Any help would be appreciated. 1/2" tubing 250gph pump (maybe I need 2?) 1/10hp chiller 18gal res 4x 5 gal buckets Thanks!
1. Use 1" tubing to interconnect the buckets if you are gonna cascade them or you will end up with the last bucket being "empty" and different levels in each bucket. Even then you may have to slow the pump down. I use 2" interconnecting to two tanks to keep them level with each other. Also, sediment will coat the tubing and slow down the rate. 2. Consider a 1/4hp chiller as the 1/10 is gonna be working a lot with over 20 gallons of soup. 3. Wrap the buckets with reflective insulation. 4. Your room is gonna get HOT with the chiller in the grow area. I would put it outside the grow area.
Cascade = daisy chain? In a ring-like fashion? Isnt there no redundancy upon failure when cascading? If 1 line fails it will effect the other buckets down the line? Is there a way to plumb this with built in redundancy?
Also what size pumps do I need for both the chiller and bucket side? (I am assuming I need 1 for both and it can't be shared) How important is it all lines are the same length between reservoir and each bucket?
Cascade=one into another. Adding "redundant" lines is just inviting more chances of leaking. You are running (4) buckets, do you want to add a bunch more fittings? What makes you think a plugged up 1/2" line isn't going to re-occur in the same bucket causing an overflow or an empty bucket? A 1" line will flow almost four times more then (2) 1/2" lines, and may still be too small to equalize over 4 buckets depending on the flow rate. Also, you don't really get the whole diameter as the fitting reduces it. I would go for a simple yet over designed system then redundancy. That is why I went with tanks instead of buckets. You only need one pump, if you run two it isn't going to increase your flow and in fact if one pump "fails" it becomes a restriction. Keep it simple, IMO use the biggest interconnect line(s) you can handle. Make the input/output lines to the pump the biggest that will fit the pump even if you have to reduce at the connections. Check out my rig.