16oz dutch buckets - Cali Snow

My first seed didn't make it due to technical difficulties, so I popped another to try to maximize the output from the mini machine. She is growing well at day 7. Seeing some leaf curling from her adjusting to the environment, but she is still showing steady growth. She is a week behind the 2 plants that were originally germinated. She will be topped around day 10 or 12 as soon as the third node comes up enough to pinch off. I started this setup to compete in the solo cup challenge, but I needed something that will be minimal maintainence and doesn't require hand watering. So this is what I ended up with. I will not be entering since I know it will bring controversy, but I am going to follow the rules and treat this grow as if I am competing. I didn't want to use regular solo cups because last time I had a lot of algae growing in the root zone when I harvested. I opted to use a black light proof cup. These cups were 27 oz originally so I filled them with 16 oz of water, marked the level, then cut them down to 16 oz. I set the drain pipes about an inch from the bottom so they have a little reserve if I have pump or power issues. I know people will see the drains as a way for roots to grow out of the cup but in reality I have to keep the entire pipe free of roots or it will clog and overflow. So I am actually losing a little volume due to this. I filled the bottom inch or so of the cups with river gravel to stop the perlite from washing into the reservoir. I am running a 5 gallon reservoir with a small air pump and the plants will be getting irrigated 24 hours a day from an aquarium power head pump. I set the system up to be totally self contained and easily portable. It was all built from things I had laying around other than 97¢ for the cups. I will be keeping the feed simple as always feeding maxigro and maxibloom with a couple flower boosters.