Okay, take this with a grain of salt, since I cannot find specific info about the species and its light requirements. You say it receives indirect lighting and does well; I'm basing my calculations comparing it to a tomato/pepper plant that needs lots of direct lighting (20 moles/day at the least during fruiting). For your plant, I used 15 moles/day and based the lighting on a 12 hour on/off schedule. Depending on the type of light you use (MH or HPS - I don't have figures for CFL bulbs) but a ballpark figure is a lamp that gives you 20,000-25,000 lumens a foot above the canopy. Basically, a 105 watt CFL bulb with a reflector (because they put out little heat and can be placed closer) or a 150-250 watt HPS or MH bulb. I think! More info about the size of your plant would help. Mike

DO NOT LET THE PLANT SIT IN THE SAUCER FILLED WITH WATER! Hyophorbes seem particularly susceptible to browning of the leaf tips as a result of fertilizer salt re-uptake, which occurs when drainage water sits there. Figure out how to get rid of the excess right after watering. I prop my pots up on a brick so that the drainage water is separated. Another way that the fertilizer salts become problematic is if you do not water enough. If slow release fertilizers are in the soil, they require a periodic leaching by watering enough that there is excess drained out the pot. If this is not done regularly, brown tips will also be the result. So every time you water, do it thoroughly. If you have a good soil mix (another topic that would take too long to discuss), there should not be an issue with regular watering unless it is cold. Aeration/ oxygenation is the key. Lack of light and cold weather will lead to stunted new growth. It should not effect the existing leaves. How do I know these things? Well, I have the same plants which had the exact same problem. Older fronds had brown tips that were gradually spreading. I thought it was too cold. I thought there was inadequate light. Once I started drenching the soil regularly with the pot elevated from the saucer so that the roots cannot reabsorb the drained water, the problems have gone away completely. I also believe that acidifying the water with some vinegar may be beneficial. But the "science" behind this is questionable. x

I had no idea these plants were so expensive. I am raising them from seed to hopefully plant around some property  they are a beautiful tree. The nice thing about these trees is they can live a long time; I have read about 4000 years. Because they are in the agave family or related to the agave they should be easy to maintain. Your link did not work, but these trees are in some California parks & are fairly common in the desert gardens of botanic parks. Mine are still at the seedling to 1 year old stage. I have noticed they do not like sand. I have some in soil & some in peat  the ones I have not taken out of peat yet are doing the best. Like Alejandro1 said they do have medicinal qualities. I have medical books from the 1600Âs which speak of the use of this tree.

Sounds like wise advice! I'll come up with another way to address this issue rather than bypassing the switch. It does seem to me that there is a conflict between the traditional designs of SWGs and the new advances in low wattage, low flow pumps, which will eventually become mandatory if other states follow California's example. Moreover the flow switch included with the Aqua Rite systems is a pretty cheap and flimsy product. You'd think that with a system costing many hundreds of dollars and given the switch's safety mission as suggested by the responders, Aqua Rite would have put a little more design work and thought into these things. Thanks for your counsel. Always appreciated! Nick in Palm Springs