I assembled the self draining watering trays and the sump-pump recovery system to move excess water to a drain tank. Since my reservoir is about 20 gallons and my ultimate drain tank is a 5 gallon Home Depot bucket, I am envisioning a possible problem if I fail to empty the 5 gallon tank soon enough ! I am wondering if others have determined a good balance - I'm thinking I need a 20 gallon waste tank as well in the off chance that all of the reservoir tank water gets consumed and overflows the 5 gallon current drain tank. Am I missing something here?
Thanks for the information. I kind of figured that out after tinkering with getting the multi-times-per-day vertigation going. It seems my res pump discharges about 1 gal per min to 6 plants that are in 5 gal cloth containers. I seem to be homing in on something like 3 min per cycle to replace the assumed 10% water to assumed 90% saturated coco/pearlite, plus 10 to 20 percent more time to get some waste flow. I'm checking the runnoff water to confirm volumes. This should let me go a day or two to empty the 5 gal bucket. Once I get it zeroed in, I'll report back.
