Ken, If you think Bald cypress is that vigorous grower, 'Nanjing Beauty' blows them out easily. 159% more growth than average BC growth... The farthest north that I'm aware where it is grown for evaluation is at St. Louis Botanical Garden that survived the April 7 2007 hard freeze while many bald cypress trees suffered a lot of damages. Supposedly very easy to root... At this point, it is not exactly known of which species it came from. China people claimed it was T. mucronatum x T. ditischum hybrid but preliminary genetic testings showed much closer to pond cypress.. More testing is going to be done to confirm that in the future but it has recieved a lot of postive reviews everywhere. Oh and T. mucronatum typically grows to be the twice the size of typical bald cypress after 10 years... I just find it funny to hear that bald cypress has "VERY vigorous growth rates".

Definitely a pH problem with the iron uptake. People doing Aquaponics use cleated Iron since for the fish/bacteria involved in AP wants a pH closer to 7 or a bit above. The problems with vinegar and citric acid is that they break down pretty quickly allowing the pH to bounce (which is hard on plants.) The Phosphoric acid is a better choice but if you don't want to have to regularly add acid to the system, you might be better off using the softened water or rain water in your system. I had trouble with keeping my pH low enough untill I switched to collecting rain water for the hydroponics. On a side note, some media tends to bring the pH down so if you want to use something like cypress mulch or coco coir fiber, a high pH water might be good to counteract the media. Here is a link that might be useful: My Hydro Page

If I can say this without bragging... the best brisket I have ever eaten. I made a paste from 1 large onion, 8 garlic cloves, lemon juice and some other spices and put this mixture all over the brisket which I then wrapped in plastic and refridgerated for 2 days. Friday evening I removed from fridge, brought to room temp and placed in 200° smoker. I allowed it to cook for 1.5 hrs and then began mopping with a sauce I made from lemon juice, water, butter and other seasonings every 45 minutes and flipping over. 12 hours later and 30 minutes prior to completion I mopped with a finishing sauce I created as well. I had 12 people at my house who all said they had never eaten a brisket that tender or tasty. Needless to say I was a wee bit proud;-) It was a long night out there on the patio with an alarm clock and only occasional 10 minute dozes here and there but it was well worth it the next morning when I sampled the first piece. By the way I used mesquite chunks the entire smoke and contrary to popular belief it was not bitter in the least. In fact I have never had bitter smoke flavor on my meat and I attribute this to full open inlet and exhaust every time I smoke.

I thought about this a lot too when I was trying to make the decision. I ordered a sample of pre finished oak and tested it. Aluminum oxide may be tough, but it does scratch pretty easily. And the worst part of it is that once it does scratch, it is very difficult to repair. It is a baked-on finish and cannot be done on site. I don't like the micro groves of prefinished floors either. I think since you already have some site-finished oak there, the contrast would be pretty great between the two, one having a smooth surface and one having micro-groves. I have 3 house dogs. two don't count, since they weigh less than 10 pounds combined, but the 3rd is a very active pit bull. I know she will scratch the floors. So I have decided to go with Waterlox finish. It is easy to DIY, and it is VERY easy to spot-repair. You can't really say that between waterlox, aluminum oxide or poly that one is better than the other, they are all just different. The same smooth finish can be achieved with any of the 3 of them. As far as why some installers don't like prefinished? They have to be too concerned with scratching and damaging it during installation.