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Snype's Guide To RDWC - Part 2 - Featuring BYTCH & 4,000 Watts!

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Snype

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This thread is a revision of my 1st RDWC guide. I changed a few things and I will show my exact techniques and formulas from cuttings all the way through to harvest and cure. The journey continues! Stay tuned...


The cuttings were taken and put into an EZ Cloner. After no more than 10 days, I have full blown healthy roots. Most growers seem to think that water temperatures must stay under 73 degrees F. This is simply not true. I can run my temperatures in the 90's and still get healthy full blown roots. The trick is to use 1 PPM of Chlorine and don't use the air pump that came with your cloner. I use a much bigger air pump than my cloner came with. There is no way that you can use too much air. In fact, the more air that you can use the better.

I have to say that I'm pretty excited about my cloning formula! I've done about a couple years of testing on this formula and the results just keep getting better. The last run, I got root nubs formed in 72 hours! Some of you may be skeptical but if you are why not give it a try and see what happens. I hate to be promoting one of the products that I think is the key to my formula but I have to put this information out there.

First I'd like to start out by stating that I do not use any gels or powders to dip the cuttings. I don't dip any cuttings in anything. I also do not score or shave any part of the cutting whatsoever and I think that it is crazy to do that. All that I do is cut the cutting at a 45 degree angle with a pair of scissors and stick it in the EZ Clone 60.

Before I place any cuttings into the cloner, I make sure that the cloner is 100% sterile. If it is not, I give 6 treatments of Erythromycin for 6 days. Once my treatments are done and my cloner is rinsed out real well, I place new sprayers, tubing and neoprene and add 10 Gallons of tap water to the cloner.

After I add 10 Gallons of tap water, I add:

20 mL General Hydroponic FloraMicro
30 mL General Hydroponic FloraBloom
3 mL SuperTHRIVE
0.5 mL Clorox Bleach

I make sure to pH the solution to 6.0 after I add in all the above products. This will leave me with:
PPM (0.5 / 500 / NaCl): 440
pH: 6.0

After 10 days and the top offs with tap water, I'm left with:
PPM (0.5 / 500 / NaCl): 400
pH: 6.1

I can't stress this enough, every single step in my process is very important. There is not one that is more important than the other. It is extremely important that the MOMS that you take your cuts from are in extremely excellent health. Not only that, it's also important that the run-off of your medium is in line. Soil run-off should be 6.0 - 6.5, hydro run-off should be 5.8 - 6.2. Coco should be somewhere in between soil and hydro. It is also important that your mothers are well fed about 5 days before you take the cuttings and the medium is not dry at the time that you take the cuttings.

Once you follow the steps above, I also advise to change out the air pump of the cloner to a size of how ever much solution the cloner holds, your air pump should equal at least half those liters or gallons per minute. So if you have an EZ Clone 60 which holds 10 Gallons of Solution (37.9 Liter), your air pump should be rated at 19 Liters / Minute. I use 4 air stones with the EZ Clone 60.

Now after all that work, all you have to do is place your cuttings in the cloner and wait a few days to see root nubs appear! I like my solution to be somewhere in the range of 75-82 degrees F. Also remember that some strains are harder to root than others but on easier strains, you can get root nubs in 3 days and roots like this in 10 days or less:

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And these are the Root Nubs forming on the 3rd day:

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Please also check out my other cloning thread in the New Growers Section for those who are taking cuttings in Rockwool.
Snype's Guide To Cloning In Rockwool Or Aeroponics With 100% Success Rates!
https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=268211
 

Snype

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Veg-A System from Botanicare:
For those of you who want to order the VEG-A system, here are the parts. Remember that Botanicare has 2 different types of 2x4 trays. You want the one that is 24" x 44" that fits the lid on it. Botanicare also makes 2 kinds of 20 Gallon Rez's. You want the one in the links below:

2x4 Propagation Tray - White
http://www.botanicare.com/2x4-Propagation-Tray-White-P33C7.aspx

Tray Lid (2x4 lid with 5" holes)
http://www.botanicare.com/Tray-Lids-P100.aspx

20 Gallon Rez
http://www.botanicare.com/Grow-Room-products/20GallonOriginalReservoir.aspx

Botanicare 20 Gallon White Reservoir with White Lid and Cover actually holds 16.5 Gallons of Solution. After I fill up my rez, I add:
70 mL General Hydroponics FloraMicro (4.24mL / Gallon)
105 mL General Hydroponics FloraBloom (6.36mL / Gallon)
0.5 mL Clorox Bleach (regular unscented / not splash guard)
I pH the solution to 6.0 and I always keep it in a range of 5.8-6.2 but I like to be at 6.0 for the most part.

After I add everything in the REZ, my Blue Lab pens read:
650 PPM (0.5 / 500 / NaCl);6.0 pH

Each VEG-A set up uses 2:
Elemental H2O Pump, 171 gph (EHP216).

The reason that I use 2 pumps in each rez is because they are very small pumps and don't take up much space in the rez. If I use bigger pumps, it leaves too much water at the bottom of the rez that the pump can't get and with these 2 pumps, the water floods up to the very bottom of the 5" Daisy Flex Net Pot (http://www.wormsway.com/en/DFNP205). If I use any other pump, the water doesn't flood up to the 5" Daisy Flex Net Pots.

 

Snype

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It has been exactly 48 hours since I placed the rooted cuttings into VEG-A. They have been getting flooded every 3 hours. I'll give more details and clean this all up after we finish our current harvest.

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Snype

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96 hours VEG-A - Flood every 3 hours
details coming later...
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Normally this is the point that I would change the flood cycle to every 2 hours but the VEG-A system in the back was put in 36 hours after the first one in the picture because my pumps broke and I didn't feel like hand watering every 3 hours because I have too many other things going on. In 12 hours I'll change the flood cycle to every 2 hours and lower the lights.
 

Snype

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picture.php



It's been 4.5 days since I put the plants into the first VEG-A system. Up until now the T5 light was about 18" away from the plants and they were being flooded every 3 hours. Remember to keep in mind that these were not in those little Rockwool Mini-Blocks and if they were the flood cycle would have been much different. These went from an aerocloner and are only in hydroton / expanded clay pebbles. The roots are in no medium whatsoever. The hydroton is just there to weigh down the pots and also block light.

So normally in this situation I would have changed the flood cycle to every 2 hours on the end of the 4th day but that would have messed up the other table in the back so I had to wait until now which is the middle of the 4th day for the first tray and the beginning of day 3 for the back tray.

Again, the flood cycle is now every 2 hours and within 1-2 days I'll be flooding every hour once I see the roots that I'm looking for and then I'll drop the light even lower. I did lower the light a few more inch's, now that I changed the flood cycle to every 2 hours. Stay tuned...
 

dj.scotfree

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Snype.. This is sooo close to my style of gardening.. I fell in love with the hydroton rocks (balls) about 8 years ago.. I use them from start to finish.. Except when starting seeds.. Love that you can reuse it.. Still haven't figured out an easy way to clean out all the roots at the end.. ;) It takes a long process of straining em out.. Its a long process to get your balls clean :) lmao.. I absolutely love your style of thread.. I'm pulling up a chair. Love & Light~ DJSF
 
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Snype

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On the beginning of the 7th day, I top all of the plants. I pinch each top off using my thumb and forefinger. When I top each plant, I only take off the main top like in the pictures below:

Before:
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After:
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After I top the plants, I drop the T5 light right above the plants and turn on the other 2 bulbs so now I'll have all 6 bulbs in the on position. I also change the flood cycle to every hour.

picture.php



PPM before top off: 580
pH before top off: 6.1
PPM after top off: 560
Added: 20 mL GH FloraMicro, 30 mL FloraBloom, 0.5 mL Clorox Bleach (regular unscented / not splash guard)

Final PPM: 680
Final pH: 6.1
 

Snype

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Veteran
Snype.. This is sooo close to my style of gardening.. I fell in love with the hydroton rocks (balls) about 8 years ago.. I use them from start to finish.. Except when starting seeds.. Love that you can reuse it.. Still haven't figured out an easy way to clean out all the roots at the end.. ;) It takes a long process of straining em out.. Its a long process to get your balls clean :) lmao.. I absolutely love your style of thread.. I'm pulling up a chair. Love & Light~ DJSF

I've been using hydroton for many years. The ones that I used to use that came in a clear bag from either Denmark or Germany aren't manufactured anymore so I have to use whatever I can find. I like to use the ones that are more round.

I don't reuse the hydroton. I use so little of them per plant that it doesn't take much to fill the pot. I always make sure to wash out the new hydroton before I use it because you'll notice all this stuff come out. I know you know this but I'm stating it for others just for the record.

As far as reusing the hydroton, I used to have a washing machine dedicated to washing hydroton and I would just fill up the washing machine with hydroton and wash them out.
 

paperchaser825

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I can already see this thread is going to be another eye-opener. Anyone wondering why they weren't getting snype's results out of snype's systems now can SEE why. He said it before, and I'll say it again, if you don't have this thing down to a science then you will have mediocre results. Measuring chlorine, changing pump timers, precise nutrient regiments with emphasis on pH control....this is not a set and forget system, BUT imho if you do have all of the necessary elements (chlorine meter, ways to monitor pH effectively, ample environment) then this system is crazy easy to maintain. I am on my 3rd grow with it and I haven't even done half the shit I need to and it's still 1000x easier to maintain than any other hydro system I have ever run. And that's in a small as cabinet in a fucking attic with terribad conditions. Just my 2c.
 
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