[Mr Blah]

Did you notice a lot of roots growing down the tail? How is your medium, dry or very wet?

That's a pretty big ass cola!

[datal4b]

yo blah i did have roots growing thru, it wasn't causing any blockages but there was for sure all the way thru the bottom of the grate. the roots seemed ok, not rottish looking. i was keeping it pretty wet i think, my cycles seemed alot longer than most people doing it here on ic, but for whatever reason i couldn't keep it wet enough doing 1 quart every 90mins or so. the only thing is i got fungus gnats at the end, no probs other than that

[Mr Blah]

That seems to be my issue as well. Can't keep enough going through the medium. Either some of the holes in my diy feed ring are blocked or the top is being dried out by the fans in the room.
I seen in another thread gmanwho mentioned that the surface of the medium drying out and crystallizing the salts. Or something to that extent.

I am going to clean the rings and cover the bottom of the grow buckets with some landscape fabric.

[datal4b]

yea man one of my drip rings actually had roots growing through it so definitely got to keep eye on that next time... medium surface drying is mostly what i experienced it was always proper wetness beneath the first 3/4" or so. i used the reflectix covers but maybe going to completely seal them off at the edges?

what does landscape fabric do??

[Mr Blah]

Cool! Looks like your all over it like a wet t-shirt on a hot summers day
Landscape fabric doesn't do anything different. It is just what I had at the moment that was readily available to me, what you have is a lot better.