Ph Trouble With Cloner

[Blkwlf]

I have a small hydroponic cloner ( 25 capacity ) and I'm suddenly having trouble keepng my PH levels in check. When I'm putting new clones in, I use the liquid Clonex, already tested and balance water along with Clonex cloning gel on my cuttings. I've had an average success rate of 95+ % until recently. I had to " triage", my term for killing, 3/4 of the clones in cloner because a lot of algea built up, PH was sky high & most of the nipples weren't working. I took the whole cloner apart and cleaned thoroughly with a 5% bleach solution plus rinsed for 20 minutes & allowed to dry. I always clean my cloner in between uses though not with bleach water but there was a Ton of algea which even left a green slim on the baskets and sponges. After puting it together, I did everything I stated above and still checked the PH, chorine & free chorine levels with more than acceptable results. However, every other day I'm having to readjust my PH levels because they're off the color chart. I used to use lemon juice concentrate but switched to a standard PH down after the huge algea situation wondering if adding a biologic such as the lemon juice concentrate was allowing the alea to grow. This time I've been switching between the PH down and lemon juice concentrate because neither seem to be doing any good. I've had to adjust my PH before but usually only once. It takes some of my clones 10-14 days to develope decent roots ( is that longer than usual )?

Has anyone else had these problems with their cloners? Thinking of trying the Rapid Rooter cubes so I'm not waiting to cut clones until can take enough to make running the cloner worth the cost. Could the heat and/or humidity from the lights be causing the PH to increase due to the water being too warm? Any and all comments always welcome. Blkwlf

[Kingdiamond]

I use plain tap water with no  cloning gel or powder I get a 90% success rate with ph levels in the upper 7 low 8 range.

[semicaregiver]

I would suspect the water temp.   The source of the heat could be lights or a pump going bad. 

[trichcycler]

 use proper ph up and down to adjust instead of food stuffs. Use a ph meter instead of a color chart.

I hate my bubble cloner, and have used rapid rooters since 2009 with near a 100% success, within a week.

does your cloner allow light  to reach the reservoir to support the algae blooms?  I don't think the lights add humidity

but the heat will affect algae blooms, which would alter your ph.

Edited July 31, 2015 by grassmatch

[cristinew]

Use  purefide water  cap full of peroxide    and less light ,  alga  loves tap water 

[semicaregiver]

In the past I had similar problems with my cloners (homemade, rubbermaid 18 gallon size containers, filled with 10 gallons of water, with room for 30 cuttings).   I eliminated the dedicated light I had and just moved the container to a relatively dark corner of my veg room with the container sitting on a concrete floor.  This combined with heavy duty cleaning now results in 95% success rate.  

 

Cleaning between every cloning consists of filling the tub to the top with hot water, all the parts including the pump and adding 1/2 gallon of clorox.  Let it sit overnight and next day drain and fill with clean tap water.  Let this sit for a few hours, drain and set up to run.  I let it run on clean tap water for a few hours or a day depending on what else I am doing.  Next I drain again and set up with clean filtered water with ph adjusted to 5.8 and 200 ml of clonex for 10 gallons of reservoir water.  After that I just check everyday to be sure the pump has not quite, but no added maint. required.   Plants usually have very nice well established roots after 14 days.  

 

Cleaning sounds like a project, but I just drop the tub into one side of my laundry tub and let it sit there for two days as I go thru the cleaning cycle.   

 

I have used the rooting plugs in the past and they are fine, but too often I have gotten busy and forgotten to check on them and everything died because I forgot to add a little water.

[trichcycler]

rapid rooters.. water....grrrrr.

 

I almost fired up the bubble cloner again after the octopots, to afford me a vacation. A little jar of water in the dome(s), an air hose, and a small fish tank air pump solved it. I've left it for four days and squeezed water from a rooter. Normally two days and they were dry and hard and pizzed, three days and death occurred. Not sure why but the few large bubbles from an open ended air line were way more effective than the several smaller bubbles using a stone. Amazing to me what a few days away is worth. The time away makes brings cannabis back to being a fun hobby instead of a daily chore.

 Problem solved!  Vacations are now mine to enjoy once again !

[orion]

I would increase the amount of chlorine (Clorox AKA Bleach) to a 20 percent solution for 3 hours minimum. A through wash and then let all items dry completely before using. This is a standard formula used in the firehouse to disinfect mask's. This solution will kill pneumonia and other cooties in 15 minutes. However algae and iron bacteria can take up to 3 hours of immersion.  I would also suspect your water may be a little on the warm side.

The 10 - 14 days for good roots is normal.

 

Best regards

[Blkwlf]

Everyone, Thank you so very much. Sorry I didn't reply sooner but had a wedding & family in town. Trying to keep everyone away from my house. LOL Need more Fabreeze air fresheners or a few charcoal air filters. Still waiting on electrician to finish before I can run any more equipment. Kept blowing fuses with everyone trying to get ready for wedding & hair dryers/curling irons plugged in. I definately use bleach in a large laundry tub in basement to soak & clean my cloner. I even took all of the spayers out for a very thorough clean ( broke a few putting them back in ). Let it sit overnight, scrubbed everything down, rinsed it very well & allowed to dry, refilled ( only takes 2 gal. ) adjusted PH, this time with an actual PH adjuster instead of lemon concentrate due to algea growth from concentrate previously. Used Clonex nutrients in water & Clonex gel on cuttings as always ( yes, tested PH & Alkalyn levels after adding Clonex, PH @ 5.6 ). However, every single day I had to add more PH Dwn because levels kept going up to 7-8. My cloner's in same room as my vegging plants though on other end of room, on shelf above height of veg. lights & with fan blowing towards plants/away from cloner. I use a T5 light for the cloner but my water's been getting warm even though pump is new. After 14 days I had to "triage" 9 clones because they'd lost all their leaves but a couple tiny ones & had either no roots or just nubs. Even those with good roots had lost most of their leaves. I mist them daily because I don't have a hood but this is the 1st time this has happened to me. Was thinking it was changing from the lemon concentrate to the PH Dwn solution or the water getting too warm even though pump is brand new. I even added fresh water 7 days in & still had PH issues everyday. I've had to adjust my PH once or twice in a 14 day period, have had some leaves go yellow & "triaged" up to 5 per cloning cycle of 25 cuttings at the worst times but NEVER THIS reaction. I AM going to buy some rapid rooters just to try them. Do you plant the whole plug or just the plant when you use those? I have to be home everday to care for our animals so vacations aren't an issue. We have a well so don't have the problems associated with city water but we do have issues with iron since I use water that hasn't gone through softener. Plan on purchasing a digital water tester rather than relying on strips & test bottles but strips are a fast way to check PH in the cloner so the roots don't get light. THe light over cloner was lowered a few inches this time but I didn't think the T5 could put out enough heat to affect clones & other lights in veg. room are just 400w white lights. Don't have the $$ or electric outlets to put in lights we want yet. Use fans all day in veg. & flower rooms + central air few hrs/day when humidity gets too high in flower room until can hook up dehumidifyers but doesn't effect the cloner/veg. room. The PH Dwn solution I'm using is for ponds not pools, should I be using the one for pools? Always used lemon concentrate before this & never had these issues (just a bit of algea on the pump or in sprayers). Easily cleaned. Was only losing average 3 clones per batch before & never had this issue with leaf loss. I'm looking for best place to get rapid rooter plugs w/o having to buy 100's. Do the plugs grow better with a hood or can I get buy with misting them as I do with all the others? All water used, including mister, is PH & Alkalyn balanced. Kingdiamon, semicaregiver, cristinew, orion & as always, grassmatch; I appreciate all of your advice & will check all issues you've mentioned.

 

[Blkwlf]

You mentioned "Bubble Cloners". Is that a different type than what I have which uses sprayers? Remember < newbie/cannabis virgin! :-) Not sure of terminology.

[semicaregiver]

I think you will find that people refer to what are basically aeroponic cloners by a number of names including bubble cloners.

 

Sure sounds like the water temp is just way too high.   Curious if you have any idea what the temp of the water is in the cloner?   cheap $2-3 aquarium thermometer will do it.   Also what is room temp?  I went back thru this and could not find any mention of A/C for room.

[trichcycler]

yep, growing in bubbles covers a few different grow styles, including sprayers, cloners, hempy buckets and ...bubblers..

[Blkwlf]

Thank you for clearing that up. I found out the hard way that not knowing or using the correct terms can lead to misunderstandings. Semicaregiver; you're correct. Even though all the rooms are in the basement, the cloner/veg. room is actually under our front porch. Though it was poured with the rest of the basement, it's a separate room which vents to the outside via slits between the poured walls and the poured porch top. It doesn't have A/C, ducts, pipes or electric besides 1 light fixture. The temp stays at 75-78 w/low humidity, veg. lights are aprx. 10' away and 2' below shelf cloner's on with a fan which blows on veg. plants. I don't know what the water temp was but know it was warm ( aprx. 80% ) which is why I changed the water after 7 days. I didn't think the T5 light could heat the water or "burn" the leaves of the clones though it was recently lowered to 5-6" above tops of clones for this last batch. The cloner's only about 2 months old, the spray pressure is good & there's been no noise so I didn't consider the pump being bad. It's cleaned thoroughly between each clone batch. Good idea to get a thermometer for the cloner + I think I'll raise the light back to 10" above tops just in case.

[trichcycler]

moving water with a pump contributes to heat and those black items seem to be heat sinks in my grow room. I was mildly concerned with my octopots

but honestly have never checked the temps of the water.  you'll have it mastered soon you'll see !  choose carbon filters over ona/similar sprays.

My house smelled like cannabis flavored Febreeze for awhile too before my ego let me buy  my first stink sock-they work well.

[Blkwlf]

Hubby's planning to build a carbon filter or two plus getting duct work cleaned and sealed better in a month or so which will help quite a bit. I moved the cloner out of the room where I have plants vegging. I noticed that the water level had dropped considerably this time so I'm keeping an eye on that and the PH daily as well as misting the clones and raised the lights 10" above cloner. I'm sure I'll have plenty I'll need to change while learning this. I know what you mean about the cannabis fabreeze smell. I actually don't mind the smell of the plants but, for privacy sake, am doing what I can to make it not as noticable. Excuse me for asking but what's a stink sock? TYVM again.

[Willy]

stink sock is another name for the air filters, works the same, some are better some are not..mine have never worked, @80.00 ea// 

Edited August 17, 2015 by Willy

[trichcycler]

Mine work well, I think they're P****h brand. I figured they were all the same, air, activated carbon, flow, etc... I'll stick with these, thanks for the info.

 

I love the smell of cannabis, growing, burning, trimming, drying......but, agree with you op, I don't  want anyone to ever notice the wafting aroma's.