My 99.9% success rate bubble cloner. (2024)

Only for the past year and a half have I have been able to take cuttings in which root wit a 99.9% success rate. In the past I tried it all from rooting hormones, jumpstart foliar spraying, wilt-stop spray misting everyday etc etc. I tried rooting in rockwool cubes, in humidity dome, in straight soil, rapid rooters <--(they work well to but cost money lol)etc etc and although some worked better then others I still had a very poor success rate. The only reason i could come up with for this poor success rate was that i was not taking the right cuttings off my mother plants.

A year and a half ago I decided to buy a heated seedling mat. I read that you had to maintain a certain range temp for your successful rooting% to increase. I was told to buy a 60$ heating mat temp controller but thought id give it a go without one at first to see what happened. In my house either in summer or winter the temps remain around 68-70 F. In the summer the air conditioner kicks in and in the winter the furnace does to keeps my temps within the 68-70F range which seems like would be a normal situation for almost everyone. I also sometimes after putting clones in the bubbler and putting it on the seedling mat would check the next day to see what the temps were in it. If temps were to hot i would only put the bubbler 75% on the heat mat and if it was still to hot the next day i would have it half way on the mat. I think you guys get my point and i know my typing skills are not that great so bare wit me please.

I had purchased a 36 site aerocloner 4 years back which i converted into a bubble cloner. Although this cloner worked well i was only getting 80% rate wit it. I purchased a 36 inch flexable bubble tube (6$ at local pet store) also a hagen maxima-r dual airpump (24$ at same pet store) I ditched the parts that originally came wit the aerocloner with and just kept the 2" net pots and neoprene discs.

The bubble tube i purchased is weighted to so it sits on the bottom of the cloner with ease and never floats around when the maxima-r pushs air through. Note: the maxima-r airpump comes with a duil to increase or lower the airflow which imho is a great feature. Also not this airpump has a dual output and i only use 1 of them. If i purchased another air tube and hooked it up i am not sure if i would have roots a day sooner or whatever but i havent done that so ill quit chattin bout it. rofl. With just the 1 air tube it bubbles like mad so if i had 2 in there maybe bubbler would bubble over.

The process was as follows:

I sat my heated seedling mat down flat and sat the cloner on top of it. I then filled the cloner up with water to within 3/4 inches from where the neoprene discs sit.(so an inch of my cuttings stems sit UNDER water at all times) I took my cuttings and put them in the neoprene discs turned the airpump on and 8 days later I had massive roots. I have been using this basic setup for a year now with 99.9% success. I also measured my water temps and they are around 80-82 faranheit.

After 3-4 days i add some 3% H2O2 at a 3ml/gallon rate just in case but i never ever had a fungus or slime problem ever without using H2O2. I have even tried adding liquid karma but never noticed a difference in rooting time. only diff i seen was my roots were as dark brown due to the humic acid in the LK. i lost a couple clones over the year but thinking back and tryin to figure out why I came to the conclusion that these were most likely the clones i dropped on the floor or one that i accidentely cut to deep when scarifying the stem after taking the cut. I do not use any rooting hormone either anymore so all in all i saved alot of money in products that do not seem to increase my 99.9% rooting success rate. lol. I may try misting with LK to see what happens but as you can see in the pics i dont think it would be needed.

So all in all i basically turn pump on and let in go. I do not mist the clones or use rooting hormones or anything. Just straight ph 7.0 neutral tap water with the airpump on maximum airflow. Also note my RH(room humidity) the majority of the year is 40%.

Of all the strains i have cloned my SSH mum has always been the one in the past with the worst rooting success rate so in this demonstration I used her as the cutting candidate. note: I never took pictures of the cutting process but show the SShaze mum and what a donor site would look like when i take a cutting. also note that I have taken alot of lower woody stem cutting which still have the same success rate but I find take 3-4 more days to root as opposed to the soft tissue cuttings with alot of auxims in them.

I also found that the difference between the clones with the most roots and the fewest roots is about 1 day meaning that the the clone with the fewest smaller roots today will have as many as the clone that had the biggest roots the day before. lol if that makes sinse.

The first 2 pics are of an SSH (super silver haze mum) and an example of a cutting I would take.