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HYDRO Getting the most of my crops?

Additionally, you can be as creative with the reservoir as you’d like. I had mine on a timer that ran the top feed for 15 min every hour for the ENTIRE grow. It was a near flawless grow with remarkable yields. You will need to elevate your pots about 12” over the height of the reservoir to create a nice gravity overflow return feed, I used one of those plastic Rubbermaid shelves where to place 1 1/4” plastic tubes to build the shelves only I just used the shelf and the legs to create a platform about 2x8’ that was about 12” high off the ground. Never had any overflow problems but the roots grow well enough to fill the 5 gallon bucket so I used aquarium strainers on the buckets bulkhead fittings to help prevent clogs
 
I see the biggest difference in your primary return. You go from bucket to bucket and that YouTube video goes buck to reservoir with the refill created by the top feed. Black tubing is readily available for returns and blue tint is readily available for the water level site glass
 
Here’s an idea for the top feeders . Had a problem shaping the tubing to making a circle without the crimp -ling inthe hose. And here is a pic of the table but I used these for 1 long level, they lock together... 6ix buckets with plenty of room
 
interesting variation of RDWC system i had.

yours looks like water from the main res is pumped from one bucket to another, finishing back in the main res. (circular).
system i had was pump from main res to each bucket individually (like your top feed) and each bucket drains back to the main res individually. (drain to center)

how much water flow do you expect to go through the main bucket ring, and the top feed?
how big (diameter) do you think the main res bucket connecting hoses/pipes will be?
 
Sorry, must has been a late night

here’s the pictures
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. Forget the salts on the plastic ring, I have yet to clean it from last year. It also has 3 8” spikes to help secure it to the net pot but I never had used them
 
The feed to 6 buckets is from a manifold feeding each Separately, not one to over flow into another. So your plan is exactly what I had done. I used 1/2” ID hose from Hydrofarm. Black to keep light out and algae to near 0
 
1/2” id. Several grades of tubing are available and the one from Hydrofarm did not come in a roll full of kinks and twists and it really was nearly the same cost...
 
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