Plant Cloning Bucket Kit

thingiverse

I wanted a cloning setup that would fit in a standard 5 gallon bucket but couldn’t find exactly what I had in mind and the few things I did find were rather expensive. So here we are after a rainy weekend and some random thoughts... The design for the flange adapters is to accommodate the standard 1 1/2 Rockwool Grow Cubes, the hole size to be drilled for either flange is 2”. Included is a drilling template for both a 9 & 14 site build. These can be printed on an 11x17 piece of paper and cut to fit the bucket top. The 14 site needs to use the 2 1/4” Rockwool Flanges, the 9 can use either the 2 1/4” or 2 1/2” Flanges. For the hydration system didn’t go with a water pump due to the inherent inefficiencies when working in this scale, hence the use of air to create a bubbler. For my test unit I’m using an extremely small air pump (from an old betta fish tank), 1.2 watts with promising results for a single bucket. (Updated: Once the rock wool blocks are loaded, watered from the top to fully saturate blocks, from then on small pump only, bubbler maintaining saturation.) The bubbler is comprised of 4 pieces, base, bubbler, water regulator and air inlet. I didn’t find the need to glue any of the pieces together as they fit well enough for my purposes. If you find the need to, be sure to fit the water regulator to the bubbler before attaching the bubbler to the base. The tubing used was standard aquarium 3/16” size. I opted not to build the bubbler with a water inlet hole since it seemed just drilling a hole afterwards was quicker considering fit and finish. I used a 9/64 drill bit, though a 1/8 would be perfectly acceptable (I haven’t replaced that size in my index yet), you’ll just want to drill it in a location where the water regulator will be able to cover it once you have. There are holes on the base with the thought of using 20mm button head suction cups, though rocks seem to work just fine.