Custom, diy silicone gaskets. Wonderful.
Is that bell siphon a Hoocho design? Maybe I just recognize it from your thread. Hah.
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@CruJones thanks semi-neighbor! I fully expect something to go horribly wrong at a later stage, so weāll see how it goes!
@Nitt Itās the same pic from my first post in this thread. I looked at a lot of existing designs (hoochoās among them!) and made my own from scratch.
Various design aspects specific for my system: the nubs on the sides of the pipe part are to give purchase to the bell part so I can hold it for screwing the assembly onto the bins, 3/4" garden hose thread on the end to make it easy to attach things, had to size the body of it for the space between ribs in the bottom of the bus tubs, etc.
That was part of what delayed me getting my system fully set up after Iād started my seeds. I had a completely different drain design, and it didnāt work properly, so I went from 0 to functional in about a week. THEN I realized that the full garden hose size was not conducive to the volumes I was working with, so I reworked various aspects to function with the 1/4" tubing. Many revisions in my scrap bin.
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Got the gaskets poured! I probably wonāt try to demold them until tomorrow, but itās an exciting step! I wasnāt sure what the weight to volume conversion might end up as, so I made the mold for more than I needed, and mixed up the silicone based on a guess, and I still have more than I need for the near future.
Gasket mold with fresh silicone
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Also did my water checks/maintenance, and put up a bar across the tent, because it was pulling the walls in. Added some more lst clips to that side and now it holds the tent away better.
Tapo Cam View
Bar installed
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Tagging along 
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Gaskets! Havenāt tried to install any yet, because I have to leave my house shortly, but they at least demolded completely fine.
Also, small poll: should I go back and resize all of my images up to 100%? I was making them smaller because of my own preferences, but I realize now that I might have been making the wrong choice. Happy to do so if thatās the norm here!
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You already know my answerā¦
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Get those scrolling fingers ready folks! I went back and made all of my pictures full size and added in-post labels instead of just the image labels that show up when you click in.
Since @George was the only vote in the poll, I went with that.
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Glad āweā were a majority , thanks for the upgradeā¦ 
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Iām with George
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My body did not approve of my plan to swap out the gaskets yet, and I do not have a picture, but! I noticed changes to the leaves on at least one of my clones. So I think itās rooted! I cut them on the 7th. Might have seen movement sooner if Iād added more nutrients earlier, but Iād kept it to an extremely minimal (like 1/10th) level until I did my water maintenance like 36 hours ago when I went to half strength. I felt like it was taking forever, but I feel like 5 days is actually pretty ok from what I remember reading.
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yeah, 5 days is pretty quick, thatās awesome!
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I realized I didnāt include these pics in my initial post. These were from the day I realized I hadnāt killed my seedlings and that new leaves had grown in the prior 24ish hours after a week+ of zero activity. Just over a month ago! Iām continually fascinated by how fast they are growing.
August 10 Plant 1
August 10 Plant 2
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Alright folks, I need advice. My grand plan for the weed cloth pots to hold the roots in has clearly failed. I was going to change out the gasket and now Iām probably going to put some kind of guard to hopefully keep the roots from getting in the drain.
My question is, do I prune back the roots like you would with a mother plant or a bonsai or do I just leave them alone and see what happens?
Surprise roots!
(Also they seem nice and healthy as far as I can tell?)
(Edited to add: I went ahead and put the hydroton back for now while I get something printed to block the roots)
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Iām fighting with the same thing right nowā¦ My blueberry momās roots clogged the return line in one of my auto zone bins, thankfully I was awake at 3 am and caught it before it actually overflowed.
From my research, we need an air gap between the fabric bags and hydroton, somehow. Not sure how to make that happen, yet.
If you watch Bill Ward, heās been having the same problems with his grow cube system too.
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Air gap is actually pretty easy to achieve since Iām already using pots. I can just print a thing thatād hold the hydroton back, let the water come through, and then a cap for it. 
Iāll probably implement that for my next run, rather than cutting up the roots on this one (depending on whether it blocks the drain I suppose).
Iām working on a design for an air gap for the drain, so it makes sense that the pot could use one.
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Sweet! Let me know what you come up with, Iāve been stumped, lol
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I got so distracted by the unexpected roots, I forgot I took other pictures when I was down there.
Both Front
Both Top(ish)
Plant 1 Top
Plant 2 Top
I also noticed that the shoulders (I forget the proper word) got BULKY.
Plant 1 Stem
Plant 2 Stem
I have a first attempt at a drain root guard printing, itāll be a few hours so Iāll probably test it tomorrow.
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Looking awesome man!! Your stalked and nodes are definitely thickening up!!
Very curious about your root guard
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Today has been a bit more of an adventure than I had intended. I decided to tackle the larger of the two plants since I figured that was the bigger risk of a clogged drain.
Plants today
So many roots! I waffled for a while on whether to keep them or tear them out and I decided to tear them out. This plant is getting quite a session outside the tent today, a couple hours total I guess. Iām not going to tackle the other one today, worst case scenario it gives the other one a day to catch up since I just ripped out most of the roots on this one. They went to all corners of the tray, didnāt take any pictures in between because I was pulling hydroton out of it.
Roots around the water level indicator that was there before
Roots around bell siphon (luckily not into the drain yet!)
Roots under pot
Iām sure the growth will be quite stunted now, so Iāll give it a few days to recuperate before flipping to flower (especially since I want to defoliate before it gets very far into flower).
Most of the roots came from directly underneath the pot, so I have a basically trivet printing currently. I also put a second weed cloth pot around the existing one, to hopefully give it a bit more of a barrier.
Since I did this today, Iāll be able to have the extra piece printed for tomorrowās, and have a strategy already for how to deal with all of it.
Pictures of the drain root protector (hopefully?) will be forthcoming once I get it all put back together after dinner and the trivet-like piece finishes printing.
(Also if this accidentally kills them, itāll suck, but I know better for next time!)
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