mango420
Member
I just built my aero cloner. I got the Danner 375 GPH pump for $35.00 in a 22 gallon roughneck. I used 12 of the green sprayers. I only made 25 sites for the time being(25 pucks per sheet). I'll make more as the need arises. I put 8 c99 cuts, 6 white widow cuts and 3 ruderalis cuts in it. I have 1 question though. What is the best temp for the water to be? After reading all the posts here it seems to vary from as low as 60 to as high as 80. I have an aquarium heater set at 78 right now but I can lower it if I need to. I am using Clonex at 5 mil. a gallon with R.O. water ph'd to 5.5. If everything works out I'll go with just straight water but for now, since I have such an abysmally low success rate, I'll take all the help I can get. Thanks for the great info so far!
Hey sickworm, hopefully i can help ya out, been through the struggle of dismal cloning success until i made a custom aero cloner. Took almost a year to get dialed into 85-90%. The best temp I found to work is 80f+ up to 85 is ok for some strains. You will find that different strains root at diff temps, some strains may pop in 7days at 80 and some may pop at mid 70's. Any temp under 80 I found would take up to 2weeks to pop, and as soon as i turned the heat up they were rooted the next day. But be carefull some strains may "melt" in the cloner at 80+. Takes awile to dial in the strain. Stay around 78-82f for your first run, if they havent popped after 8-10 days and havent melted turn up the temp to around 84F. Dont trust the thermometer on the heater either, buy a seperate aquarium thermometer and that will tell you exactly what temp your water is. I would also suggest using straight tap water if its around neutral ph. Any additives or gels i ever used just made the water murky and more dead clones due to slime buildup. U want to look in your cloner and the water to be crystal clear. Hope that helps, also make sure after EVER clone cycle you wash out your cloner with a bleach solution and let it run through your pump and sprayers for a few minutes. Any questions dont hesitate to ask, cheers.