Dave, the bucket does not work for figs. I think the water mass is enough to keep the pump from over heating BUT too hot for the fig cuttings. Ten gallon plus should be fine.
I am so glad others have started playing around with this system. The trick is not to have the cutting in the water. The bubbler/mister that Pete and Gloria made works! My homemade kit worked too. The fresher the cutting the better! I was able to get some moldy Nero 600m cuttings to root. I only had 6 and all 6 rooted!
I echo what Gloria said. Youtube can be you best friend on how to do some of this stuff. I researched for days before testing on some moldy fig cuttings. The youtube link that Danny provided is one of the best I've seen. It's the one I used to build mine. Just make sure you build it with a lot of misters and not a heavy duty pump. My pump is to strong.....even though I can adjust the flow rate. But it still leaks a little. Here's a tip! Check out Harbor Freight! They got cheap pumps next to nothing. They're at the back of the store located next to garden hose kits and such.
But! Don't forget, to go ahead and build (or buy) your T5 light kit and hang them above the cloner. Why? Because the cuttings will root and need light to feed their leaves. I got lucky and got one of those power strips with a build in timer. Half of the switches can be on 24/7 and the other half turns my lights on at 6AM and off at 6PM. That's pretty cool stuff!!!!!
HOW BOUT THOSE FIGS!!!!!