My mom used sugar water to keep her flowers she cut alive longer in the vases. Or Asprin. Or 7up. There are lots of things that keep the plant alive, but I'm not sure any of those would work well for clones intended to root.
I've tried so many things, and couldn't make it work. Everything hospital sterile, cloning gel, rockwool, all that jazz. I got pissed one day, cut two cuttings with a nasty razor blade, jammed it in a rapid rooter, sprayed them with liquid seaweed (0-0-1) a couple times, and in 4 days had roots, when cuttings in the same tray I had going for weeks STILL had no roots.
I went back and re-cut some of those old cuttings to see if they would root in new rapid rooters without the gel on them. One thing I noticed was the parts of the clones where the gel had been was very hard, almost crystalized. Will be interested to see what happens in a few days..