Quote Originally Posted by urbanfarmer
Yea, it's hard to comment because I'm not sure what exactly you are doing. A few things stick out at me. You have half a barrel as the water tank, but it's supposed to flood 3 barrels somehow? That doesn't seem to add up.

Where are you putting the cups filled with ground up food waste? I hope on the top where it doesn't get much action with the water in the flood/drain cycles.

I don't think you should bother with so many pumps, but how the heck are you going to manage all the pumps even if you do??

You need to fix some problems in the design phase because it sounds like you may have quite a few.
I guess everything will be clarified once I post the schematics.

Those three grow bed half barrels will be filled with 3/4 inch gravel, so the space between the rocks should leave about 1/3 to be filled with water, which is why the 3:1 growbed to water tank ratio, which is also employed in aquaponics.

The cups will be added near the top. I may stick to cream cheese containers instead of yogurt containers if the yogurt containers reach the bottom. Thanks for the heads up.

The pumps are 400gph magnetic drive- ie. low maintenance. They also operate via. timer, and so, by using the timer settings, I can get the water to circulate to where its needed, without over flooding.
Wattage is a problem though, so if anything, I will use T couplings and one pump to water the growbeds, and with the rainbarrel and potting soil pump, I will have only 3 pumps.

Again, thanks for your points- I really appreciate it.