Cuttings in the bubbler; what solution?

[Bud_Munchkin 10]

I just made a makeshift little bubbler out of a small plastic bottle and an el cheapo air pump. I didn't bother attaching the stone coz the crappy one I got from the pet shop makes hardly any difference in breaking up the bubbles and I have overkill amount of air going in there anyways.

Now I need to know what to do to the water I have in there - I have used distilled water, is that what I should be using? A guy on youtube was using rain water so I figured this would be a good substitute.

Am I right in assuming that I don't need to add nutrients until a substantial amount of roots have sprung from the stem? If so, when do the nutrients go in? Do I need to adjust the PH in any way and if so, what range? Anything else I should be looking at or adding? I just have one cutting in there and I coated it with cloning gel. It's hanging partially (1/2") in the water.

Any tips would be mega welcome!

ps: sorry if this has been covered elsewhere on the forum; I did a search but didn't find anything straight away - maybe my search-fu needs to be guided a little.. hint hint

[bluesteel 50]

the strain will affect how long it takes to root so dont panic...some root fast n some dont.

in my experience clones prefer a slightly warmer rez temp in a bubble cloner,75-80 works well imo.

yeah your right, you dont need to add nutrients until roots have emerged but when they do 1/4 strenght nutes n a ph of 5.5 would be a good start.

keep in mind using distilled water means you would need to use something like cal-mag to supplement nutrients/salts in ur water.

what nutes you gonna be using?...this is gonna grow under a cfl right?

can u post some pics for us to see what your working with?

good luck with your project G.

[Bud_Munchkin 10]

Hi BlueSteel, thanks for your reply. As yet I have no means of controlling the water temperature in the reservoir I'm using, which is an old creatine bottle covered in aluminum foil to keep the light out. Don't laugh, it's really ghetto style

I cut a hole in the top and cut out a slightly larger round piece of camping bed roll as an insert to hold the cutting in it's place.

I guess a trip down to the aquarium shop is in order to get me one o' them aquarium heaters, but I'll have to go to a larger container then I think.. For the time being I'll go with the unheated bottle and see what it brings - if the cutting roots faster than in soil which is what I've been doing until now, I'll already be one-up and a learning experience richer

I was thinking of getting this kit to start with for nutes:

Which contains the following:

1x Hesi Root Complex (500ml)

1x Hesi Hydro Growth (1 liter)

1x Hesi Hydro Bloom (1 liter)

1x Hesi PK 13/14 (0.5 liter)

1 x Hesi Powerzym (0.5 liter)

1x Hesi Super Vit (10ml)

1x Pipette (3.5cc)

at 48 euros quite a good deal I think.

I'm growing under a CFL indeed, well, just for rooting at the moment, but intend to construct or buy a basic ebb/flow system for one plant and put it under a 250Watt HPS light as a trial project. If it goes well I wanna switch to Hydro completely - I'm tired of having to sneak bags of soil into my apartment and especially sneak the old used soil out again for disposal (and the risk involved). Hydro seems the logical next step for me and, truth be told, would feed my ego nicely as I would consider myself being a step closer to being a pro grower

So, I need to either add stuff to the distilled water (why is it advised to use that or rain water?) in order to provide enough start up nutes for the cutting right? Could I use mineral water from the supermarket? Would that provide the needed salts and nutrients for the first few days?

[bozoph 696]

as long as it hasnt curled up and died in the first few days it will root just fine

[blueskyolympia 149]

dude the heat depends man I have read every where that it has to be 20-25 degrees Celsius but I just had a cutting, 1 outa 1, root with no heat just bubbles and tap water its growing super fast the roots are about 3 inches today..... it was a indica dominate strain though called Tennessee Hogs Breath... Iam gonna try placing some White Widdow cuttings in the same un heated bubble bucket cloner and I'll let ya know

[blueskyolympia 149]

oh yeah I dont add nutrients till the roots are established like 4 inches or what ever Iam lazy lol

[mikearnill 0]

Yes, it is better to use rain water than normal water for planting as it have more nutrition to plant. You have to add nutrition to the plant after it grow up to 8 to 12 centimeter.

[Bud_Munchkin 10]

Well, I changed to tap water a few days after I put the cutting in. It took until july 22nd to root, which is 16 days.. I reckon my cuttings root faster in soil than in this bubbler, which means I'm probably doing something wrong. Will try again soon with a different construction and some GH white widow cuttings.