Help me design a s/h watering system

[Rivka]

ok since i have moved to a more extreme climate and my collection has slowly gotten bigger and my free time has gotten smaller, i think its time to tackle some sort of watering system that automates at least pats of the task.
I would really love folks' input and i design and build this.

here is my set up:

• 2 18"x48" wire metro racks, each with 2 shelves of chides about 50 plant currently but would love to add a 3rd rack once the watering thing gets figured out
• all plants are in s/h or on a holding area waiting to be switched over at the right time.
• this set up in in my living room in a large bay window like area with no access emediate to running water, but i do think i can drain the system out the window
• i am string up a vapor humidifier to increase the RH, so i also am thinking of a way to pump fresh water into that tank so it can run without me for a while.
• im considering a RO or other system to get cleaner water, mine seems to have to much resolved solids with now.

Goals:

• storage of enough water for at least one watering, but hopefully 3 or 4. need to do the math and see how much actually goes into each pot depending on final set up. my current pots need 15oz or just under 2 cups of water to fill them once.
• simple enough for a house sitter to run the system and refill it when I'm out of town.
• no water spilling everywhere on my hard wood floor
• pots get a real soak before draining, not to cumbersome physically or visually so i can still move pots around with out too much re hooking back up, some is fine.

open to all sorts of suggestions

---------- Post added at 07:39 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:36 PM ----------

here is my current idea in the making:

using a drip irrigation (without the drip heads for a higher flow thru) like system to flow via a pump and fill all the pots, then a similar hose system coming out of custom hole on each pot (would require repotting, I'm ok with that.) that flows to a output that i can shut off while filling and soaking and then open up to drain

---------- Post added at 07:50 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:39 PM ----------

a few questions that I'm pondering.

• how to attach the small drain hoses to the pots, some sort of disconnect fitting, otherwise i will have a real hassle when i want to rearrange the pots or take one to the club for showing.
• can a set up like this be effectively one direction of flow enough to avoid any contamination of one pot to another? I'm thinking that as long as each shelf is on a separate main drain line that it could, if shelves were daisy chained, i can see gravity pushing the water from above back up into the lower pots, yuck.
• could i get pumps running that would do this from a tank on the floor or would i be better to gravity feed this from above?
• if i have a branched irrigation system, does each pot get even close to the same amount? or would lines closer to the source get significantly more, there by overflowing before the end of the line filled up?
• probably need a overflow tray under each shelf, with a drain line too
• what to do about pots filling up to far and dumping the leca or flooding crowns of plants, might just be a air circulation issue i need to adress

thoughts?