how big is your res? where is it situated in relation to the pots? i was trying to figure out how you feed and recirculate your solution. do you pump the solution into the pots and then it gravity feeds back in to the res? or you have more than one pump? can you please tell me what kind of pump you have as well?
also, what brand of ballasts and bulbs do you use?
Hey man, sorry, I wasn't ignoring ya.
My res is a big tote, I want to say like 80L (20gal). But I only have 10-12 gallons of nutrient solution recirculating at a time. The res is sitting on the floor(not concrete) outside the grow room, right on the other side of the wall. And then I have a 55gal barrel of fresh water sitting above that on a bench, with a float valve in my res. So when my res level drops it is constantly being topped up with fresh water. I've found a sweet spot with my pH levels so my res will drift from 5.7 to 6.0 every night, which I'm totally fine with.
If you look at some of the pictures that show the buckets, you'll notice they are on stands to raise them up off of the ground. This is to allow gravity to drain the water back into my res. I basically set it up so that the bottom of the buckets, are level with the top of the water in the res, if that makes sense. Easy way to do this is hook everything up, fill your res to operating level, then raise and lower your buckets. Once you hit the height where you are no longer getting water flowing back into the buckets, and instead is slowly draining your golden. If they're set too high though, I've found you can have problems with air locks and things not draining.
My pump is just a little submersible from the hydro shop. I was using a 1056gph (gallons per hour) but it failed one day and the shop only had a 850gph pump so I picked that up and it seems to work just as good. I can get the name brand of the pump if you wish.
I'm honestly not sure of the name of the ballasts I'm using, they are just your basic magnetic ballast, nothing fancy. And for bulbs I go with just a generic Phillips bulb for like $40 that I can switch out frequently.
This is a low dough grow show my friends. No fancy equipment, No AC. I have filtered intake air coming from a crawlspace under the house, and a 12" exhaust fan pulling all that hot air out.
Mid summer my temps get a little warm but the rest of the year my environment is stable and easy to control.