Quote Originally Posted by SpaceNeedle
Ok, I've had the buckets, ebb and flow and now to drip. Been doing drip for quite a while. I have 2 4'x4' trays on top of each other with a couple of 2 by 4s separating them. 1000w hps light . The bottom one is the reservoir, the top one is where the girls sit. I have square pots about 7" x 7" at the top and are about 10" high.
there is a 3" hole for drainage in the top tray.

Using a 500 gph pump I have connected to a 1/2" pvc pipe that goes around the perimeter of the top tray, in other words its also 4' by 4'. I then drilled some holes in that ring of pipe and stuck the 1/4" tubing in there which then goes into each pot. The pot is hydroton, and there is no dripper involved. I just let the water rip thru and the girls love it. No more problems with dripping, no leaks, and the temperature is a lot easier to keep cool in the summer time than 5 gallon buckets being run around all over the place.
Above all its simple. I usually turn the pump off when lights are out. If i'm not home pumps are running 24/7 ...no difference. I find that as long as the plant doesn't have a big rockwool cube attached to it, works fine. Small starter cubes are ok, but I recommend nothing bigger, as a big cube sitting inside the hydroton is too much for the girls and they don't get enuf oxygen.

SpaceNeedle
I use a very similar setup.

6 leach trays
5 2 gallon grow bags filled with hydroton per tray
1 5 gallon bucket for a rez for every 2 trays
1 132gph submersible pump for each bucket
1/2" vinyl tubing to feed from the pumps
1/4" tee's and tubing to feed from the 1/2" vinyl tubing

No drippers or anything. Just let it rip into the growbags filled with hydroton. I don't have any problem with leaks or clogs. I only have 1 moving part in my whole system, the pump.

Additionally the cascading action of the water waterfalling from my leach trays into my 5 gallon buckets aerates the water VERY WELL so I don't need an air pump or air stone.

Hydro should be so simple that you could leave it for 2-3 days without there being a problem if you can't check on it. That's my philosophy anyway.

I can't take credit; I ripped off that hydro setup from Stinky when I was looking for a cheap quick setup. I've made some changes/improvements but the idea was still hers. Check out her "darkside" log.
daihashi Reviewed by daihashi on . building a drip system need help.. ive been using ebb and flow tables and then switched to the ebb and gro bucket system for a while now.. the proble with the system is that the lines that the nutes go through have been getting clogged up and towards the end of blooming the ones in the back end up needing to be flushed out and its a big headache.. the whole point of this is for me to find the simplest hydro method for running around 36 pots.. the ebb and gro system has 3gal pots which ive been using to do 3k with 12 on Rating: 5