Keeping Clones in Clay Pellets
by Bob
(Fish and Jacks, Canada)
I was wondering, what is the best way of keeping clones under fluros. I have built a hydro set up like the one in "My Most Successful Homemade Hydroponics System". I will be transferring the the clones into the hydro tubes in about 4 weeks due to the fact that I have some plants on 12/12 light schedule at the moment.
I was going to use the 16 ounce cups and clay balls for the clones, just not sure what is the best way to grow the clones until they find their home in the hydro tubes. Much appreciated, Bob
Answer: Bob- before you put your clones in clay pellets, be sure they have roots. If they do not have roots, I suggest leaving them in your cloner for the moment....I have never had any success getting fresh clones to root in expanded clay pellets/balls. If your clones have some roots already, I have a few suggestions for you.
First, your fluorescent lights should be placed just a few inches above your clones....the strength of the light decreases very rapidly with distance from the bulb (and fluorescent light isn't that strong to begin with). Fluorescent lights will only support good growth within 12 to 15 inches from the light. If you are starting with 6 inch clones, you should be fine. Also, it is better to use two fluorescent lights than to try crowding all of the plants under one light.
When clay pellets are used in a hydroponic system, they need to be soaked for about 20 minutes each cycle to really absorb the correct amount of moisture. You may have noticed, most of the systems you see them in are flood and drain (ebb n flow) or deep water culture (DWC) systems.
The system you have built is a cross between a nutrient film technique (NFT) and a DWC. Because the cups full of clay pellets will be sitting in a certain amount of water constantly, the whole "water absorption" thing is not really an issue. However, when trying to come up with a temporary home for the clones, it may be.
Your best solution to this problem would be to duplicate the environment the plant will end up in as best as possible. I suggest getting a plastic container about 5 inches high and big enough to hold all of your clones/cups. Fill the container with 2 1/2 to 3 inches of nutrient solution.
The fluorescent lights aren't that bright, so the nutrient solution doesn't need to be that strong (50% strength should work well, or 700 ppm if you have a TDS meter). Be sure to use an air pump/air stone in the reservoir to add plenty of oxygen to the nutrient solution....nutrient absorption only occurs in the presence of oxygen, and you don't want your little guys starving!
On the page My Most Successful Homemade Hydroponic System, follow the directions I give for transplanting your clones into the cups....especially the part about using PRE-SOAKED clay pellets (you will have a much better success rate). You don't want to plant the clone too deep or too high up in the cup. Just follow the directions in the page above and you should be fine.
Finally, it is a very good idea to place an oscillating fan on the clones a few feet away. The plants don't have lungs, so when they exhale oxygen from their leaves, it tends to hang in the air around the leaf and choke out the plant a little bit. The oscillating fan not only helps the plants exchange oxygen for CO2 from the air, but also forces the little clones to grow thicker stems. This will help the clones support themselves, and will help them support any produce they grow later on. Happy Growing!
AffordableGarden Design&Setup
Hi everyone, Jason from Jason's Indoor Guide here. When I got started with hydroponic gardening more than 24 years ago, my first garden used rockwool cubes and B.C. Nutrients....and I remember thinking to myself yeah, sure, there may be a lot of advantages to gardening with hydroponics, for example there are very few pest problems, therefore very little pest control, no weeding, no plowing or tilling the soil, no soil testing or having to add things into the garden soil, no watering the garden....but for someone who just wants to grow their own vegetables and have more control over their food supply and the quality of the food that they eat, the cost of constantly having to buy grow media and hydroponic nutrients makes this an expensive hobby for most people...
Epic Nutrient Change
I suppose when you take into consideration how much money you save NOT
having to buy food at the grocery store, it is surely cheaper to grow
your own food hydroponically even with the cost of high quality
nutrients. Nevertheless, I didn't have a whole lot of money to work with
and I needed to make my efforts as affordable and effective as
possible....and in the last 24 years I HAVE learned a thing or two!
As you browse through Jason's Indoor Guide, you will notice all of the
systems that I use personally are homemade systems. As I got 3 or 4
years of experience under my belt, I quickly adopted a preference to
standing water systems and systems that use expanded clay pellets or
lava rock, because the media is re-usable and it eliminates a huge
operating expense. So once a hydroponic system is built, garden
maintenance is minimal- check and adjust the nutrient solution daily,
and to change it completely every 2 weeks....and the biggest operating
cost is the hydroponic nutrients. (and the electric bill, lol)...
Homemade Cloner
And, regarding the cost of the nutrients....I experimented for about 3 years with making different compost teas and nutrient teas, but there is still a lot of expense $$$ associated with making high quality nutrient teas....like kelp meal, liquid seaweed, rock dust, bat guano, un-Sulfured molasses, worm castings. You can eliminate a lot of this expense by becoming an expert at making high-quality colloidal humus compost, and use your properly made compost as the basis of your hydroponic nutrient solution.
Unfortunately, I have been gardening for over 24 years and I have only
just recently mastered this difficult skill....and even then, only
because I happened to find a very easy to follow, high quality technique
and decided to follow the instructions to the letter. I produced more
high quality compost in just one week than I was able to use in a whole
year! If you can master the technique, I highly recommend it. It is one of the top 3 things you can do to
increase the productivity of your food production efforts, while at the
same time decreasing the amount of effort required to grow all of your
own food, and decreasing the total cost of operating your food
production system.
And when I say decrease operating costs, I mean decrease them to almost
ZERO, especially if you are producing your own nutrients...
High Efficiency
Hydroponics
The ultimate solution to eliminate the cost of your hydroponic nutrients: Imagine a hydroponic system that does not require you to buy any nutrients, does not require you to make your own compost, and does not require you to brew your own nutrient tea. Seriously! No cost and no effort as far as providing nutrients to your plants! Plus, at the end of the gardening cycle you harvest all of your garden vegetables, PLUS YOU HARVEST FISH from the system--->
Aquaponics
This solution is aquaponics. If you are serious about producing all of your own food and being self-sufficient, this is the ultimate solution for reducing expenses (as much as possible), reducing the total amount of work required, and maximizing the productivity of your gardening efforts. I have been gardening for over 24 years, and it is the perfect food production solution in my opinion.
Besides mastering how to make high quality compost, learning aquaponics is one of the top 3 things you can do to increase your garden productivity, reduce your total costs, and reduce your total work. The product that I learned from is called Aquaponics4you. With all of my hydroponic gardening experience, the first time I came across the Aquaponics4you product I knew immediately that it was something very special! Place an aquaponics system outdoors and use the sun instead of grow lights, and you have reduced every garden expense to nearly ZERO!
The Same System/ 10 Weeks Later!
