Help Cloning with Root Riot Plugs and more

I'm used to cloning with rockwool cubes and recently I have not had any success after letting them be for 7 days. I also have a 16 site easy cloner next to the humidome and have not seen any root growth. I took multiple clones from each strain (16 strains in total) and decided to check one of the clones that usually root quickest and they all seem to have black tips on the bottom of the plants as well in the ez cloner. I have always cut clones the same way and not sure what's going on. I run my ez cloner 15min on 15 min off. I have the light about 1 foot away. I spray the clones with dilute dollar spray once a day.

I've been doing some research and found out keeping residual water in the dome with the clones causes them to rot ? I decided to buy some root riot plugs (seemed to be the best after a lot of reading) I also bought clonex gel and Life rooting gel (dude at the store said natural oil in gel helps from tip rot) .

What I'm wondering is how you guys use these plugs as far as nutes in water or just ph water? Heat mat or no? When to water?

Thanks for helping out because I believe these riot plugs are much better than the rockwoo.

no nutes on the plug dont water it per say, simply keep it moist/damp but not wet. roots need oxygen, and there wont be enough present if theres too much moisture.

moisture on a clone in a humidity dome shouldnt rot anything unless its touching the roof/sides of the dome or there are disease issues present. The black tips part sounds like necrosis which is bad and indicates some sort of infection likely. I would dispose of the black tipped ones immediately as the infection could spread, and they likely wont root anyways.

preparing the cutting a few days before taking it is a good way to increase success rates. dont starve the plants of N like most say, but rather keep them healthy and just stop with feeding the day of/before cutting. Take your cuts quickly. put them into a glass of water immediately to prevent embolism. make 45degree cut exposing inner stem and then dip into clone gel. hold there about 30 sec and then into the plug, secure it in there by firming and done. shouldnt have any issues as long as your enviroment is clean and the plants are healthy. the problems youre having could be indicative of some larger underlying issues which you will want to take care of sooner than later if thats the case. These kinds of disease issues can be difficult to eradicate without trashing whole grow and cleaning every square inch, and even then maybe wont be enough sometimes.

keep it clean. it makes a really big difference in the overall health of pretty much every aspect of growing