A GreenTree's multiflow? Or just the same idea?
It's a great setup from what I've seen so far. It has it's problems (a lot of work, and I've had a pump fail from getting air inside it) but with the proper equipment I think you could get one of these babies on an easy maintenence program.
If I had the money or the knowlege before hand I would have got a bunch of stuff that would make it easier but that's the path of the n00b I guess...
One thing about the system is with less buckets the system holds with water in the buckets for 10-15 minutes, so for all that time the roots are submerged with no oxygen. The buckets also hold about an inch of water at the bottom at all times too- which means the bigger the plants get the more roots are always submerged. People put the buckets up on plywood to drain them more but it's not completely.
The system works very well dispite this though- the plants appear very healthy regardless. I think the amount of oxygen the roots get after the water drains out makes up for it- but some air stones here and there couldn't hurt things... Plus it could add some security if a pump failed if set up right.
I might be customizing one of these systems with airstones to increase the amount of oxygen that is available to the roots at all times. You could also rig up the stones to the controller so they ran when the pumps run (and would stay on if a pump failed) You would need another set of stones ran off a timer too so that air would be going when the controller held for 10-15 minutes or for the times in-between floods. With so much air you might be able to flood the system even more often, making the solution fresher plus more air... Could be a good idea...
The system works fine without airstones though so maybe I'm just being a perfectionist... What do you guess think?
Also I must add that a set of Sunlift light hangers I bought gave me hell this morning trying to raise the light a bit. In the end I had to give up on it and go to work but it was very frustrating. I'm not sure what the problem is with it but maybe I'll be able to fix it later tonight... If not I have to rig up some chains and S-clips, which wouldn't be that big of a deal if the tent wasn't filled to the brim with plants or I could get to the other side of the tent- but oh well I guess we have our work cut out for us because we might be dealing with leaning buds and have very little room to work around the plants- wish us luck!
