What is the "one plant"? some plants ain't suited to deep water culture, how big is the plant, deep rooted or shallow rooted?

This is my favorite one pot system. probably not a good option for lettuces, but works like a charm for tomatoes and peppers.
I've used it a multitude of times and even used a scaled up varsion to grow up to 8 tomato plants in one pot .(actually a 32 gallon trash can)

Thanks for the replys.

bbrush: the "one" is tomatoes, I know I should of specified, sorry and thanks. Curiously, how does lettuce do in the related shallow water culture?

grizzman: thanks a lot, that is a great guide and design, and it seems almost a combination aero/dwc? buckets and dwc were what I am thinking so I will definitely try some of those.

lettuce grows well in both DWC and shallow water, provided to keep a eye out for evaporation! most commercial growers, at least here, grow lettuce DWC on rafts. Micro greens are mostly grown in shallow water.

the best for toms IMO is a hybrid dwc and aeroponics, about a gap of 10 inches or so from the water line to the top, a pump that mists the roots in this gap.

I love you guys, thanks, that cleared up all my nagging concerns. One more though if you have a chance:

What is the smallest size pump you think I can get away with?
I am eying these 30 gph pumps for 10 bucks, do you think that is too small (also the smaller the better to not use any unnecessary power).

you'll need something a bit larger than that. I believe in the one I linked to previously I was using a 200gph pump.
Here is my personal favorite pump. I now have two. they both work wonderfully and they're cheap.
This one also works well. the nice thing about it is the in and out lines are such that you can attach PVC to them so it can be used as an inline pump. There is also a link to the performance curve so you can decide which size you want to buy.

Hi, disinmtl,

>>What is the smallest size pump you think I can get away with?
I am eying these 30 gph pumps for 10 bucks, do you think that is too small (also the smaller the better to not use any unnecessary power).I was about to make a comment about the pump power part, as I am always concerned about power consumption and choosing the right-one- but thought I shouldn't meddle here unnecessarily. But now that you ask...

What you see at the picture of the link from before, is a huge and quite powerful pump indeed. While I cannot actually say it's oversized, the choice of such a powerful pump is linked to such kind of sprayer used in that setup, which indeed needs a powerful pump to do the job properly.

And that's pretty much the key here, - the power, dimension (and obviously price) of the pump is actually linked to the SPRAYER in use and how much pressure it needs to work properly. Best and to play safe is always to test it and have the pump running with the sprayer before buying. There are actually many types of sprayers with very different pressure requirements. The finer the spray/mist they produce the more pressure and power the pump will need. How much better growth is actually to be expected from finer spray or mist, is another question. Finer spray with more pressure is supposed to give better growth, - but how big the difference actually is, is a different matter. It will actually matter more if all other conditions are perfect in the first place. Put on it's head, - if your all around conditions aren't optimal, even the strongest pump producing the finest mist, will not make the difference.

In case you opt for a simple dripper instead of a sprayer, the very smallest available pump is actually good enough. As long as it manages the nutrient solution to get pumped up to the top part. And here you can even adopt the position of the pump (deeper or higher) according to its maximum head hight.

Here's one of my designs based on A. 2 sprayers with low power requirements and B. based on simple drippers, with even lower pump power requirements.

If you need to know the data of both pumps I can check them. I usually don't go by gal/h or head, as the accuracy of these data do vary with manufacturers. But as explained earlier, the dripping system just requires a pump that has sufficient head hight (about one foot something) to operate properly. I have grown over 2 meter (6-7 foot) high tomato plants with such a simple dripping system.

PS: using a powerful an expensive pump, that consumes a lot of energy for just a single plant container had always been out of question for me.

thats the thing the "best" is usually not the most cost effective way in hydroponics, expecially if you are growing just one plant per system.

>>thats the thing the "best" is usually not the most cost effective way in hydroponics, expecially if you are growing just one plant per system. Right, and if you overdo it with the pump and the "performance" requirements, you may still end up with relatively little yield vs. nutrient use, work and expenses. That's why I opt for rather simple and cheap if using such single plant system. This justifies the relations a least somewhat.