Yourr plans sound great. Keep posting pics.
I use an nft system for tomatoes and have used both 1.5 rockwool cubes and oasis cubes. Both have worked well but I like oasis better.
I soak my cubes for 24 hrs the night before seeding. Mine are soaked in my reservoir that has water and
nutrients. I transfer to a 10 20 plastic tray and the cubes are soaked.
I never had a problem with soaking wet cubes. I have never measured my flow into my troughs, some of my troughs have ball valves some just have open barbs, I haven't had problems with flow whether it is too strong or too weak, when my root system gets too thick and water starts dripping from intake end I adjust pitch of troughs
My toughs are 12 foot in length and 3 inches deep and I use a 90 watt danner supreme mag drive which is more than enough flow for four troughs.
Sorry about the spelling I'm trying to type on a tablet
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