I'd first set everything up the way you see it in your head. Get your system up and running, make sure water is ph'd 5.8-6.0. Put your layer of hydroton in. Let the bubbles run for 15min. See how wet your layer of hydroton is. This will give you and idea of how much water will be making it to your taproot. Adjust water level from there. Waters your water ppm look like no nutes/from the tap?
I did not even see your reply, sorry. I have 3 inch net pots. I got it into the hydroton, about 2 layers below the RW. It seems like it was getting too wet. A small piece of the root tip turned darker and broke off. It has grown a bit, but not much. No roots poking through anywhere. And the leaves are turned down, which I assume is over watering?I realized that the reservoir hadn't been changed in a while. I have only used straight water in there and didn't think to change it. I did notice a slight slime, so I sanitized the reservoir, and then put her back under the lights, but on top of the hydroton to let it dry out. I hope I can salvage it. What do you think? Also, with mostly tap water (some RO in there) and
hydroguard, my PH keeps rising after I PH down. I did it twice today. Have you had this happen? I read that sometimes low PPM can cause this, or buffers in the tap water. I added some root 66 and sugar daddy at 1/4 strength and have a ppm of 150 now. Hoping this stabilizes it. I haven't had much luck with hydro so far. I can't seem to get them past this size without killing them.