Hey,
Removing the squash from my hydroponic system earlier today gave me the chance to show you the setup of the buckets I'm using.
For my hydroponic system in the greenhouse I'm using what are generally called dutch buckets. The usual design that I've seen everywhere usually involves a couple of pvc elbows, like in the pic bellow.
I wanted a simpler and cheaper solution, all those elbows add up. I simply drilled through the bottom, added an electrical style grommet (had to soften them under a flame and stretch them out as the only grommets in a reasonable price range were 2 mil narrower than they should have). Cut a short length of pvc water pipe and fit it through the grommet; you can set the level of water the bucket will always hold by pushing the drain pipe up or down.
I added a filter made out of fly window net straight on the little drain pipe but it got stuck quite often. I made a little filter out of a wider pvc pipe and stuck it on top of the drain pipe.
Filling the dutch bucket back up.
Once filled up almost all the way, all it needs is dropping back in the system. The bucket drain pipe just fits through a hole cut in the main drain.
That's about all there is to it.
Thanks.
Cos
(source is a dodgy page found through google image search - http://mp4music.net/search/Dutch%20Bucket%20Hydroponic%20Tomatoes%20%20%20Lessons%20Learned%20and%20a%20New%20Crop )