Grow Mediums Planning a new hydro setup

[Surfer Joe]

I was really impressed by the heavy growth seen in hydro growing, but servicing even a couple of buckets has been a fair amount of work .
I was wondering about future plans and came up with this design and would appreciate any comments.
The idea is having a pump from a large rez into some buckets at their base and an overflow tube out of the bucket at the desired height and back to the rez by gravity. (see diagram)

A couple of concerns I have in this design is where to put air in.
Should I aerate the main rez or put an airstone in each bucket?
Could I put in a venturi tube at the inlet of each bucket to create aeration without an airstone?

Also, how do you clean such a large main rez or the buckets during a grow?
Do you leave the buckets alone and just clean the rez?
Do you just flush the rez and plumbing system to clean it?
I would prefer to design a rez that is easier to service than the one in my diagram. Maybe one that is a tall cylinder that can sit beside rather than below, but I was not sure how to plumb such a setup.

 

[cidd]

Iv done almost the same thing but im using a 5 gallon bucket for my rez and a fish tank power head for my pump. I have my pump coming on every 2hrs for 15 min and the fill lines are going thru the top of my lids and dump above the waterline this way you won't get a back siphon and drain you bucket when the pump shuts off. My drain back lines are set to drain down to the bottom of the net pot this system works very nice it keeps my buckets full and has given me more control over my PH & PPM . I have an air stone in my bucket and in the rez to keep all the water aerated also you'll have to have some way of controlling you flow rate so you don't over fill them . If you run your fill lines in thru the bottom of the buckets you'll have two problems one is getting them watertight and staying water tight if one lets go you'll drain all of them and if you lose power they'll drain back without a check valve and even then that's just too iffy in my book . I use to build fish tank filtering systems and you always build it so if you lose power or a tube blows off or something starts leaking badly it won't suck the main tank dry and kill all the fish same thing applies here !!!