what would be the best hydro method for 40+ plants

iv tried NFT which i found to be nice but i dont like having 30ish plants all connected incase something goes wrong e.g. the water pump

i havnt tried any other hydro methods yet and need advice to what hydro method would be the best for around 40 plants? any ideas welcome

well..all the hydro methods I know of to do that quantity of plants you are going to have to have them all connected in one form or fashion...the issue comes to maintenance...if you want to have lots of reservoirs and lots of pumps, that's going to be a lot of checking, or you could use a single reservoir with multiple pumps pulling from it...

You could setup a flood/drain system with multiple pumps with one table, so even if one fails the others will keep flowing into the table, returning to the single reservoir for maintenance and ease of control.

I say keep the NFT and go with redundant pumps/air pumps. This is the method that I use with any type of growing system now. Say for instance in my DWC res's I have 2 air stones in each bucket but each stone is driven by a different pump so if one of the pumps stops working or one stone is clogged the other should keep the plant going until the problem is corrected. When I ran flood and drain I used two smaller pumps for less time than one, that way if one was clogged my tray would still get water just not the same amount but it would sustain them until the problem could be corrected.
If your convinced that you need a change I recommend flood and drain because it is pretty simple and can be rearranged very easily also it allows for redundancy. Good luck and happy growing.
KnB

thanks for the replys fellahs, yeah i do really like NFT i might just do the extra pumps idea and use timers maybe, 3 pumps running for 2 hours each then switching.... or some other way but i will work it out.

well how big you wanna grow em?

forty plants could be done in two
3' x 6' e&f tables
20 each finish em around 18"-24"

cake.

If I was growing more than the medical numbers I'm allowed I would definitely be growing in rock wool cubes. So simple comapred to some of the other hydro styles. And results kick ass when executed properly.