I will try to make this simple. I use a 27 gallon tote as a reservoir
Inside the res I have a pump like this
And an air pump with air stone like for aquariums
For this room I have 1/2" irrigation tubing coming off the pump which sits at in the bottom of the res. The tubing goes to a 3/4" pvc header I made which has a tee and a valve then a barbed pvc fitting out of the valve and a irrigation tubing going down to the halos which water the plant
The pump is controlled by a digital timer I got from harbor freight for cheap.
I set the timer for whatever amount of time it takes to water til I get the runoff I desire. The first fill is the hardest as I mixed 25 gallons of nutes. After that I just mix 5 gallons at a time to keep the res almost full. I check the ph and adjust every evening and this works awsome for me. I did have to adjust the valves for each drop to get proper flow to each plant. I set the timer for 1 min each day and left town foe 6 days and had 6 beautiful plants when I came home. Iām setting up my 4x8 now for auto feed but Iām going to try these small halos in associate said these work well but the 1/4" drop to each plant off the header has to be the same length so if you go this latter route after you get your header in place and have your plant placement worked out run your longest run first then all the other lines have to be this long. Hope this helps. My cost for the current setup was 6 halos 12 bucks each about 50 bucks in pvc and fittings and a few bucks for the tubing 10 bucks for timer 20 for pump and 10 for aerator. So maybe $180.00 us