Help Setting Up Drain To Waste Idea

What's up everyone. I am in the process of setting up a drain to waste system. I have been doing a lot of research and was thinking about going with ebb and flow but have recently fell in love with coco and drain to waste just seems to make sense and will be fairly easy to set up and monitor.

My grow room is the big walk in closet of my bedroom so I have a pretty good ability to check on the plants often. I know that this system might take a lot of uptake (re-filling, emptying waste, mixing nutes ect.) but I feel like it will help me a lot with gaining a deeper understanding of ph and ppm of nutrient water and run off. With that out of the way, to the idea haha....

So I am doing this really d.i.y. and cheap. I picked up some plastic storage containers from walmart that I plan to use for flood trays. They are roughly 1.5 feet wide, 2 feet long, and 7 inches high. I am hoping to be able to fit 4 two gallon smart pots into the tray.

Here is where some questions arise haha. I have been looking at dutch bucket systems lately and am wondering if those are purely to keep a recirculating system. I was thinking about giving my trays a slight tilt and putting a 3/4 inch drain on one end. with this be sufficient?

And secondly will 2 gallon pots be big enough to flower in with coco as my medium? In an ideal world i will be trying to veg for about 2-3 weeks and probably starting LST after the second week. I would like to just start the little girls in 2 gallon pots and keep them in the same pots through flower. Do you think this would be possible?

Then I am going to run some 1/2 inch drip line or maybe a 3/4 inch pvc pipe down the middle of the tray and split that of to each plant with 1/4 inch drip line and dripper stakes. I was thinking about using two dripper stakes for each pot, would this be necessary? Just for more water flow, so that I could do quicker waterings.

And lastly I was going to use a 5 gallon bucket on each end of the tray, one as a nutrient reservoir and one to catch the waste run off. Is 5 gallons going to be sufficient? I know that it will take a lot of re-filling but I dont want to run the pump dry. How many air stones would be needed with a 5 gal reservoir? Do I even realistically need the airstones, or are the just for replenishing oxygen levels in recirculated water?

Sorry about the long post but I am just trying to figure this stuff out before putting together the system.

IF YOU DON'T WANT TO READ ALL OF THAT...I was mainly wondering if 2 gal pots would be ok to start and flower my babies in with coco as my medium. And would a 5 gal reservoir be sufficient to feed 4 of those 2 gal plants in a dain to waste system.

Thank you in advance for any help, it is much appreciated!

Here is a little picture of my basic idea, except mine will be drain to waste...

 

bump.

 

bump.

 

Thanks by the way.I only have a 3x3 tent so not much space to work in. I think i'm gunna try the 2 gals on this next flower.

 

I just cant get a flood tray to hold 4 three gallon pots that will fit in the tent