honestly, my advice to you goes as follows:
#1 drop the HUGE pots. go to something smaller but still a large pot. personaly i say square top, deep 5 gallon buckets.
#2 DONT GO HYDRO. for your first grow go with soil. soil is very forgiving and you can find MANY recipes for good organic soil on this forum. just goto "subcools oldschool organics".
#3 ditch the pumps, ditch the medium on the floor ditch everything that isen't NEEDED. line the room with mylar/panda film or visiqueen plastic and put the pots directly on the floor.
if you do it this way you will find your grow goes much smoother, and gets you stronger harvests VS trying to jump into hydro. soil is much more forgiving, much easier to prepair and moniter.
PLUS this way you can grow WAY more plants. id say go for 15-20 plants with a room that large.
Thank you for the advice. I should clarify that I was planning on using soil originally and a friend that owns a hydro- garden shop said that coco instead of soil is much better. She said to use it just like soil execpt I have to add the nutes. I definatly want to keep it simple and the only reason for the trays and pump is to remove excess water after feeding and incase I have to flush them at any point.
-If I put the pots on the floor, how will I deal with the water overflow?
-I have to stay under 12 plants per my perscription.
-The coco floor under the pots was just for drainage and possible extra roots throught the smart pots.
I definatly appreciate the advice that is why I am here. I guess I just want to do it right and if that means I need to start with soil then so be it. I actually thought that coco could be used like soil. So that shows how much I have to learn. I definalty do not want to try hydro for my first grow so I should have been more clear on that.
I only chose the smart pots again because I understand they are the best for oxygenating the soil and easy to flush.
I will look at the subcools olschool organics.
