1ST Hydroponics grow ( top feed drip irrigation )

Hello and welcome to my post about my first hydro medical grow. Ive been researching and im going to make a cheap top feed irrigation system, reason being is it seems to be the simplest and cheapest way to go. Surprisingly my local hydro shop has a section dedicated to cheap homemade hydro products. For now we are setting up this system to serve as a vegetation only system and plan to possibly make an Ebb and flow table for flowering but as of yet are undecided. Advanced nutrients is our brand of choice but haven't decided which base to use yet, DO I STILL WAIT TO FEED TILL AROUND the 3rd week of Veg? i keep finding mixed info on that. Our system will be utilizing a 20 gallon rubber-maid container as a reservoir, a submersible pump will pump water from the reservoir into a 6 head nozzle, each head on the nozzle will be split into 4 drip emitters giving a total of 24 drip sites, . The table will be around 18 sq ft and have 1 drain on each end draining excess water back to the reservoir. I plan on using Grodan cubes with a drip spike in each one. Being that i have zero experience in Hydro and know nobody in real life that has real hydro experience im reaching out to you guys on the forum and just asking for tips , tricks and pointers. How should i go about starting seed; container size etc.; can the roots just hang when the plants are older or do they need hyrdroton? i understand algae can be a problem. Do you think 10 gallons in the reservoir will be enough for a small setup like this. any and all advice and criticism is welcomed. Im mostly here trying to find out what the most common beginner mistakes are AND how often and how to water the grodan cubes to avoid root rot, over and under watering etc. i also use great white inoculant in my soil should i still apply this? Also my reservoir will have an aerator pump with airstone PLEASE DO NOT BE AFRAID TO CHIME IN WITH YOUR OPINION AND ADVICE

id go the the newbie section and start reading there

a few things that can help, If your rez is blacked out, I would just worry about algae growing under the drip site's, ontop the rockwool.

10 gallons should be good, You might find yourself changing or adding water every few days to compensate for evaporation which will make the solution stronger and possibly burn the plants.

I never have to wait til the third week to start veg nutrients, by that time my plants are beggin for juice! I usually start a 50% mix around the second week, or when they start to get there real first formation of leaf's.
Starting seeds is your easiest task at hand, worry about reading into the two hydro systems you wanna work on, get em built and run em to make sure they all work before starting...

another thing to think about is keeping that rez oxygenated and the water temps right,(my first time doing DWC , EBB - Flow, my water temps were not right and it was all FUBAR!)

Hope this helps.
take care.

Edit, Just re-read your ?'s and I forgot a few
Water times are really dependent on mediums, Rockwool will hold water alot longer then hydroton pebbles and so if using straight rockwool I would drip 4x a day and see how that does, If using a mix of rockwool/hydroton or just hydroton I would get it up to 6x a day for 10-15 min at a time.

BBYY gave you some good advice there. I would add that be careful with your pump choice and size of drainers. It can be easy to flood too fast and burn your pump out, make sure you do some calculations regarding volume of flood table, res etc and dont just go for the biggest pump in the shop. Check out mycorrhizae and Trachaderma, both can be sourced cheaply and will last a year or so and will cost much less than Great White but do the same job! These are difficult to get established in hydro setups but I have used successfully. Start your seeds in 1" grodan cubes, moving to 4" when a good bunch of roots are showing. Start feed when the cotyldon start to yellow, 1/4 strength in hydro, I find half too strong depending on how nute sensitive the strain is. If you leave in the 4" cubes and only flood 4x per day, you may get some air pruning, which is fantastic for establishing a healthy root ball (along with the great white/beneficials). Just a word on what BBYY said about testing your setup. Test thoroughly to make sure you have no leaks and everything runs smoothly BEFORE you add plants. You will be glad you did should you hit problems. PM me if you want any more advice or have specific questions. Peace W

Thanks for the advise thus far guys its really a big help, few other questions i have is how dark does the reservoir have to be to avoid algae, will a lid on it with holes cut in it for hoses coming through it be fine (the res will be under the table as well) and if i let the roots grow out of the cube and into the tray how dark do the exposed roots need to be kept, taking from soil ive always heard they need to be like DARK is it the same in hydro or will just avoiding the direct light be good enough ? Also i forgot to ask how do i know when my cubes have been watered thoroughly , like in soil i know im good when i get about 10-20% runoff out the bottom of the pot after watering evenly and thoroughly whats the difference with this method should it just be a set amount of time insuring that the cube is thoroughly watered plus a few minutes and how do i go about flushing my cubes to avoid any build ups and to get rid of the Grow ferts for flowering do i just do a reservoir change to plain ph'ed water for a day or so and then change back to nutrient solution or maybe just top water manually 3 times the volume of the cube?. Thanks for all your help guys i really appreciate it.

I would put as much water in there as possible, more water = cooler res temps. Depending on what size cubes you have roots may be popin out of the bottom in a matter of days, so they dont air prune themselves off you need something for them to go into. You seem to have a lot of questions, so I'm gonna give you my veg set up as an example and hopefully you will get some helpful info from it;

Week 1: Well rooted clones --> 4" RW Cubes (Grodan Delta 8's) in 10"x20" propagation trays with Hydroton on the bottom under a 125w Compact Fluorescent, 500-700 ppm nutrients hand feed every 2-3 days

Week 2: 4" RW Cubes (Normally have some good roots out of the bottom by now) --> 1-3 Gal Smart or Geo Pots (depending on how big you want them and how much room you have) full of hydroton in a 2'x4' Ebb & Flood tray with a 18 gal reservoir almost full to the brim (Yes its dark, covered and under my flood tray to keep it cool). I've put them on a drip in the past, but Ebb & Flood is simple. I flood every 2 hours when the lights are on with 800 ppm nutrient solution. This is all under a air cooled 1k watt MH on a light mover set to 18/6 (The mover isnt necessary, but I have a long skinny veg room so it helps)

Weeks 3 & 4: Same as above, I make sure I change my reservoir out once a week and add 6 ml of 30% H2O2 ever 3 days. Week 3 is 900 PPM and Week 4 is 1000 PPM

At the end of the 4th week they sit in 36 hours of uninterrupted darkness and then go into the flowering room. if they are in 1-2 gal pots I transfer them into 3-5 gal smart or geo pots.

Hope this helps