Ok guys looks like I'm in need of some more of your great experience. I have worked pretty hard to find parts and put together what I thought was an awesome little DIY RDWC, was running the system for a bit to ensure everything is solid before putting my girls inside. However as I had feared may happen, my pump sucks from the system faster then gravity can push it back from the Rez. A few side notes before I get to my actual question. All of the line in the system is 3/4 flexible pvc, I was not able to get uniseals anywhere in my country and the only sources that I found who'd ship them wanted a ridiculous price. My pump is a 264gph Eco pump, when running it goes for about 2 min then starts sucking air, if I shut it off it only takes 20 seconds for the buckets to equalize again. Originally this was a 4 bucket design with a 20gal external Rez, but because I have six strong healthy plants in a little bubbler and haven't started flower yet I decided to put the 4 largest ones in the big net pots and the smaller ones are going to stay in the net pots from the bubbler and just get moved to the 5th bucket that the pump is sucking from until I can determine sex. So my question is; since moving to bigger lines between buckets/Rez isn't really an option what else could I do to make this system work properly? Should I drop to s smaller diameter line from bucket 5 -> pump? Should I return my pump and go for a 132gal one instead? Any ideas are much appreciated!!
You could double up on the lines from the res to the buckets, and interconnecting of buckets. That'll give twice the supply to the pump. The single line and T is a bottleneck as it is too. I wouldn't go with a smaller pump though.
I installed two ball valves to help regulate flow, works very well, in addition I installed a diy float on one bucket to monitor levels.
Another addition because I couldn't find bulkhead screens, I made snorkle to prevent the rootball from clogging the bulkhead (had that happen).