This guide is intended to give you a 90%-100% success rate on your cloning. I personally think Aeroponic cloning is the best method. Once you have it down you can set it and forget it. No domes to open and close and no plants to mist.
Supplies Needed:
- Aeroponic Cloner
- General Hydroponics FloraMicro
- General Hydropnoics FloraBloom
- PhUP
- PhDown
- Distilled or reverse osmosis water
- KLN Rooting Concentrate
- Bleach
- Micronized Sulfur (Optional)
- Clone light (Around 4000 lumens is ideal). If your light is too weak it will cause clones to die
Cloning Solution
Here’s the ratios I use to create my cloning mixture:
- 2ml/gallon of FloraMicro
- 3ml/gallon of FloraBloom
- 1.5ml/gallon of KLN rooting concentrate
- PH your mixture to 6.0
Taking Clones
When you take your clone remove as much leaf matter as you can. With Aeroponics you don’t want to shade your clones with other clones as this will prevent them from rooting. It might seem counterintuitive at the moment but in two weeks you’ll have big healthy plants.
Deleafed Clone
Once you’re done taking clones I spray my scissors with 10% bleach solution to make sure my blades are clean for each plant I move onto.
Optional IPM Step
This step is optional but I like to perform it as it’s a great way to prevent powdery mildew, bugs and is very easy to do. After I deleaf my clones I like to dip them in sulfur. Below is the sulfur mixture I use:
2tbsp per gallon
I mix up a batch in 32 oz of reverse osmosis water for dipping. In 32oz of water that would be 1.5tsp of micronized sulfur. When I dip the clones I like to swirl them around for around 20 seconds to make sure I get every nook and cranny covered.
sulfur dunk
After I dunk my clones I finally put them in their neoprene collars and into the cloner.
Final Steps
After you move your cloner under your lights you will want to set your light schedule to 18 hours on and 6 hours off. There’s nothing to do besides wait now. After two weeks I have roots like in the photo below.
Clones rooting
Cleaning Cloning Machine
After your clones have rooted and you’re doing with the machine it’s time to clean it. This is the most important part to any sucesfull cloning process. If you’re machine has any algae or bacteria left in it you will get poor rooting results.
I use the following to clean my cloning machine:
- Warm water
- Dawn dish soap
- Big brush
- Toothbrush
- Toothpicks
- Bleach
You’ll want to brush everything clean with warm water and dawn dish soap. This includes the neoprene collars, reservoir, pump and manifold. Make sure to dismantle your pump to clean all the internal parts as well. To clean the manifold properly I use a toothpick to scrape out any roots and gunk left in the mister heads. You can tell if you’re mister heads are clean and unclogged by flipping the manifold upside down, letting a slow stream of water flow into the manifold and observer the flow of water out the mister heads. If a mister head is dripping then there’s something obstructing the flow and you should clean that one out.
After cleaning, assemble your cloner and fill up your reservoir with water and add 5ml/gallon of bleach. Let your cloning machine run for 24 hours with this mixture. After 24 hours empty the reservoir out, fill it up with plain water and let it run for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes your cloner is clean and ready for the next batch of clones.
Conclusion
I hope this guide has been helpful. I’ve been using the same cloner for 10 years now and have never had an issue or part fail yet. If you have any questions please leave a comment below and I’ll be happy to help.