My hempy design seems to be failing me. Help!

Hey,

I made my hempy buckets the same as most peoples. 2 inches from the bottom and a big drain hole with a screen. I decided to take it a step further by adding pvs pipe that would drain into a drain pan. Now here is the weird part! My first buckets worked amazing and still do work amazing. Now I am up to 6 plants at once and I need to build two more buckets. I did with the exact same material but the water will not drain from the spout. As I water and I watch for water to start coming out it never does. One pot literally filled with water and the perlite was floating... Great. Why is this happening to my second design?? Does anyone else to the pipe thing with no screen behind it? I worry about losing the medium. The hole is 1/2 pipe and the mix and perlite and vermiculite. I gave it a little rinse before going in the bucket. Thanks everyone I am dying here.

For those that were perplexed by this issue. I could not fix it! I had to use bigger pipe instead. I still do not understand the issue.

It's probably the perlite cloging the hole. Sounds weird but I've had it happen to me, or at least happen enough to prevent proper drainage and the perlite will float.

One way or the other, something is blocking the hole. Perlite will float, and your hole isn't draining fast enough and water rises to the point that your perlite will being to float on top of it.

If you didn't wash the perlite it may be dust blocking the screen enough to prevent proper drainage. I bet if you stuck a stick/pole/chop stick down in there and moved some perlite around while it was floating it would break free and you'd see is start to drain rather quickly.

I've had the exact same thing happen in little party cup hempys as well, but with those I'd just pinch the sides and it would unclog the hole and drain.