Exactly, the paper i pasted from describes the same phenom you have been describing for over 10 years. I have always raged that the big greenhouse media suppliers claim that 30% perlite into a peat is a high porosity mix. And so many growers prefer short squatty containers [helpful for blow over prevention but nothing else] Container Geometry is almost as important as the mix. i remember in 1984 I took a 400 level greenhouse management course at University of Delaware. The prof soaked a rectangular sponge and held it by the edges parrallel to the sink flatwise and let water drain, then he rotated the sponge on the shorter vertical axis and more water drained, when that free drainage ended he then rotated the sponge vertically in it tallest plane and more water drained. When I read your suggestion about using a draping shoelace as draining wick to lower the PWT the distance of the wick, I shouted YES at the elegant simple brilliance. In 1977 I grew a marijuana plant in a milk crate full of gravel, the stalk was over 2 inches in diameter [no different than growing in glass.] BTW, in your gritty mix what are the ratios and actual particle size for each component? I would think to use slightly larger particle sizes than i think you were using and i would probably consider using zeolite or a calcined DE or calcined clay. BTW, Ep minerals makes several absorbents both DE and Clay, Calcined or regular as various spill absorbers available in any auto parts store. 5o pounds for about 10 dollars. Don''t know the particle sizes but likely need to be screened to eliminate the fines. The clays are generally calcium bentonite and not sodium bentonite so less sodium and less swelling. I beileve Arcillite and Tuface are calcium bentonites. I was just thinking that decomoposed granite and even bark add no water holding capacity but with DE and Proper sized ceramics you could add more waterholding capacity but still maintain the airspace. The airspace in the ep mineral clay was pretty low when I measured it last, but I did not screen it. Somewhere I have a spreadsheet with AFP, WHC, TP, TPv, etc for over a dozen components and mixes. I have run quite a few in both 16 oz and taller 32 oz cups, [1 liter exactly when filled to rim overflow which makes that size intuitively easy for all the math. I think i found your posts about 3 years ago and then lost them. Am I correct in thinking you have some water release curve data around somewhere. Someone posted some WRC showing that Axis DE or perhaps the Axis clay media held huge amounts of water but easily released over 75% to the plant. TI can not find that post. I was actually searching for Vertical hydraulic conductivity, Capillary Rise and Capillary rate and wicking when your links showed up. The axis DE is like $90 a bag for 50 pounds so i think I could more cheaply reproduce from other products but have to screen. where I live in idaho, there is a Celatom DE plant less than 60 miles away, 2 zeolite mines, a sodium bentonite mine, WHC and Airspace mid 20s in the 2 larger particle sizess. Also the best white pumice [Hess] source mine a few hours away. I had hoped better water holding capacity. I plan on rerunning all the mixes again in a few months now that i have more standardized my process using multiple cup sizes, some of them tamped or shaken to settle, some top watered, some bottom water, measure distance of subsidence if any. I also have a vegetronix tensionometer now and will take additional measures at various depths to measure the exact tension and also verify depth of pWT which i can usually see through the transparent cups if I use a marking dye and saturate from below. Anyway I will share those spreadsheets in the near future If i were to guess, you have some sort of plant and soil science background or some civil engineering background and a love for plants. At any rate, your explanations and examples are some of the best I have ever come across, and your shoelace suggestion is brilliant, truly. i read so much WRONG advice or the wrong analysis for reason why something works or does not work. it is refreshing to come across accurate information Garret Goyette

Colin - your explanations of restore, system restore, back up, etc were very helpful. They were a very useful edition to what Ravencajun wrote - it didn't seem repetitive to me. I think I can really use any reiteration at this point. Now I actually understand that the system can be backed up to a hidden spot on the hard drive as well as my backing it up on dvd - to be used in the event that the hard drive back up doesn't work. By George, I think I've got it...........Well - at least that part. I'm not sure that I saw any option to create a back up start-up disk. Was that automatically included when I backed up the entire hard drive - or is there a separate step I should take? I also realize that I hadn't understood what you meant by blue button. I was looking at an actual blue button the thinkpad keyboard. Will that button do - or should I be looking for something else. I didn't not notice any blue buttons on the screen (except the Avast buttons in the task bar). Raven - I have a question about revo uninstaller. What would it uninstall? I noticed that I have Office on my computer but I don't know if it came with Office - or if this is a trial program. Is there a way I can figure that out? If it's a trial, I'd like to remove it. If it's permanent, I'll keep it. I know I did not get Microsoft Word with this and thought I had chosen no office software. I was planning on getting open office for the few times I might need to work on a word document (working on a document that is in Word on my desktop). Zep - good point about the printer software. I know when I chose the Canon mx850 and was researching printers, these were considered much better in terms of minimal bloatware (than say the HP's). I know when I installed the software on my desktop (and my daughter's) that several files were installed, but I think I want them all. The computer is networked so I can scan documents to any of our computers - print from any computer, fax from any computer, etc. I'm not sure how I would determine if any of those canon files are bloatware. More on my progress: -I did do all the lenovo updates. -ran javara and updated java and removed old programs. -installed and ran malwarebytes, spywareblaster. Any particular settings I should choose for spywareblaster,malwarebytes or Avast? I have so far just chosen the defaults - but don't know if I should "protect?" cookies - or anything else. And I just realized that I forgot to install superantispyware. For Avast, I did not set up scans on the screensaver - because at this point I will be turning the computer off if it is not being used for a while. If I just happen to walk away for 20 minutes or so, I don't want a scan automatically running that I have to wait to finish - or interrupt and cancel it - and run it manually later. Does it seem okay to just run it manually? If so, how often? Maybe I should use the screensaver option? I think "protecting (I know that's the wrong word - unselecting ?) cookies was for ccleaner - not anti-spyware programs. Somebody please correct me if I'm wrong. So now I'm off to get superantispyware - run secunia and get any necessary updates - and set up the printer software. This is extremely gratifying to be able to do this (with everyone's help). It really helps me to understand what's going on with my computer. Thanks. Lynn. PS - if I get open office, is there anyplace in particular I should download it from? Are there parts to download and parts to avoid - or do I just download the whole program?

You are doing great! And it sounds like you are doing some of the same things that I am! At the moment, I'm procrastinating (taking a break) from cleaning up my worktable so it can get in gear for Christmas. It's been the world's slowest quilting station for the past few months (in that I only get to it a few minutes here and there), but now I need to change gears and put that away for a short while to start getting packages ready to ship- within the next 2 weeks :) Medical stuff is interesting in some ways. It's not something that I've had a great deal of experience with, but am getting a little more. From my perspective, I would keep the more bureaucratic end of things in a 'to be shredded' type situation, and keep information pertaining to your actual medical health in chronological order for the long term. Sometimes it's helpful to look back at your medical reports/results over the long term. In some cases you can probably do this online, but I can say for myself that keeping paperwork that you can lay out and look at can be very useful. I'll give you a very recent example. This week, DH got results from a routine blood test that said it was out of acceptable limits. Very quickly we were able to pull out paperwork results from the last time he had these tests from two different sources (4yrs and9 yrs) and the levels were almost identical- and considered normal then. This was incredibly helpful for us to not panic and to come up with suitable questions regarding what is going on (i.e. was it suppose to have been a fasting test they did, but they forgot to mention that to him?) This is a little bit difficult to write about, so I will try to keep it succinct, but last year a family member of ours overdosed on RX drugs. What happened was he messed up his brain and essentially made himself a dementia type patient for 5 months, unable to care for himself. During that time, we ended up setting out and tracking down as much medical information as we could about him, because he was not capable of answering questions from a standpoint of reality. It would have been much easier had we had paper copies from his home to begin with. For the first few months, we didn't have an accurate medical picture of who he had been for the past years (he is a hermit, for lack of a better word) which made his doctor's appointments a hit-and-miss proposition. In the end, my DH ended up collecting everything we were able to get from the past few years, and filing it in chronological order inside of a binder. I would definitely go that book-style route again with medical records and decide on the topic whether they should be kept for 2 years, 5 years, indefinitely. Right now, DH, DD and I are able to keep all our medical stuff in a small folder, but as we get older and have more things going on, I will probably look into using a binder, maybe even filing by year with page separators? Hope you find a good system and get your packages out on time :)

General forum: Please keep subsequent posts on the same topic in the same thread rather than starting a new one. It will keep the information all together and save all of us time and effort. Water analysis: The numbers don't add up. Hardness alone is over 100 ppm, yet TDS is listed as 100 ppm. Are you certain you didn't drop a digit somewhere? If transcribed correctly, where did the analysis come from? Dissolved CO2 in well water would be odd. Given the amount relative to hardness, do you mean CO3, or perhaps M-alkalinity? Pressure switch/pump/tank: pressure relief valve location should be protecting the tank. In it's current location it cannot necessarily do that. As to the pressure settings and potential pump and tank replacements, you can get the best of both worlds with a pump that has a variable frequency drive to maintain more constant pressure and improve pump life. It also won't require a larger tank. Aerator: I am retracting the sparger suggestion I made earlier - your iron is WAY too high for that to work at all. You can install your bubbler pipe, but it won't accomplish much as it won't provide much surface area for air/water contact. Most of what the aerator accomplishes will happen in the air at the top. Katalox light filters, sizing: Your parts spreadsheet isn't working today (lots of rows are hidden) so I can't see the size of these filters. However, according to the manufacturer's specs, you need 4.78 cubic feet of media for the 8 gpm your pump puts out, with 40% freeboard, that would be two 14" diameter x 65" tall tanks. Katalox filters, chemistry: Additionally, inlet water pH needs to be at least 7.5 for good iron removal. 8 would be better. If you don't increase pH, you will have iron bleed from your iron filters. That will foul your softeners. Katalox filters, design considerations: Stacked tank/mid-Vortech. This would be an extraordinarily bad idea. The tanks would either have inadequate freeboard or be so tall you would need a ladder to reach the control valve. Backwash rates would either be inadequate to remove solids from the Katalox or too high for the softener resin. Regen/backwashes would be too frequent for the resin or not frequent enough for the Katalox. Put the thought out of your mind if you want both systems to function properly. Softeners, in-service operation: How much water do you expect to need at once? Unless it's truly copious amounts, I would switch to a twin tank softener - two tanks, one valve, operating one at a time with no hard water during regen and the added benefit of soft water backwashes and rinses. Softeners, regen: You do not want counter-current regeneration. While it is true that there can be some benefit to counter-current regeneration, those apply only to packed bed softeners in residential application or in commercial/industrial demineralization applications. In a more standard softener, counter-current regen leads to inadequately regenerated resin due to irregular flow patterns if the flow rate is too low, or fluidization with resin loss and poor regen if the flow is too high, or both if your water temperature change seasonally. With potential for iron in the water going to the softener (let's face it - at some point it is bound to happen), counter-current regen schemes will result in poor removal of solids. Softeners, resin: Am I correct in assuming your resin choice was driven by lower salt use? If so, be aware that if you want to operate your softeners at the low brine rates that will result in that lower salt use, you may need to increase the size of your softeners because the lower salt dose will decrease softener capacity. Further, depending upon how effective your iron removal is, you may need to regen at a higher salt dose to adequately remove any iron that bleeds through. With the current water pH, you will need to regen with a salt dose of 8-9 lb/cubic ft of resin and more frequently than capacity would otherwise indicate. Carbon filters: What are you trying to remove with these? Typically, for whole-house applications, a GAC backwashing filter is more appropriate. If cartridges are really what you want - change filters every six months lest they become bacteria havens. Micron filter: It's not hurting anything (other than possibly becoming a flow bottleneck), but what do you expect this to remove? Regardless, change filters every six months whether they appear to need it or not. Drainage: Entirely depends upon how it is all connected, line diameter, and length. Backwash for the Katalox runs at a pretty high flow rate. Additionally, if you are relying on the pressure from the backwashes/regens to drive the water to the pasture, then you will need check valves (possibly I am misreading your intent here - the drain/pasture/outdoor lines discussion is a bit convoluted). If any of those lines are above ground, you will want freeze protection. Water heater: The plus actually works out if you do the math. You will still have to adjust at point of use, but not nearly as much. The 36 is capable of heating 3.75 gpm from 55 to 120 degrees. You have two fixtures running, each using 1.88 gpm hot water, plus 0.56 gpm cold water, for a final temperature at each fixture of 105. Now, somebody comes along and opens another fixture using 1.88 gpm of hot water. With standard control, your water heater is now putting out 5.6 gpm of water at 98 degrees, and your fixtures each now get 1.88 gpm at 98 degrees and 0.56 gpm at 55 - temps drop to 88 at each fixture with the same total flow rate. With the plus, the water heater still only allows 3.75 gpm, but now that water is distributed to three fixtures instead of two each receiving 1.25 gpm of 120 degree water, still mixed with 0.56 gpm of cold water - final temperature = 100 (but your fixture total flow drops from 2.4 gpm to 1.8 gpm).