Cloning Failing? Tried Everything? Found the missing link?

[queequeg152]

As I mentioned a few posts back, my nutrients only have 1% Ammoniacal Nitrogen, and I use sulfuric acid for PH down, with the occasional phosphoric acid during flowering. (People with jrpeters hydro nutes generally just use the same formula for veg/bloom and it works great).

I believe it at least primarily the dosage I was using simply wasn't enough to battle whatever it is I'm infected with. After using some 4x strength (4 grams of the hth pool shock in a gallon) for a couple days, then using the calculator I linked said to use about .25 grams for 30 gallons to produce about 2ppm chlorine so I tried that 3 days ago. Just changed my res today and everything was clear, even the wavemaker pump was 99.9% clean other than 1 little piece of turd hanging off it (was actually a hair with a little slime on it). Even the little suction cups under my pump were clean which is usually always a little slimy when I change out my water.

I gave it a dose of h2o2 @2ml/liter before emptying my res just to give it a 1-2 punch and will probably give it 1 more dose of that and wait 24 hours to add chlorine. I'll attempt to add .125grams worth for what is probably 35 gallons right now to achieve maybe .8ppm chlorine and see how that works now that I've cleaned it out pretty good.

P.S. Using the calculator I determined that the dosage on the original post would only be about .186 ppm of chlorine. According to the calculator, you'd have to use 5.38 grams to make a gallon of concetrate in order to achieve 1ppm @ 1oz per 5 gallons. Use what you feel is right. I'm still not sure what to think, most people try to remove chlorine from their water not add it, but I've yet to see any negative effects, only benefits.

you should not be trying to make concentrates from calcium hypo. im not sure why you would waste your time doing this... do you not have a gram 100mg ish scale?
in the past, i would just take a small pinch... probably several grains of rice worth and rub my fingers together inside the res. its probably like an eighth of a gram of calcium hypochlorite.

if you dont have a scale, and insist on germanic precision, then just use sodium hypo... its been stabilized by lowering its ph substantially with lye or KOH. regardless of this added base, given the quantity added to your res it will not appreciably alter your solutions ph.
just get the cheapest non scented non surfactant/gelled sodium hypo.

i think you are vastly over estimating plants sensitivity to hypochlorous acid.

 

[mojave green]

I ditched my cloning gel and now much prefere rw macro dipped in subculture m tea. While I have always got high success rates with cloning gels, my clones dipped in m tea are much healthier.

 

[Dynamite]

FYI my problems seem to be solved, I guess I just needed a higher dosage initially to wipe the crap out nice and good. Haven't seen any slime even on my wave maker since and I've been using more moderate doses (still using about 4x the amount shown on the original post though, but that's not even 1ppm)

I just minutes ago found the results you did , I had to use 6 oz's of the concentrate to 5 gallons of water with the concentrate mixed 1 gram per gallon as the original poster of this thread stated to achieve 1ppm via test strip , and 5 oz of concentrate via the drops test, Im going to search amazon for a digital meter for testing chlorine levels and calibration solution for the meter to come up with something that's mo betta !

the other flaw in this is PH buffered vs non , the "step" 3 pool shock we are using is ph buffered , the NON ph buffered granulates is made by the same company HTH and is the "step 2" of HTH's 4 steps , it slightly less potent at 47.6% vs the step 3 super shock's 56.44%

 

[Dynamite]

Ill grab some clear rez and test that , as the levels this thread states we are copying is that product .. which most likely ill be buying tomorrow anyhow

 

[luxcultivars]

One thing I didn't notice any mention of is to cut just below the node. You will get the most root growth from where the node is.

I have tried cloning machines and cubes and I think cubes with humidity domes are by far the most reliable IMHO

Nodes are completely irrelevant when cloning cannabis. I root clones all the time with no nodes at all, have for 20 years now. Happens just as fast and just as thick if no nodes are present.

Just sayin'. These myths die hard.

 

[queequeg152]

I just minutes ago found the results you did , I had to use 6 oz's of the concentrate to 5 gallons of water with the concentrate mixed 1 gram per gallon as the original poster of this thread stated to achieve 1ppm via test strip , and 5 oz of concentrate via the drops test, Im going to search amazon for a digital meter for testing chlorine levels and calibration solution for the meter to come up with something that's mo betta !

the other flaw in this is PH buffered vs non , the "step" 3 pool shock we are using is ph buffered , the NON ph buffered granulates is made by the same company HTH and is the "step 2" of HTH's 4 steps , it slightly less potent at 47.6% vs the step 3 super shock's 56.44%

these are dry products. they are not buffered what so ever far as i can tell. ive never heard of a "buffered" chlorine granual product ever in my entire pool cleaning life.

hth step 2 is a tablet product? tablets are not calcium hypo but rather di or trichlor.

i maintain that if you make these conentrates without adding base, you are going to loose a significant amount of chlorine in the process.... just dissolve it as you need it, or switch to sodium hypo.

 

[Dynamite]

these are dry products. they are not buffered what so ever far as i can tell. ive never heard of a "buffered" chlorine granual product ever in my entire pool cleaning life.

hth step 2 is a tablet product? tablets are not calcium hypo but rather di or trichlor.

i maintain that if you make these conentrates without adding base, you are going to loose a significant amount of chlorine in the process.... just dissolve it as you need it, or switch to sodium hypo.

nop , granulate step 2 and 3 .. I have them both here in front of me ..


step 1 ~ Balance
step 2 ~ Sanitize 47.6% calhypo, 52.4% other , 45% max available
step 3 ~ Shock 56.44% calhypo - 43.56% other
step 4 ~ prevent algae

whats actually in "other" ?? large percent of ??

after reading their website it appears its stabilized and unstabilized , my ph buffered term was incorrect ! your right

HTH® Pool Care offers two types of chlorine-based sanitizers; stabilized and unstabilized. Stabilized chlorine contains cyanuric acid (also referred to as stabilizer), which protects the water from chlorine loss caused by the sun's harmful ultraviolet rays; however, this can be too much of a good thing. If the cyanuric acid levels are too high in your pool water, overstabilization or chlorine-lock can occur.
.
Yellow HTH® Sanitizers will not cause overstabilization. yellow being step 2 ! Blue is step 3 which this thread suggest

http://www.hthpools.com/PoolCare/4-step-program/sanitizestep.aspx

be awesome to hear which form of granules we should be using , and why !!

the "shock this thread suggests is then the "stabilized" version I'm assuming ..

side note : using step 3 shock or Clorox(haven't tried step2) , soon as I add even as little of 3ml per gallon of nutrients to the solution , I loose any and all available FREE chlorine as per test strip , maybe its the Dutchmaster Brand of base nutes , I dont know ..just blew thru a whole box of test strips , PH down is fine to add, my base nutes are not .. thats using calhypo or clorox , set high as 4ppm , add nutes , within a minute nothing registers far as free chlorine goes , adding more doesn't make it go up.. weird interactions with mild nutrients

 

[stoned-trout]

cloning is easy for me in a medium .. water cloning gave me less than optimal results...warm stable temps,low light and decent humidity,if using a medium being overly wet is bad ........yeehaw....easy as can be with my setup..hell sometimes I don't check em for a few days...just took 10 good cuts in perlite /beer cups..

 

[queequeg152]

regarding what "other" is.

other in most of these chlorine formulations is at least partially a binding agent... some times its water soluble... some times its not. regardless its not an issue with respect to pool filtration. other can also be impurities.
it may not always be the case, but i think most of the time... the % other refers to the percentage of the molar mass that is not hypochlorite.

if the chlorine contained cyanuric acid it would have to list it. if it simply lists some percentage of chlorine, its probably di or trichlor.

trichlor is probably the least expensive per weight per concentration of free chlorine resulting from some addition of, therein.
i previously thought the lowest cost was the anhydrous calcium hypo, but apparently this is not the case.

trichlor however tends to be more acidic than pure calcium hypo. it also yields significant quantities of cyanuric acid. to much cya... while immensly helpful in concentrations around 70-100... to much of it will drastically reduce the sanitizing ability of what ever concentration of free chlorine you have.

the above is probably only relevant to pools however... in small additions the acidity is not going to be noticed. the cya will also not be noticed.

its up to you which you want to use. ill just say that i preferred the granulated calcium hypo pinches i discussed previously.
a graduated cylinder and bleach will work just as well.

 

[nicko0]

what about earth juice natural ph down, or ej double ph down? the natural is citric acid, i cant find what the double down is.

 

[queequeg152]

citric acid will not sanitize much of anything in a diluted solution such as a cloning setup.

what makes you think otherwise?

 

[BOOMHAUER]

My observations. Tried for many years cloning in dirt. Not one root. Built a Rubbermaid aerocloner and had 100% success rate. Stopped growing for a while. Started again a couple of months ago. First round of clones were the fastest rooted I have ever had. Planted those, cleaned the cloner with bleach like always and then it sat until I had to cut more 3-4 weeks later. 8 out of 32 rooted after 3 weeks wtf. Thought about it and the only thing I could think of is when I would cut my clones it was always right after I had cleaned it. It never sat around waiting. I'm pretty sure the bleach helps.
On well water fwiw.

 

[queequeg152]

well... i would not credit the chlorine with helping your cuttings root faster. its just a good disinfectant.

in theory it should actually be bad for the plants... however the concentrations are so small that it has no observable effect.

you should see the grass around my pool when folks are over swimming... green as fuck and a foot higher than the rest of the lawn... granted i dont exactly water enough but still.

 

[BOOMHAUER]

well... i would not credit the chlorine with helping your cuttings root faster. its just a good disinfectant.

in theory it should actually be bad for the plants... however the concentrations are so small that it has no observable effect.

you should see the grass around my pool when folks are over swimming... green as fuck and a foot higher than the rest of the lawn... granted i dont exactly water enough but still.

I wasn't saying they rooted faster because of the chlorine. I think the chlorine sanitizes everything. As far as hurting plants they use chlorine. I have poured straight chlorox into my cloner when they wouldn't clone that one time. Roots started about a week later on a few that would not root. One thing I noticed is when I soak the neoprene pucks in bleach, when roots develop they like to go through the pucks. If the chlorine was so detrimental I would think any in the cloner would prevent roots based on how sensitive clones can be.

 

[queequeg152]

yea i know what you are saying.
And yea, chlorination probably does allow cuttings to root faster owing to fewer microbes.

when you say you put straight chlorox into your cloner... how much are you talking about? keep in mind liquid chlorine-sodium hypochlorite, is quite basic. they add hydroxides to the solution to keep the chlorine stable, and from forming chlorine gas in the bottle.
i think the PH is around 4? so its not insanely basic, but enough could appreciably lower your PH.

with regard to your neoprene observation. it could very well be due to the chlorine exposure. however, keep in mind that neoprene is rather reactive.
its not HDPE or teflon or anything like that. it is readily degraded by many chemicals including bases such as those in bleach solutions.
so its possible the bleach is altering the neoprene in some way that the plants favor, but might shorten the life of your neoprene inserts.
not saying to stop bleaching them, but you might use a more reasonable concentration for a shorter period of time. or dont? i mean how much does neoprene cost?

chlorine imho is vastly UNDER rated as a tool in horticulture... people just dont know how much its used in high end greenhouses and with fertigation in general.

i especially love how people beat their brains out to remove like 1mg/l free chlorine from tap water prior to making organic stuff like teas or what ever. such low levels of chlorine would be wiped out ABSOLUTLY with the smallest addition of reducible organic matter let alone a vast bubbling cauldron of poo and sea weed and worms and what ever else.

as far as plants using chlorine? from what i recall its one of the elements that plants can translocate into their tissues, but its not one of the elements that they require. some plants grow better with small amounts of chlorine, but most either are negativly effected by it, indifferent to it.

tobacco plants for example will trans locate chlorine, but it negativly effects the leaf tissue such that fields with excess chlorine cannot produce marketable tobacco. i might be off on all that, but its what i recall reading.

regardless, bleach does not provide the type of chlorine that plants can take up. bleach is sodium hypochlorite. its basically an acid salt in a solution of water + a strong base like lye to keep it stable at higher concentrations... usually 12%.

anyway, yea chlorine is great for sanitizing shit... i mostly use it for cleaning used seed flats and inserts and seedling related shit.

but technically speaking its not good for plants. it just happens to be good at killing microbes that are hugely more damaging than the chlorine itself.

hypochlorous acid( active ingrediant) is a weak oxidizing agent, very very weak. i think you need like 50+ mg/l free chlorine to actually damage plants?

think of chlorine disinfection like you do antibiotics.... not great for you when you are healthy, but when your cock is dripping like an old farmhouse sink, there is nothing better for you.

 

[stoned-trout]

yeehaw....24 ,,,, 16 oz cups per tray....didn't loose any clones this run...2 trays on right...

 

[the gnome]

perlite-vermiculite 60/40 gives me close 100% rooting in 10days average

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[Canna Fruits]

If you think cloning is easy and doesn't take any effort at all, and you can't understand why anyone would have any problems. Congratulations, I envy you. This thread is not for you. Please move on.

I know exactly how you feel. Cloning can be one of the most aggravating parts of gardening. For so many people they have such an easy time with cloning. I have read stories over and over about how some people just take a pair of rusty scissors, make a cut, and just stick a cutting in some random medium. Then have roots in a few days. While I am so happy for them, it drives me crazy!

If you are like me and have researched just about every forum, forum thread, article, etc to learn the secret combination that could solve my cloning problem, you will notice some very interesting patterns.

One of those in particular is that there are many people who have been cloning successfully for years and years, and then they move to a new location and can't clone for the life of them.

I have heard many people attribute this to some "mystery of cloning", dumb luck, bad luck, etc. This has never sat well with me because in theory, if all elements are the same, the result should be the same. Which lead me to the belief that there must be a missing link in cloning that is not obvious, and is causing SOME people to fail miserably, and or just take a very long time to get clones to root.

Not by a discovery of my own, but some random thread I found recently, I believe (for some of us, this is not inclusive) that link may have been found. WATER

I know the idea of quality water is not new to cloning. Just about every manual, article, forum post, etc talks about it. Though there is a particular aspect that I have not seen discussed until recently. CHLORINE levels in the WATER. Or calcium hypochlorite/soduim hypochlorite.

Interesting enough, this really isn't a new discovery. Cities, Agricultural Industries, and other businesses have been using CHLORINE for over 200 years as a safe way to sterilize water. So in fact, the very water that you have coming out of your faucet, may contain a low level of CHLORINE. At low levels it is considered safe and used on a very large scale. Even biologists and the agricultural industry believe that plants actually require chlorine (low levels) as a key element and helps them thrive.

So, getting to the point finally, we all live in different places. Each one with different water sources. Some on city water (with varying water treatment techniques) and others with well water. I would safely bet that the mass majority of us are using city water and that city water contains chlorine. Personally, I have well water and not city water.

So recently I experimented with adding calcium hypochlorite (shock chlorine) to my well water for my clones. I also ran clones without any chlorine added. Everything else being the same. Guess what. I got roots in 6 days with the chlorinated clones. It was an ah ha! moment!

So the thread that I read that lead me to this point was written by this person who tried a relatively new product on the market made by EZ-Clone called "Clear-Res". Clear-RES is used by adding 5ml (of clear-res) per gallon of water and re-added every 3 days in the same amount. This product is relatively new, but if you search around you will find that the people who use it have pure success. So anyway, this person checked out the ingredients of Clear-Res and discovered that it was simply Chlorine water in a bottle. 16oz of chlorine water for $20. Two and two together, an experiment was done to discover how much pool chlorine would be needed to reproduce the same strength found in Clear-Res. Using a non-ph buffered pool shock (or pure calcium-hypoclorite) that you can commonly find at most hardware stores and walmart, the formula was discovered.

Here it is:

• Basically, this pool shock comes in powered form.
• 1 gram of this powdered chlorine should be mixed into 1 gallon of water, to make what is almost an exact replacement for a bottle of Clear-Res.
• Then, once you have this bottle of chlorine water, you would use 1 liquid oz per 5 gallons of water. Repeat every 3 days.

So for roughly $4 you can buy this pool shock that will make you roughly 454 gallons of Clear-Res!

$4 for 454 gallons, using this.

View Image

Or $20 for 16oz, using this

View Image


So if you are one of those people like me who has struggled with cloning and has tried everything, I suggest trying this. If you think about it, it makes so much sense. Could it be that many of those lucky bastards out there who never have an issue cloning, also have CHLORINE in their water? I think so.

If you are a Aerocloner guy, this water treatment has other benefits too. If you just use tap water with the chlorine added and nothing else, your Aerocloner will stay sparkling clean forever. Really should be nothing to clean between rounds (though I recommend to always clean thoroughly anyways, but the job will be so easy now). Also, with adding chlorine, you can now ditch that water chiller and all the other things you probably do to reduce temperatures of your aerocloner. In fact, when using chlorine, I bet that the higher the temperature the faster you will get roots. With no risk of getting slime/bacteria.

Here is the steps for what I believe is a sure fire method:

• Clean environment. Keep your garden area VERY clean.
• Sterile tools. I always sterilize my tools and working surface for cloning with alcohol.
• Wash your hands and buy gloves. Always wash your hands thoroughly and buy a box of those gloves used by doctors etc. Cheap. I use them every single time I enter my garden, for any reason.
• Healthy mothers. If your mothers look like hell, cloning is probably not going to go well.
• Use tap water. Distilled and RO don't work as well in my experience and slow down or prevent roots.
• PH your water to 6.3 and keep it there. I still don't know if this step is required, but when you have had as many problems as I have, you don't mess around and do what is considered a standard.
• Use a brand new razor. I buy a 100 pack of razors at the hardware store for like $5. They are cheap. A nice and sharp razor helps prevent crushing the stem when making your cuts.
• As soon as you cut the clone off the mother, put it in a cup of water for at least 5 minutes.
• If you use rooting hormone, never dip the clone in the bottle. If you have done this in the past, throw away that bottle. This simply contaminates the whole bottle. Don't use too much hormone. Simply coat anywhere a cut was made (end and nodes).
• Use the chlorine water formula described above. If using a medium, your medium should be moist and not wet. Really, they don't need much water because you will keep the humidity very high the first 7 days. If using an aerocloner, simply put your tap water into your reservoir and add the chlorine solution in as described above. Re-add the chlorine solution every 3 days.
  
• If aerocloner, humidity shouldn't be a problem. If using a medium, humidity is critical. For the first 48 hours I would seal up your clones in a dome and never open it. You want over 90% RH. After the 2nd day, open the dome for 10 minutes each day. Each day after add 10 minutes (day 3=20 mins, day 4=30 mins, etc).
• Keep temperatures in the low 80's. You don't HAVE todo this, but it will speed up the cloning. In low temps it could take weeks, where if you were in the low 80's it could take days. Don't forget, the chlorine is going to keep the nastiness from growing.
• Take larger clones, but only leave 1-2 sets up top. I also don't cut the leaves in half. I have heard this slows things down, but I am not sure. Still need further testing.
• Don't spray anything on the plants. To keep humidity up, spray the dome. Also, I have been putting a little pool of water in the tray (with the chlorine added). This helps keep temps stable and keeps the humidity high.
• Use VERY low light. This is really important. The plants need to root and not grow sets. A single 27w (2 foot) T5 located about 16inches above your clones is perfect. If you must use stronger light, put a paper towel on top of your humidity dome. Really, they don't need much light.
• No nutes, no additives, no snake oil. Just water and chlorine that is PH'ed. If things work out right, you will have roots in 6-10 days. Does it need to go faster than that?
  

Once you see a decent amount of roots, move forward with whatever nutes and additives you desire. This thread is about getting to the point of roots and not beyond that. Once the roots show, additives can speed up the growing of those roots. Wait until you have roots, trust me!


Good luck and if you try this please post back to this thread. This is very much a work in progress and we can work together to refine it.

P.S. If you are using an aerocloner, make sure you clean your aerocloner very very well between uses. Never let your cloner get dirty. Never let water just sit in it. After cleaning it, and if its not going into immediate re-use, dry it completely. Inside the manifold and pump especially.

Thanks for the tip!!! How do you know that 1Gram/Gallon makes the same solution as Clear Rez? Did you compared by PPM?

 

[queequeg152]

perlite-vermiculite 60/40 gives me close 100% rooting in 10days average

i root quite a few cactus cuttings... i might have to give that a go.

 

[creativeprocess]

how long does a 1 gal container of this blend last?

1 gram calcium hypochlorite in tap water in a capped gallon jug. Is it based on exposure to air and the duration of the container being open?

Anyone know the science behind it?