You know I would seriously consider a larger res and plumb that to your buckets. Ph is easier to maintain in 1 large res than 8-12 seperate buctets. Also consider res changes...you want to haul 8-12 buckets somewhere to change res or hassle with getting them out of the area while the other HUGE ones are in there? Also what will you do with the plants that you take out to change the res when they are huge? Just things I never thought of when I set up my 12 bucket DWC system. Hope this helps, and by the way it will work great just a lot of maintanance.