i was thinking of going the tote way over bucket just seems easier to have a extra precut tote for my 5 plants I'm going to grow. I feel like its easier to just have the extra tote and every 7 days when i need to change the res water and such all i have to do is just mix my nutes and water and just take the plants out and drop them in the new tote. then i would clean out and put up the other tote till i actually need it. How stressful is this on the plants? they wouldnt be out of the water for more than 15 secs. i dont really want to do a water pump that just seems like a waste and i dont mind the extra work of lifting the plants out and such if you can call that work.
Thats what I do... it works just fine. Oh, I should note... with 5 plants you'll prob have a minor issue with the roots entangling all around the air stones. Usually they're not too hard to pull out without destroying roots but I'd recommend an 18gal tote over say a much shallower 10 gal one.