PsyCLown Posted August 12, 2019 Share Posted August 12, 2019 (edited) Hey all, So after speaking to some friends I was intrigued and decided to try and build a Bubble Cloner. I must give credit where credit is due and this mostly stemmed from @CreX I just purchased the stuff and put it together. Not a new concept or anything, however will be nice to have a reference on this website. What is a Bubble Cloner? A bubble cloner is where you have a tub with water and the clones are above the water, the stems never touch the water. You have an airstone (or a few) and the droplets from the bubbles popping spit small amounts of water into the stems of the cuttings. So fairly simple, I found a suitable tub. I did not want the water to be too deep so found something I felt was suitable. It's a 20L tub. Nothing fancy, best to try avoid something where light may leak through as roots are not the biggest fans of light. So best to avoid something transparent. I did not have proper equipment when doing the holes as I was not at my house, so made do to measure as the first few holes were not very straight. Ended up using a cutting board and knife to make the lines / markings to try get some uniformity to the holes. I ended up making the holes with a 38mm hole saw. For the blue discs I used a pool noodle. A bread knife cuts through it easily. I then took a 44mm hole saw and pressed down on it to create some marks and cut them out with scissors - very easy. In terms of light leaks I feel its sufficient. I ran out of pool noodle as I just cut a piece to take with me. I drilled two small holes on the side near the top to fir the tubes for the air through and then there were bubbles! As you can see I used two airstones, bubbles are important! You want to see the bubbles travelling to the corners of the container. I personally used these Tetra airstones, others will work well too. I used a Sobo SB9905 airpump which is dual output at 2x 5.5L/ min apparently and only uses 4.2W I had to clean up my flowering plants so decided to fill up the bubble cloner and test it out. So far this beats using jiffy pellets or soil. As per @CreX's recommendation I am trying to keep things simple, he likes to harden them off for 12 - 24 hours (at most) in plain tap water, so as you take the cutting place it into tap water and ensure the stem is submerged in the water. No humidity dome, just plain tap water with the chlorine and all. You can add rooting hormone on the stems, but not essential. After hardening them off, transfer the cuttings to the bubble cloner which is filled with tap water once again. Straight from the tap with good old chlorine! I put them into my veg area, I am trying without rooting hormone, no kelpak, nutrients, humidity dome. Nothing at all. So far all clones are still looking good. You obviously do not have to do it the same way, I may give it a try later on with a few additives. Perhaps some Trich and/or Kelpak although @CreX has not had as much success when doing so and finds that the stems tend to rot / go soggy more often then. He suspects the chlorine helps to prevent this. Next time I will most likely use rooting hormone as well, I have a gel. The powder may get rinsed off quickly though, probably the gel too. Anyways, hope this helps some people out, so far all is going well and I much prefer this method. I will report back in a few days / weeks giving an update on the rooting. I do not need this many clones, so just doing it to test things out and will be happy to trade them or perhaps toss them. All in all this costs under R500, I know I could have gotten my stuff cheaper from other shops, but I did not feel like driving all over the place. Realistically you could probably have this built for under R300 if you source well priced parts, an added benefit is you will then have an air pump and air stones to make a nice AACT for your plants too! Edited August 12, 2019 by PsyCLown Correction 2 3 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CreX Posted August 12, 2019 Share Posted August 12, 2019 Shot man!! Yea guys it's that simple!! After the hardening off period... As long as the stems stay moist, they will root... *will motha fucken root* If the stems don't get enough spitter spatter, they will go limp and recovery is tough... More bubbles... Always more bubbles. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PsyCLown Posted August 12, 2019 Author Share Posted August 12, 2019 Here is a video where you can see the droplets splashing out of the top. At the end I am showing where the water level is, it's just above that line. Around 5cm / 6cm from the top of the lid. https://imgur.com/4GGuZsh 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Smelly Joe Posted August 12, 2019 Share Posted August 12, 2019 Giving that a go next month. Cause I'm currently struggling with my cuttings to root.ThanxSent from my FIG-LX1 using Tapatalk 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
highchome Posted August 14, 2019 Share Posted August 14, 2019 On 8/12/2019 at 1:28 PM, PsyCLown said: Sobo SB9905 airpump I'm surprised you get as many bubbles using that as you do. I guess the one I tried was old, or perhaps its because I used a bendable diffuser rather than an air stone. I'll try with some good quality ones to see On 8/12/2019 at 1:28 PM, PsyCLown said: A bubble cloner is where you have a tub with water and the clones are above the water, the stems never touch the water. For my cloner I'm submerging the stems 100% of the time. When I was looking initially I could not see a definite answer on which way was better or why. If I sort out the airstones perhaps I'll try the next set of clones this way and compare results Its great to see different ideas, thanks for posting this 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PsyCLown Posted August 14, 2019 Author Share Posted August 14, 2019 @highchome I was actually meaning to post an update here. I have noticed that the 4 corners are not getting droplets on the stems and those cuttings were not looking happy so I get rid of them. The rest are looking amazing! Even praying. I am not sure when a bendable diffuser is or how it differs to an air stone so cannot comment there. I am happpy with the airpump, it has 2 settings BTW and you can switch between then on the side, so perhaps yours was set to the lower setting? It's really cheap, If you could get 3 airstones I reckon the corners would be sorted but I don't need to take this many cuttings so will just keep the 4 corners unoccupied. I also got some rooting hormone powder today, going to try the powder over the gel next time. My current clones do not have any rooting hormone. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
highchome Posted August 14, 2019 Share Posted August 14, 2019 (edited) 36 minutes ago, PsyCLown said: I am not sure when a bendable diffuser Its a dumb name... But its this thing, lots of small bubbles but not much splashing 36 minutes ago, PsyCLown said: I also got some rooting hormone powder today I've been using that, but even with a fish tank heater now in winter its taking about two weeks for roots to get going. The plants look really good the entire time though The previous lot I planted out into coco are all doing well. So it seems to be working well enough. Edited August 14, 2019 by highchome 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kgrows Posted August 22, 2019 Share Posted August 22, 2019 @PsyCLown nice! will give this a go too! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Za Weed Lover Posted September 5, 2019 Share Posted September 5, 2019 Thanks man. Will definitely be trying thisSent from my SM-A705FN using Tapatalk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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