Flood/Drain Ebb/Flow bucket system question

[_Dude]

How does one get all the water out of the buckets after they've fed? Every submersible pump I've used needs to have the intake submerged to operate properly, which means like 3 or 4 inches of water.

Is there some attachment available to make them drain from the bottom? I thought about doing an external mount with PVC but that would still leave a lot of water in the bottom.

Some people even say they use a simple timer and pump setup and don't use float switches or any of that jazz. I'd really like to know how they do this because if you run a pump too long it starts sucking air and somehow I really doubt this is good for the pump.

Do flood and drain bucket users normally just leave 3 or 4 inches of water and just not worry about it?

 

[wantaknow]

usally the buckets are raised up on a block or somthing simular .so they drain out by gravity,

 

[wantaknow]

if you are looking for a hydro system, look at bigtokes active system , a buddie of mine is sold on it

 

[_Dude]

Found one method in OgreSeeker's thread:

You may have noticed that I didn't drill any holes for the pump lines. That's because it's easier to lay the pump suction side down, add an elbow and come straight out the top of the bucket rather than drilling holes and installing grommets. You remember what your momma told ya....KISS!

 

[_Dude]

Wantaknow, thanks, that makes sense. I was hoping it would be a different answer as I'm partly going with buckets instead of a table to save on vertical space.

 

[_Dude]

Bigtoke's system is DWC, right? DWC isn't my thing, at least not right now. I want something using flood and drain for now so I don't have to worry about res temps or oxygenation.

 

[_Dude]

Ah, this wasn't as much of a problem as I thought. A couple minutes eyeballing a pump and a few fittings and I think I have a plan.

Cut the bottom out of a scrap bucket (I got loads of those), glue the pump to it, set up some fittings and hose so the intake is fixed to the bottom, and drop it into a controller bucket or reservoir.