Thinking about grabbing this one, I could diy but this seems easier than sourcing all the parts and comparable in price DIY 8 Plant Stirponic RDWC system w/ reservoir kit 1" Tubing (OPTION TO DRILL) - PA Hydroponics
Don’t plan on doing huge plants, medium size 3-4 week veg 8x4 tent, gonna cut some holes so I can keep the control bucket outside
The price is right and u seem to know that with the 1 inch bulk heads and tubing with bigger plants will clog have a 2 4 bucket setup
with 1 inch bulkheads I veg in then 2 inch 8 bucket setup for flowerI dig that setup. If 2-3in bulkheads weren’t like $10-$15/ea I’d be doing something similar but sometimes ya gotta ball on a budget.
I have two of there 8 unit fallponic systems. Have ran them 2 runs working on the 3. Good system no part failures and no leaks. Plug and play. If you are picking up from the store make sure they give you all the parts. Good people but maybe a little forgetful
Greetings @EugeneDebs420,
Since you are moving back into hydro and your options are open, I wonder if you might want to take a hard look at Octopots, and the DIY version MicroOctos?
There are loads of success stories with these, I’m a recent convert myself. Lower cost (for the micro version), less work, no pumps etc. and big healthy plants.
No agenda here, and Respect for your experience, just thought you might want to consider this option if you haven’t already.
Here’s a good intro:
Regards,
-Grouchy
1" tubing?! 
Round buckets?!
Budget + RDWC = Never goes together. Spend the $ now so you don’t end up with something you don’t / can’t use.
3-4" returns will save your brain later on when it doesn’t clog up; and look into square buckets which are always friendlier to any bulkhead you install. 
I went through your same journey friend and ended up doubling my costs but the results and ease of use (for a RDWC/Fallponics set-up) were highly returned due to the investment.
These are amazing too but a different beast. The soil/soilless situation lets you have a buffer so you have forgiveness for making mistakes or lazy. 
I made something I called the “ΩPot” which is an active fallponics/octopot system using an air-pot instead of a fabric pot.
@CADMAN made up some really nice “DIY Octos” using supplies from a Dollar store & @Slick1 is working on something as well.
Keep researching and then pull the trigger when you know you know you know. 
I agree on rdwc being a different beast, you have to be pretty anal about everything. Dialed coco is safer and offers similar growth rates.
For my more affordable rdwc setups I used 5gal round buckets, uniseals and 1 ½ pex. I had no problems with them whatsoever. Although some people think I’m crazy for going uni/buckets lol
I bought from here.
At the time they had good prices.
Love me some hydro! I’m too much of a wuss to run anything recirculating without a massive drain that could handle a potential spill. Really enjoyed doing stand alone dwc buckets for a while and to this day still some of the healthiest plants I’ve ever seen. Incredibly growth. A friend gave me a sweet undercurrent system once and I wanted to run it so bad but just couldn’t sleep with the thought of it leaking. My brain just couldn’t stop thinking about it. I wanted to run that system SO bad it looked so good and I know deep down it would have held together just fine. Overthinking like I can do! You got me hyped on hydro again. Thank you! Much love
I agree. Good advice. Build once, if possible.
Check out the sluckets. You can buy the buckets and other system parts individually. I did have to search around for a discount vendor. At the time, I didn’t think it was too expensive … if you are willing to drill, cut, plastic glue, etc.
Example diagram (the flow is the opposite to other systems, bottom fed):
Add/remove stations as fit. Some photos of piecing together that set-up here.
I ended up doing this:
Rather than bite the bullet financially, I took 2 months to buy all the parts separate and got it all at the best price possible and did all the labour myself making it all much-much cheaper than buying one as a kit.
Same, wasn’t a weekend project. Took months slowly acquiring the parts and searching around for the good deals.
Well played sir…
Other option is individual top fed dwc totes, or an in-line setup with the same totes (big 40 gallon, black with yellow lid)
Bigger the overall volume of water the more forgiving, IMHO.
This isn’t opinion as more of a hard fact.
Agreed, learned that in the aquarium hobby. The physics of running a wet/dry filter are very similar to a rez.
With my sump I double the volume of the water in the 2 buckets.
I also pump nutes in from the bottom and let it overflow from the top. It eliminated problems I had with other designs getting root clogged returns.
Yeah I learned that the hard way last time I did hydro. Not doing individual 5gal dwc buckets again. It does work sure, but it’s a pain in the ass. That’s why if I don’t go recirculating it’s gonna be 40 gallon totes. But I think I can swing recirculating on the big totes.
4 of these https://www.lowes.com/pd/COMMANDER-40-Gallon-160-Quart-Black-Yellow-Tote-with-Latching-Lid/1000225777 and a fifth tote outside the tent
Setup in-line that’s 8 2 or 3 in bulkheads I think. Not sure about pump sizing for the waterfall or how you maintain pressure down the line at multiple sites for it though.
I use a falls in my 4 pot system, using a 400 gph pump.
I pump through the smaller ipex tube . It trickles into each tote.
Use the same size pump for my circulation splitting the output for dual falls in my res to try and create more o2.
This works well, no air pump , my plants seem to grow ok.
I have seen many ideas and will adjust accordingly to use a 1/2 to 1/4 , 6 way irrigation splitter found on Amazon.
5 in total or 1 per tote.
These splitters are rated for 80 gph, so 5 on the line with pump will squirt a stream out the 1/4 pipes and with two in each tote I think you will get much better mixing and o2 values.
2 ways helped me:
1: Cut all the piping to exact equal lengths for the fallponics feed.
2: add valves to the feeds and you can tweak it to perfection.
