From my opening post cloning is one of those things that I expected to fail miserably at...and I have. Let's say I'm really good at making compost!! 
Thank goodness Larry OG is here thriving away giving me the perfect opportunity to practice whilst all the other girls play catch up. S/he (I'm so confused) not only gave me my first 3 cuttings, the next week I cut 7 more and then during Monday's water change I took another one. Of those 11 cuttings 3 are still alive. I even put KK into early service ("work for me bitch"
) and took a lower branch for a cutting and that one is (hopefully) still alive. That's the current status....so WTF?
Lot's of different things I know have gone wrong, but it all comes down to Noobs: If you fail to plan... plan to fail! a MUST read post for everyone (and me for a second time). Anyhoo I dove in head first without really knowing how little planning I did. The clone rez cooler wasn't done so the water was basking in all 250W of MH glory. Doors not on the cab, ventillation exhaust not set up....yada yada yada.
Add to it a busy week PLUS I referee youth soccer and I spent all weekend doing that. I ref'd 8 games total for a total mileage of 19.3 miles!! I have a new Moto Droid and I downloaded a GPS tracker app which tracked my entire run. I found out that my top speed is 11.3 mph! Not bad for a 50 year old dude huh?
Needless to say Sunday night I came home WORKED, every muscle screaming! I looked in on the girls, saw the clone carnage, said "Fuck It" and went to sleep to deal with the next day. Soooooooo....
Monday's water change. The clone water smelled terrible!!! It started the week off pH 6.0 no nutes and throughout climbed a bit and I'd bring it back down. But with the weekend neglect the final pH was 8.3!! All but 3 had stems that looked like cooked spinach and one of those was turning. After emptying the water, I filled the tub with hot soapy water (Dawn detergent, they use it on rescue animals in oil spills), pulled apart the tubes from the stones and threw those in as well and scrubbed off all the slime. I rinsed everything very well and then ran the air stones in clear water and a drop of bleach to help get the soap out of the stones. I did a second bubbling in plain water to clear the bleach. After drying I wiped everything tub, tubes, stones with 91% alcohol and let that evaporate completely. That should take care of any germs and such.
I got the tub back together with new water. I recut the 3 survivors and then took one new cutting each from Larry and KK. After the water change (I did the mums too) I put together another cooler for the clone rez so now all water is cool and in the dark.
So here's the planning problem I encountered. I didn't go back and re-read the differences between clones in rockwool and trays vs. clones in DWC. I think I remember a lot more about the rockwool vs. the DWC. Sadly I haven't gone back to study (I will shortly) but before I do, here is what I think is wrong:
Now the water level is 4" below and I've turned down the air so there is now an ultra fine mist coming off the water surface. The next morning check showed lightly damp underside (dewey) with nothing dripping off any more. Hopefully the daytime went well for them today.
Gotta get going home from work, get food and get back to my ventillation issue.
Hey all you subscribers, give a quck shout out to let me know you are still following along. I'm here to make all the mistakes so you don't have to. wahahahahahaha
peace
Thank goodness Larry OG is here thriving away giving me the perfect opportunity to practice whilst all the other girls play catch up. S/he (I'm so confused) not only gave me my first 3 cuttings, the next week I cut 7 more and then during Monday's water change I took another one. Of those 11 cuttings 3 are still alive. I even put KK into early service ("work for me bitch"
) and took a lower branch for a cutting and that one is (hopefully) still alive. That's the current status....so WTF?Lot's of different things I know have gone wrong, but it all comes down to Noobs: If you fail to plan... plan to fail! a MUST read post for everyone (and me for a second time). Anyhoo I dove in head first without really knowing how little planning I did. The clone rez cooler wasn't done so the water was basking in all 250W of MH glory. Doors not on the cab, ventillation exhaust not set up....yada yada yada.
Add to it a busy week PLUS I referee youth soccer and I spent all weekend doing that. I ref'd 8 games total for a total mileage of 19.3 miles!! I have a new Moto Droid and I downloaded a GPS tracker app which tracked my entire run. I found out that my top speed is 11.3 mph! Not bad for a 50 year old dude huh?
Needless to say Sunday night I came home WORKED, every muscle screaming! I looked in on the girls, saw the clone carnage, said "Fuck It" and went to sleep to deal with the next day. Soooooooo....Monday's water change. The clone water smelled terrible!!! It started the week off pH 6.0 no nutes and throughout climbed a bit and I'd bring it back down. But with the weekend neglect the final pH was 8.3!! All but 3 had stems that looked like cooked spinach and one of those was turning. After emptying the water, I filled the tub with hot soapy water (Dawn detergent, they use it on rescue animals in oil spills), pulled apart the tubes from the stones and threw those in as well and scrubbed off all the slime. I rinsed everything very well and then ran the air stones in clear water and a drop of bleach to help get the soap out of the stones. I did a second bubbling in plain water to clear the bleach. After drying I wiped everything tub, tubes, stones with 91% alcohol and let that evaporate completely. That should take care of any germs and such.
I got the tub back together with new water. I recut the 3 survivors and then took one new cutting each from Larry and KK. After the water change (I did the mums too) I put together another cooler for the clone rez so now all water is cool and in the dark.So here's the planning problem I encountered. I didn't go back and re-read the differences between clones in rockwool and trays vs. clones in DWC. I think I remember a lot more about the rockwool vs. the DWC. Sadly I haven't gone back to study (I will shortly) but before I do, here is what I think is wrong:
- Why are the cut ends turning into slime? The short answer? I believe too much moisture.
- But this is DWC I thought? DWC works great to supply roots with water and nutrients. Woody stems are NOT! We are hoping that the capilary veins in the stem can draw enough moisture (but not nutes since only roots can assimillate/digest/convert) to sustain the plant until it can reprogram itself to grow new roots. Too much moisture to a woody stem just makes it rot.
Now the water level is 4" below and I've turned down the air so there is now an ultra fine mist coming off the water surface. The next morning check showed lightly damp underside (dewey) with nothing dripping off any more. Hopefully the daytime went well for them today.
Gotta get going home from work, get food and get back to my ventillation issue.
Hey all you subscribers, give a quck shout out to let me know you are still following along. I'm here to make all the mistakes so you don't have to. wahahahahahaha
peace
(after loads of annoying effort - i'm allergic to effort i'm a stoner u see .... )
I can't wait to see the vent system. I'm along way from earthquakes, but that makes sense. Keep it up. You'll get it dialed in.
But I've been kicking ass on this project (while keeping up with the shit life keeps throwing my way). I've been doing a lot of work on the cabinet trying to get the first flowering chamber set up. I've got some definite cooling issues I'm going to have to solve before going to flower but I'll save that for the Cabinet Journal.
