Abdog: A couple of thoughts: one, you may find other methods of cloning better than what you'll have to do using the Aerogarden. Please don't get me wrong, I have three and I love them all, but cloning in an Aerogarden is harder in a couple of ways than other methods. When cloning in the Aerogarden you have no control over the humidity necessary for the top foliage and you'll have to foliar feed your cuttings for at least a week or two. To do that the safest way is to remover the reservoir from the unit, take it some where away from electrical sources and spray the tops of your clones until they develop roots they can feed through.
You might want to look at a seed starting tray at your loclal hydro store. You need a plain black plastic tray and an insert that will accommodate either the smallest square rock wool cubes, 1 1/4", or the round Rapid Rooter plugs. The trays cost a couple of dollars each and a humidity dome is about $5. You can clone 50 cuttings at one time with this system and an overhead single CFL is pretty much all you need for lighting.
Whether you want a $40 heating pad to keep you babies warm will depend on where you live. A friend in Ohio grows in his basement. It seldom gets over 60 degrees so he had to use a heating pad but where I live it isn't necessary.
As far as your ppm's, that's a cross I haven't had to bear since I grow in an Aerogarden and I mix a gallon of nutes at a time. My reservoir holds 112 ounces and that leaves me 16 ounces left over to refill when the level gets low. If I'm only growing one or two plants in each garden then that gallon will usually last me a week until I change it. If I do run low then pH balanced water works well. But that's the nice thing about growing with an Aerogarden all you usually have to worry bout is pH.
