Which size net pot to use?

Does anyone have an opinion on the best size net pot to use with hydroton?

Is it better to have more or less hydroton/medium for the roots to be in before they get to the air and water? Will the size of the net pot determine the size of the plant in any way? Or is the size of the net pot determined by how large you will be growing the plant (like just providing more support for larger plants).

I'm making a bubbleponics system with an 18 gallon tote (probably 12 - 14 gallons of water+nutrients), putting 6 plants in it. Is there any advantage to using 5" pots instead of 3.75" pots?

i've used both and the results are about the same, when using ponics the net pots arent really doing the same thing as a pot in a dirt grow. they just pretty much get the plant started and hold it above the water. the amount of room the roots have to grow below are what determines the size they will get. Hope this helps

I'd use 3" pots and put 8 or 10 or 12 plants in the tub. what are you going to use for light?

if your going to do DWC I highly sugest a cooler instead of the tote,been there done that tote thing,it works but you have to remember that you have to keep your res at 60 to 70 deg. 75 max and to do this you will have to put frozen water jugs in the res to keep it cool,I bought a coleman extreme cooler i think its a 150 qt,but anyway the 18 gal tote fits inside with room on both ends to put a total of 4 gal. jugs 2 on each end,i added water also,coverd up the jugs and sealed all the cracks with insulation and it worked great because i didnt have to go in the res with the jugs,and also 6 plants will be cramped in there,go with 4 you will be better off in the end.and remember cool water with lots of bubbles good ventalation good light and good nutes and you can grow some nice stuff good luck read all you can before you start and make sure you have everything you need, a good ph meter and ppm meter are must have items

popojojo:
Cool, that makes sense.

faller:
I wondered about the possibility of doing more, smaller plants, sort of like a SOG? You're gonna laugh, but my bloom light right now is a GlowPanel 45 LED light (yeah, 28W total ) and a couple 23W CFL bulbs. I've got a 4 bulb 2' T5 fixture with blue bulbs, proly gonna get red bulbs for it and use it too. I actually got a yield of just under 1 oz (dried, Maui Waui ) on my first grow using only the 28W LED light and 1 23W CFL, in a 5 gallon bubbler bucket with 10" net pot and hydroton (but it took 7 months). I'm looking at adding a 100-200W LED panel in the near future. I'm following those threads to see the best one to get

snowcat:
Great idea - I'll fill the tote with water to sit for a few days under my lights and see if it stays cool - it'll be on my basement floor, and I'm currently using LED and CFL lighting so I think the temps might be OK w/o the cooler. Last winter when I started my first grow, I insulated the floor of my tent cause I thought it was too cool, LOL. IIRC, air temp got down to 65F at night with lights off. I never thought to check the temp of the water in my bucket, just air temp, thought the plant would grow faster if it was warmer (now I know the small amount of light I was giving her was a big part of her problem). I wish I had come here and read everything I could find before starting, cause I made a TON of mistakes. I'm not complaining cause I got almost 1 oz from my Maui Waui girl, even with all the mistakes I made. But it's amazing how much good info is here and I'm looking forward to a much better 2nd grow! And hopefully this time it won't take 7 months...

Someone hasn't given you the short simple answer yet? Buy/size your mediums/rezs to your final plant size. Basically if you plan on doing more than a month of veg, go with something bigger than a 1" cube and 3" net pot. Of course you'd need a bigger rez too.

Sounds good, thanks!

One last thing, before you get into a single rez consider multiple rez's and their benefits. Sooo much better (easier to maintain as well, although altogether more work.)

Ooh, great point! I was expecting one large rez to be better and more stable than multiple smaller rez's (like saltwater aquariums). It sounds like that's not entirely the case?

Edited to add:
I should mention, two of my goals are: 1.) simplicity 2.) automation
It sounds like there will be trade-offs in those for both "smaller multiples" and "one large rez" systems.

I got "2" -27 gallon- reservoir totes. just chiming in