Never tried one myself either so no first hand experience with this type. When I was first looking around and deciding to get into hydroponics I had happened across a post by this one guy. He's got a couple variations of the same system, but it's a fairly simple ebb and flood design using the air lift. The one thing I like about the video is the way he has it setup you can actually see his container fill up and it can sort of give you a guage on what a small air
pump can do.
YouTube - Extremely simple DIY ebb and flow hydroponics system: part 1