Thanks Mike. I suspected as much. The manual that came with my pump says its a Sequel 750 series 4250SQL13 but I can't find a picture of it on the MDM site. It looks more like the Sequence 1000 series pumps as is that color. The newer Sequels are bronze colored--mine is black. I bought it in 2006 so I think it was a older model of the new Sequel pumps which have 3 variable speed impellers. It's a 1/8hp motor runs on max 175Watts. According to the pump flow curve at 8ft of head it should be pumping 2500GPH, at 5 ft about 3200. Havn't had a problem with the flow now that I added a midwater drain to my sc and running only this pump on the sc. Would you recommend that I pull the pump now and have the bearings checked or wait until the end of Oct (end of our season). With the pump house covers on I can't hear the pump but will check it regularly. Don't want to burn out the motor! As for arcing breakers--had them installed in my house last fall when doing renovations. It's code here now and the inspector won't pass if not installed for bedrooms. Mine have a yellow sticker on them and a yellow test button like the GFC plug (except that is red). They are expensive--something like $120CD each. The GFC breaker has blue switches compared to the black on the normal breakers. They are also expensive. When I did the reno's on my kitchen, livingroom and bathroom upstairs installed new wiring as the old stuff was only 2 prong. Kitchen plugs near the sink have to have GFC plug and a GFCbreaker on the line. My pond plug has the GFC plug and a breaker but it was mistakenly wired to the same circuit as the furnace which is maybe why the breaker was put in. Thanks for your help. Patti

I don't make compost tea but do make lots of alfalfa tea. It can (and some people say it should) be stinky. However I did a small experiment with it by blasting a bit of water into the bucket with the hose nozzle every day and it never did get stinky. Even alfalfa tea that had already turned smelly lost it's noxious odor and just smelled a bit fermented. I initially start with the buckets partially full so I can add water every day. As I use it I continue to blast aerated water into the buckets daily and don't have to smell that awful odor. Might work with compost tea also.

X10 can be quite quirky at times. I suspect that some of the 'odd' behaviors that I've experienced have been, in part, due to utilizing a VFD on my service. In the end, from a cost perspective, I was willing to live with the ocassional anomalies. Thankfully, they have been manageable. The reported specs above were taken from the drive's measurements of the outputs. I'm not sure how drive manufacturers implement such measurements. Standard voltmeters/ammeters use a RMS measuring algorithm that is setup for 60hz sine waves here in the US. It is true that measuring output voltage doesn't take into account for drive loss or for the choppy DC pseudo-sine (my takeoff from psuedo-science) output signal. The values I listed were taken as a last moment hurried effort. I intend to measure the input at varying frequencies this weekend when time allows. That way, I'll have the values that the power company sees, which in the end, is what really matters where the bottom line is concerned. I had suspected that the reading of 844 watts was too low, given that the motor's nameplate states a FLA of 4.26 amps at 230 volts. I'm not sure how much loading takes into account for current draw in my situation, or even how much loading the motor is placed under given my setup, so that may account for lower numbers ON THE OUTPUT. I will give a more thorough check soon and report back. As to cable length, I'm currently at ~6ft. My proposed location is at ~60ft. I've done some reading based on your recommendation mas (thank you for the link), and I'm hoping to be OK as far as standing waves, etc. My main concern is RFI and EMI. I'll look into a choke if they become a problem. I'm hoping that the first drive took a nosedive due to being driven past its rated output power capacity. That drive was only rated to 1.5Kw (on 3-phase input power), which should have been de-rated to .75Kw-.9Kw given I am using single phase input power. The new drive is rated at 3HP on single phase input, or three times higher than the first unit. I'm betting that this will resolve the failure issue. We'll see.

So you dismissed all core aeration studies that are for crop fields as irrelevant, then came along with your own crop field study that's relevant , because you say so. Show me a study on core aeration for crop fields. Tilling is not core aerating. I didn't present that OSU article for a discussion about aeration. In fact the one weakness is that it isn't specifically geared toward home lawns, so we have to make some assumptions. I'm the one saying it is hard to find any real scientific studies for a "home lawn." My interest in this article is more in the soil biology that explains why a biologically healthy soil probably doesn't require aeration. I guess this seems hypocritical to some people. Not sure why. As to your next point, yes, I say the soil biology presented in this article is completely applicable to a home lawn. Explain why it isn't. 1. In an average well maintained organic lawn, with no deficiencies, what is the average percentage of organic matter? When you say "organic" lawn I assume you mean any lawn, even yours, that has enough organic matter mulched in each year to maintain a healthy level of organics. I'm not an expert on what the exact organic level should be, but the number depends on the type of soil. Sandy soils will be hard pressed to get very high levels, while heavier soils can exhibit much higher numbers. I think morpheus' lawn is around 15%. Morpheus says 3 or 4% is borderline low, 5 or 6% is good and anything near 8% is excellent. 2. Is this level of organic matter sufficient to get in between all soil particles and prevent all soil particles from compacting and if so, what do you base that assertion on? I understand what you are getting at with these two questions, but again, you'vegotten something into your head that has no basis. You seem to think 100% of the particles must be linked to an organic particle in order for the soil not to need aeration. Nobody but you is asserting that. The article clearly shows the relationship between roots, bacteria, fungi, bugs and worms and all the other things that form macroaggregates. If you have lots of these macroaggregates around the root level, which is what naturally regulates oxygen, then you probably don't need mechanical aeration. Listen, the way science works is that you have to go on a hypothesis that may or may not be proven out over time. Eventually it becomes an accepted "law" or fact if it holds up. I've come to believe that this and other online forums are like laboratories where everybody contributes their experiences with their own lawn. Lawn companies and even universities have biases. Ask dchall about all this. He has been here the whole time and has seen a lot of what works and what doesn't. My position is that I am not going to do something to my lawn unless I have evidence that it does good. Otherwise you can do more harm than good. From the evidence I've seen in this forum, from doing other online research, and just observing problems different people come into this forum with, my conclusion is that there is no need to aerate if you are doing everything else properly. The nice lady, Lisa, started this discussion by saying she had summer fungus caused by over fertilizing ("live and learn"). She cut back on the fertilizer and started aerating. I think she is attributing the lack of fungus to the reduced fertilizer and the aerating. My reaction would be to get a Logan labs test and see if there are any soil problems, and then decide whether aerating is really doing anything. Again, if she has good soil biology and plenty of us never aerate, then why should she have to? I think too many people see lawn companies aerating and just assume it is a good thing to do. The article I presented from OSU suggests the increased oxygen can actually do harm. Scott's recommends you weed and feed in April. Do you think that is a good idea, too?