Ok, so it has come to my attention that my system can be tweaked yet again. Last week I was running a airstone to each bucket in the room, plus a 12inch airstone in the control res. I also run my drip lines wide open at 10 gallons per hour which creates a 5 inch waterfall in each bucket as well. I thought to myself, do they even need the airstones in each bucket, since a Krusty Bucket setup is pretty much the same thing and they don't use airstones in each bucket. So I gave it a try and what do you know, you don't need them! The plants look better than ever. This creates kind of a running stream/current type waterfall thing (if you've ever read of Krusty Bucket or Freedom Bucket setup you will know what I mean, minus the helpful bacteria) that I guess keeps the plants really happy. Plus they seem to be eating more in general as a whole too! Maybe this will work for your system as well...Just wanted to throw it out there for everyone!
-sD