If the roots are on the floor i`d be tempted to try a 1 sec/2 min cycle for a while. You deliver the same amount of nutes as the 2 sec/4 min cycle. If its a step in the right direction you should notice the difference within a day or so.
Well i did a dumb thing yesterday
. When i went to snap the pics of the roots i turned of the valve to that pod so the mist wouldnt come on and splash my camera while i had it stuck thru the access hole. I have white plastic over the tops of the pod to shield them from the heat. while i forgot to turn the valve on to that pod and left and went home. this morning i go back to check how things are doing and as soon as i walk in i notice the fan leaves on that one are drooping. they werent completly limp just drooping. i didnt get to alarmed i just thought oh thier getting to much mist im going to have to cut back. so i messed around with other things for about 20 minutes then thought let me look and see how wet that one really is getting. i look thru the access hole and see no moisture on the roots and im like WTF are the misters plugged. so i wait for the next mist cycle and no mist. now im like how can this be. so i rip the white plasic off the top to see if something happened to the line running to that pod and then i see the closed valve.
my first reaction after seeing the vavle was how can this thing even be alive anymore. it had been 12 hrs approx. since the valve was turned off. im not bullshitting you the only thing that was drooping was the fans and they werent completly limp even. the top was still standing tall although it hadnt put on any new material.
Well this tells me that the roots must have developed in the net pot somewhat extensively to have enough moisture to hang on like that. there is approx. 2.25 gallon of hydroton in each 10 inch net pot. also i think that amount of hydroton holds alot of water and contributed alot to it being able to survive.
Anyway im not sure if the roots are going to die off some but they still look white and after an hour of misting the fans picked back up.
Ive tryed the 1 sec mist with my other timer off the clone machine and it seems like with one second nothing really reaches the nozzels because of the tubing distances from the manifold to the pods. A weak point when designing tree pods. Its also been on a 2sec 2 minutes for the last 30 hours. i had it on the 2sec 4minute but my humidity in the room was so low it was taking its toll on them so i cut it to 2sec 2minutes. which helped the leaf roll. Ive since added a humidifier so i might go back to the 2sec 4 minute. they definately arent starving for misture if a 9" can go 12 hrs without anything. Another thing that i think helped alot is the one that i forgot to turn the valve back onto was sitting right next to the humidifier and was getting a good breeze of humid air constantly.
Stupid mistake but i can learn something from it. Once they get a little bigger im going to try and coax some finer root hairs out of them. Also now i have the nozzels pointed towards the net pot up high. Im going to turn them silightly more down and away from the net pots so that they fire into the void more. Why im thinking this is because the finest root hair develpoment now is just below the net pot where very little direct misting is taking place because the nozzels are firing to the tops of the net pots now. i had them turned like this because when i put them into the nets there wasnt any roots showing out of the pots and i wanted to make sure to keep the hydroton wet.
I should know in 24 hrs if some of those roots will die off from not being misted. if they do ill cut the dieing ones off as its still little enough to do that with. Do you think theyll die off.