some of mine do but most of them dont.

Could an airstone in the tank help at all?

Should i run the pump 24/7? Will this heat the tank up too much?

Ive read on here ppl saying the higher the res temp the better, and others saying it needs to be cool......WHAT IS THE OFFICIAL WORD?

Your welcome to have a look at my diary in my sig but things have been modified a bit since i last updated almost a year ago now, i will update it again soon to show what i have done.....

CAN ANYONE OFFER ANY ADVICE MY MAIN QUESTIONS ARE ABOUT THE PUMP TIMINGS AND TEMPS AND IS THE AIRSTONE WORTH IT?

I look forward to hearing from you all........

run the pump 24/7 .. I do and that's what stinkbud and alot of others agree on... I get roots no problem.. 100% success or damn close if I screw up..

15on/15off is good for veg and flower.. and I even run my veg unit 24/7 and it's fine.. I only used one tub and the roots sit in the water.. No issues.. aero/dwc... I will be modifing it soon though..

what are the ppms or EC of your water??

and don't rape them before you put them in the cloner..
cut, dip and place in.. I usually use cloning gel.. but this batch I just threw in I'm trying without anything to see if it's needed.. although I do put a little drop of the gel in the water.. just a tiny bit..

Don't worry about scraping the stem.. cut on an angle that's cool.. the biggest plus I've seen is making sure there is a stripped node somewhere just above where you cut.. so it's under the collar and exposed to water so it can grow roots from there also..

as for temps.. I read a bit higher is better.. but remember too high and fungus will start to grow.. mine floats around 71-72.. and I usually add water and bring it down to 68.. then it creeps back up over time..

What is your water temp at??

Hi, thanks for your reply......ive just swapped my 2 x 36 site xstream cloners for a 105 site one so i have more clones and also so i dont have to change 2 res's everytme etc. Im goin to take some cuttings tomorrow and put them in the cloner, and ru my pump 24/7 with plain water ill check the ppm's tomorrow aswell. I also have 6 small airstones powered by 1 pump which i am going to put around the res.....

Another question i have is how often should i change the res for the best results? Right now i do it once a week because im lazy but when i 1st started i done it every 4 days ad had better results. Would every 3 days give me the best results?

When i take my cuttings tomorrow i will cut half of them and dip, and the other half i will scrape a bit just to see what results are best.

Also i will take many pictures and update tomorrow but if anyone has any advice before then please let me know......thanks

ive had bad luck using gels...
the gel is a perfect incubator for bacteria. its too easy to contaminate an entire batch of clonex because you sneezed in the same room your cloning in....
ive switched back to powders, putting the cuttings in a bubble cloner. the powder does not sustain bacteriological growth.. not enough moisture.
like someone else said, cut, dip, and into the cloner. i dont believe in scraping or scarifying the stems, any damage you make to the plant is a potential entry point for disease into the cutting, and since it also has to heal before the plant will root, it causes an additional week or so of waiting for the wounds to heal before a healthy root system is developed.

i started out cloning using al b fuct's method, of course it worked, so me in my genius mindset decided that i could improve on the technique so i tried everything. for me, i found that simplest is best, so i went back to basics.

ps/edit:
and as far as nutes... dont give the cuttings anything but water and a lil H2O2. no nutes! a cutting cant use nutes without roots

Is a bubble cloner the same as a normal cloner? If so do you run your pump 24/7 and do you have any airstones in there. I just went an picked up the 105-site today i will be doing it all tomorrow and taking pics but im still undecided whether to stick with 15on 30off or 24/7 on with airtones. Let me know what you think, also i will be cutting dipping and straight in this time no scraping..........

Ok, so i set the cloner up and took my cutting, here are the photos below. I have left my timer on my current 15on / 30off chedule does everyone think i should put it to 24/7? Also my airstones havent arried yet but the will in the net few days should i still go 24/7? Im just very anxious because i cant afford for these cuttings to go wrong because i need to pot up in 13days. Anyway heres the pics......











Taken this morning, after a 6 hour dark period, and cutting were taken last night 10pm..........



So as you can see some of the cuttings have perked up since last night i will take a photo tonight where they should all be perked up.........

Also the picture of the cutting HASNT been cut at an angle in the photo, and whereas before i used to scrape and split the stem 1cm, this time all i done was cut at an angle, dip in cloning gel, and then in the cloner......

I shall keep this updated over the next 2 weeks so you can all see what has been done. All i have used is ph'd water @ 6.0 ABSOLUTELY NO NUTES as i have found it slows the rooting time down.......

BUT MY MAIN QUESTION IS DO I GO 24/7 OR DO I KEEP IT 15ON / 30 OFF???? WILL MY CLONES ROOT FASTER WITH 24/7 BECAUSE WITH MY CURRENT SETTING ITS TAKING 14 DAYS?

SHOULD I WAIT FOR MY AIRSTONES TOMORROW BEFORE GOING 24/7?????

I REALLY NEED SOME ADVICE REGARDING THIS THANKS ALL