First DIY stealth aeroponic cabinet grow, SOG

day 10 1/2 i think i have 13/16 now showing root bumps, happy me The most developed cutting's roots are almost 1.5 cm long now i'd guess

right i can just message you here SIIIICK i knew they would i bet you 5 bucks all of your clones bud and grow roots eventually! also the question i wanted to ask you the other day is, are the trichs that you see in grow journals that i have never seen in weed i have bought due to the quality of the strain or the quality of the grow or both?

both. the weed we get is mishandled and not cured properly and is generally not great genetics. The occasional good weed we get is usually crystally, that's trichs just you can't see them without a jewlers loup.

ok, so day 13 now, still slow root development, one plant still clearly ahead, but i was expecting more from it in the few days it's had. here are some updated pics.

anyone think this is slow for a bubbleponic cloner?

also that is a joint i rolled that just happened to end up like that. my gf thought it was cool

you'll get there don't worry

ok so i couldn't wait any longer lol

im experimenting. Set up the aero device in her home and phd water to 5.8, 650 ml of 3% h202, 40 L res, 90 ppm. Cut two new clones from Apple ("plant A" didnt cut it), the fastest rooting of my plants, and put them strait into the hydroton with those cups on them under the 400w hps. Hopefully they will be just fine.

im going to give the clones another day or so, then start moving them up into veg under the hps. Ive read stuff from different sources on when to transplant, but seems like in hydroton from bubbler some people are saying as soon as you see nubs form. Others wait till 1-2 inches so the roots hang out of the pots. im going to try both methods i think. ill veg till rots have caught up with eachother and all plants exhibit new growth, then to flower with them!

mesured the space between pots and the light and i have about 30 inches of space, a little less arround the light, although it isn't burning to the touch, you can put ur hand on it and leave it there, but it IS hot. So ill be aiming for 22-25 inch plants.so flower at arround 10 inches.

Why the cups?

400 w hps, those are acting as humidity domes for the two new clone si took today, also 400 w would kill em quick i think, this is blocking a lot of the intensity.

dam nice job man. i was about to make a aeroponic system myself. so do u just cut the bottom of the plant that I want to make into roots? last time i tried this, i thought i killed my plant because it had a lot of white bumps and little roots. i guess that meant that the white bumps were the roots that were about to come out. lol

yeah sounds right. these bubble cloners seem to be very variable in terms of rooting time. Some of my clones haven't rooted at all, and there doesn't seem to be a variable i can identify that killed them. If you haven't seen activity in 14-21 days generally verdict is start again.

you look for a branch near the bottom of the plant and basically cut it off and wait for roots. lots of other factors, nute in water, timer for bubbles, lighting, h202, temp, size, cloning gel/powder etc. lots of easy to find cloning info available.

bubble? u dont use mist? how do u make the water bubble enough that it touches the roots? do u have to put on the hormone gel to make it root or can it root without anything on it?

it can without anything, hormone speeds it up a lot.
the water the plants drink is the tiny bubble that form in the air when an air bubble pops. water level is about 1-2 inches below plants, and they are always dripping wet.

so update today, the two clones i took yesterday seem to be doing just fine in their new home. Everything's fine, ph is good etc. but my res temp is FUCKED lol. its up at 92 F. 20 degrees too high... i should have coated the whole res in refelctix to make it a lot more heatproof, and i'm going to start freezing litres of water in ziplocs to add periodically to keep the res temp down. As a permanent solution if the heat proof and ice don't keep it low enough ill make a diy res cooler with a desktop water cooler from walmart, 69.99 and problem should be solved.

update, root growth on the clones in the bubbler is looking good, taking two of the airstones out has not affected growth. Ill be moving them in the next day or two as soon as i figure out this res temp problem. One of the two clones in the main system wasn't low enough in the hydroton and died from getting too dry, so i cut a new one. the other seems to be doing fine even with it's absurd 92 degree res temperature.

i just bought an aeroponic system myself. it uses water pump's water to splash from the middle of the pot to distribute water to 4 plants on its sides. do u know if i should use timer for this setup or leave them on 24/7?

that's another hotly debated topic in the world of aero. personally, i think that letting the roots hang in moist air probably does give you a good ammount of benefit, so im going to be getting 15 min timer and running 15 min on 15 min off. If i had 80 bucks i get a one minute on 5 off timer.

on the other hand, you can run your misters 24/7 and get great results. It's just that the system becomes much more of an nft system if you're always misting the roots, because basically they are coasted in a film of nutrients the whole time.

roots will dry out totally in 2-3 hours, so you can experiment with on/off times under 2 hours as a rule of thumb. Ive seen lots of people posting 5 mins on 1 hour off and shit like that, so the timer rule is hardly set in stone. It's another variable you can experiment with.

if i was going to be scienific i guess id let the roots dry for an hour or so, and then mist for five mins and whatch to see when everything looked just on the verge of drying again and set that as my cycle.

i have two bubbler stones in my res that will always be on. The res is big enough that this won't soak the roots while they arent in the res yet, but it will keep the air moist and nutrient rich even when the pump is off. Do you have airstones?

i've been looking for the right timer for this job, but couldn't find one. do u know where to get like 15 minute to 30 minute timer? i can only find all day one with only 1 'on' time and 1 'off' time.

i have a place near me called lee valley tools that will sell one. the internet isanother good source if you can wait.

So i moved the clones to the main system 6 days ago. Only four have survived the transplant. I know why.

First, the clones were all too small. I first timed myself here, and cut growth that was plain too small. Second, they were cut from plants that were 2 weeks into flower. Third, i moved them when the roots were still too small due to impatiance and neccesity.

So four are doing fine in the system. The temp of the res is back down to about 60 since adding reflective covering to the res and using ice packs once a day.

I have cut twenty or so new clones, all more then three inches long, and hopefully ill have much more success with good strong branches solidly in veg phase.

I also added a humidity dome to my bubbler cloner, as well as replacing the tubing in my aero system. The tubing i had tended to kink, and was reducing the preassure getting to some of the mister heads. I got clear vinyl tubing and it is workin glike a charm.

depot and lowes etc have timers that have 96 dip switches around them.
they are just like the analog on off timers that offer on and off with
the pin inserts but instead of getting up to about 8 changes per day,
you get control every 15 minutes.

its not as great as a digital which is programmable but it allows for (example)
30 minutes on and 15 off interval-ing which might be superior to 24/7...*

i am looking into pausing my water flow as *i have read that roots will
grow to "seek" water when they experience fluctuations in saturation
levels -- not to the point of dryness mind you but just a reduction from
~90+%.

also, these are at depot for like $12 and that is the best part...

i think a better solution however is getting a sprinkler control valve
solenoid and using it to redirect the flow back into the reservoir for
the "off" cycles. this reduces stop/start stress on the pump while
creating a periodic stirring of the entire reservoir to encourage 02,
mixing,etc... and i think sprinkler control systems are pretty cheap
also...