I suggest you work on draining the tray without having to move the plants - that could be a lot of work, depending on the size of the plants/pots. Personally, I try to move plant/pot as little as possible - aside from the hefting issue, I suspect the plant doesn't care for it, but that's just Jeff anthropomorphizing again. What's certain is I don't like to do it any more than needed.

If you know your soil mix, and it sounds like you do, you can water to the need and not to the excess, so there won't be much water to drain to begin with. If the amount of water is not much (and I'm guessing it shouldn't be) it will evaporate, given average indoor temps and air circulation.

I've been using pieces of ceramic/stone tile to give some space between surface and pot, but what I'd like to find are the gigantic plastic (or titanium, for that pricey look) trays with a 2/5" lip - those would be ideal. So far I've found only some roughly 1' x 1' Rubbermaid trays. I'm thinking I need to find something like a big diesel truck oil-changing tray - that or take a sheet-metal class.

Either that or rig some sort of water-collecting tray up with a petcock (you can drill a hole for it and seal it up on both walls of the tray with O-rings / washers / silicone) which then can be used to drain the tray into a bucket.

I wouldn't worry about humidity. Water vapor diffuses very quickly, so the trays would have to be capable of humidifying the entire room/house before you would see any increased humidity around the plants. If you had a whole room full of trays and lots of air movement, I could see it being a problem. But otherwise, you're just not going to evaporate enough water to have any impact.

I do like the idea of large trays that attach to wire shelves and can be drained in place. I thought about trying to make some before, but realized it would probably be beyond my abilities to make something both effective and pleasing to the eye. I think the drain would be easy to make with just a small bulkhead and some PVC or vinyl tubing running to a bucket or drain. The problem is finding or making a tray that fits your shelves.

Make a set-up like semi-hydroponics growers use...

You can have a large tray filled with chunks of gravel or other material and sit your pots on top. Drill a hole somewhere on the corner of the tray at a level somewhere just below where the bottom of the pots would sit. This will allow excess to drain away without having the roots sitting in water.

There is still work involved - if you water too much, you have to catch the run-off. But once you figure it out, you will know how much to safely water without spillage.

I would like to do something like this as well. Either that or put all my pots in trays and then drain them with some kind of pump or vacuum. I have to take all my plants to the kitchen sink in winter and it's time consuming as well as being disturbing to the plants when they are trying to form buds.

Don't know when I'll be able to afford all the trays I need, but thanks for the inspiration.

Do a search for "Easy-Drain Humidity Tray". Specifically
www.bennettmadison.com/plant_humidity_tray.html gives a verbal description. For photos & to purchase: www.orchidlight.com/email/111407_HumidityTrayOnSale.html Other sites have tables to hold trays and frames with lights. Your problems are solved. Enjoy!

Have you considered egg crate?

I have a grow rack and some of my plants like to sit in water, others don't. I lift the ones who like it dry up off the floor of the seed trays with egg crate. Should be easy to find at a hardware store in the lighting section. If you decide on a wire grow rack, you can sit your plants on the shelf and use plastic sheeting under the shelf to catch drained water and direct it to a bucket or some other receptacle. I hope that's clear enough. I can try and find pictures, but it wouldn't be of my own setup :)

I think something like this would work. Not my setup either but I think this is what most people are talking about, and this shows the use of egg crate light diffuster.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/9707825@N07/3715319354/

Great replies, but aren't we putting the cart a bit before the horse? LizQ hasn't even mentioned what succulents she's growing.

IME most succulents are fine if their roots are in water for a day or two.

One alternative, which I use for cactus seedlings that I'm weaning, is "under-the-bed" plastic storage boxes, which have side walls about 3-4" high, with kitchen cooling racks. The cooling racks keeps the bases of the plant pots away from the water, and they make it easy to move lots of plants at once inside or outside. Obviously that wouldn't work as well for larger plants. The plastic storage boxes and cooling racks are both cheap.

-R