Thanks again SisterMary,
I might have to hold off a while on that veg room, expenses add up fast! Even so, Im finding that the closer I get to purchasing my equipment, the more excited I'm getting!

I think I'm going to go with ROLS (recycled organic living soil) for my grow medium, I'm fascinated by the soil food web. Im actually in the process of reading "The One Straw Revolution" now, pretty cool stuff! Anyway, It's going to take 3-4 weeks from the time I fill the beds till I can plant.

On a different not I hoping we could chat about my root aeration setup. I'm basically mimicking a setup I stumbled upon while surfing the web, but I'm going to put my twist on it. I plan on leaving the 4 PVC pipes in the corners of the beds, but I want to also run 16ft of 1in(maybe even 1/2 in) pvc with 1/16in holes under the hydroton. I plan in getting a 200lpm air pump to supply the oxygen, just not sure if that's enough. Also, even if water does collect in the bottom, I'd still be pumping air to the roots, so that's a plus! Any thoughts?

Also, as far as cooling the joint, I think Im going to try a diy dehumidifier chiller & maybe even make my own icebox. Chillers cost a pretty penny. I think I'm going to pick up an oversized ice chest for my resevuar. I just haven't been able to figure out what the resevuar is for if your not doing hydro. I can't seem to figure out why I can't just pump the water from the cooling chamber directly to the Icebox. If I do need a resevuar, I'm hoping a 150 quart icechest would be enough to eventually add a second icebox, it's 37.5 gallons.

Lastly, I'm not sure if one of these fancy enviornmental controllers are worth it, what's your take on them?

Thanks again

Think I'm going to go with Dj shorts blueberry.

I'm a big hydro fan personally. I haven't grown in soil in decades and, then, I wasn't as attentive as most people are today.

With an air pump instead of a fan you might be ok but I'm not sure if or how much it'll help. Try it and see...

The reservoir (non hydro) is to hold more cold water to deal with the heat load better. There's no reason other than dependability that you can't build your own chiller/iceboxes just make sure to test the system thoroughly.