The dutch buckets have had 66 g KNO3 and 19 oz Grow nutrients per 40 gal reservoir for 1 week today. Less "dying" of tomatoes, some growth returning, and flowers starting to grow tomatoes. The "2 month old tomato" is almost "ripe." They have went through about 5 gallons of water in this week. The peppers, in the same system, have more flowers now, but I think they are continuing to drop despite pollination with a small artist brush, hoping this gets better this week. PH was 6.3, ppm (I hope to get EC soon) was 1250. Today, one week later, pH is 6.2 and ppm is 1340(Not sure what I did there but I also have 2 little helpers to distract me often). Temp is about 76, but did let get to 84 one day last week. Humidity is 65%. Plan to add 1/2 strength nutrients of what I did last week plus water tomorrow night. Would you agree or is this not the right path?

I add water to my reservoir with a 5 gallon bucket. I add muriatic acid to my reservoir to adjust pH. I figure out how much acid I need to add to the 5 gallon bucket of water to get a pH of 6.5, then I add the acid everytime I need to add water to the reservoir. I also mix in the nutrients to each 5 gallon bucket of water. I don't bother monitoring the fertilizer levels. I just change the reservoir solution once a month. The tomatoes drink a lot of water! Here's a link to MHP Gardener's how-to on Dutch bucket tomatoes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXy32Dr4Z4A&list=TLKMj00TvmMT4

Aeroflo or other diy aeroponics systems use just hydroton suspended in net pots in the air in a system exactly like you describe except instead of drip emitter, you drill a hole in the side or top and slide the drip line into the bucket and attach a cloning mister. I just built a system using this technique and it's working great. Some people either leave the pump running 24/7 - or on all day and 1 time in the middle of night - or 1 min on 5 min off continuously. at the left bottom of this pic, you can see an Aeroflo system Im using. Im also building some that are in 5 gal buckets as well for my peppers.

Hi The important elements in the fruiting stage are N,K and Ca. Nitrogen wont have any effect on the calcium. Excess P is the most likely culprit as its antagonistic towards Ca. The two elements can react to form calcium phosphate which reduces the Ca availability but it wont adversely affect the P as toms dont use much P and MB has it in abundance. (ie it can afford to lose a lot of P before it becomes an issue) If you can find some good quality, fully soluble potassium sulphate (sulfate of potash) such as Yara SOP or equivalent you can reduce the level of P to something more reasonable. The modified 5 gallon mix would be Masterblend: 13.8g, Calcium nitrate: 27g, Magnesium sulphate: 9.8g, Potassium sulphate: 7.8g. This will give you a good N,P,K,Ca ratio for fruiting with an EC around 2.5 Sticky traps work well for flies, cheap version is strips of polythene painted with blackstrap molasses..once they land on it there`s no escape :)