Yes, I'm replying on a thread that is more than 4074 days old, but it seems that the thread was on the topic I was going to post, and there are no others.
So, a few weeks ago, doing a deep clean of the garage, in a once inaccessible corner, I found our 25 year old vertical hydroponic drip system. All the pieces seemed to be there. I told myself, let me plug the pump in, if it works, I'll clean it up and put it to use. I plugged the pump in and it buzzed. And so it began...
After cleaning everything up, and filling the basin with water, I plugged the pump in, it buzzed, but no water. Jokes on me!
Searching on Amazon, I couldn't find a comparable pump, so bought one which should work. Turns out it was way overkill. I needed just a drip from about 6 feet, while testing with a 5 gallon bucket and 6 foot vertical tubing, it was probably doing 2 to 3 gallons per minute! Much more than the specs indicated. Still, it was cheap. So to make do with what I had, I then purchased a valve to put on the end of the tubing to control the water flow. Works well. I also had to get new tubing for the new pump.
I've got cucumbers and watermelons in the base - totally experimental, we'll see how they do. In the upper tubs we have a variety of tomatoes - I'm certain those will all do well. After about a week, it's the cucumbers that are first to bud...or it could be the watermelons...I didn't keep track of what I put where.