Question about soil drainage

I have a propagator that uses coco pucks as a medium and a small hole at the bottom of the container. There are about 30 cups on the tray. I used a heating mat and dome and when I went to pull the pucks I had about 18" of roots that worked down through the hole and into the bottom of the water tray. Pretty neat I thought.

So now I am finishing up my indoor garage box system and I was thinking I might do something similar to the propagator. I am using 8" pots, 8 total in a SOG grow. I was thinking I could leave the pots about a half inch above the bottom of my water proof pan and keep the water table about 1 inch above the bottom of the pots. The roots could work their way out the holes in the pots and into the bottom of my tray where there will always be water. I have designed light proof slats that I will place over the pots so that the light doesn't hit the water and will also keep the soil covered to discourage bugs. I will also place a bubbler stone in the bottom of the tray. I intend to use soil as the medium.

So I guess to sum it up, if my pots are 7" deep, 8" wide, can I leave the bottom 1" of the pots in submerged water with a bubbler at the bottom if I use soil? I normally cover my pots in about 1/2" of sand. Will I run into problems covering the pots with slats?

I could scrap the entire plan and just leave the pots uncovered in a tray with no water table.

It would get nasty due to the organics in the soil. Plants needs wet dry cycles to keep them healthy.
By watering from the top you pull oxygen down into the soil and roots zone.
Covered pots or soil grows nasty stuff, needs oxygen.
Your air stone will add heated air from the pump running.

If you were to put a wicking substrate such as GrowStones in the bottom 2" of your pot, you wouldn't need the pump.
Look into Subirrigated planters or Subirrigation to see how this works. They save me a lot of time and they keep the soil moisture just
right... all the time.