Update: When I got home the fish were fine, the pond was really murky without the pump running through the bio for 20+ hrs. I found my missing pump under the spare bedroom bed, right where I had put it. I looked 3 hrs for that pump!!.I got the new pump hooked up while I drained and flushed the 100gal bio filter and the pond is back up and running. New Pump and filter had cleaned the pond up great within just an hr or so. All was back to normal.. The 2400 gph pump moves a lot of water but the next pump I get I want an even larger one then my old 3600 gph. Anne, my brother hooked up the generator for the peacock eggs so maybe all will be well for a good hatch.

Okay, I'll leave it be and hope for the best. The pine nuggets seemed perfect, with some pieces being dime sized at the largest and some being really fine mulchy stuff. I'll see if I can get a picture when I go down to my mother's house this weekend, I don't remember the brand name. Was a massive bag for pretty reasonable though, I've used that stuff for nearly ALL of my plants this last repotting season. While most are houseplants, for edibles I planted an olive and a cherry tree in soil amended with it. Guess I'll just see what happens over the winter!

I agree that it is bad design to install shutoff valves for toilets and wash sinks and not for the showers. Our house was built in 2005 in NJ, is this really the code these days? All the houses I've been in NYC had shower shutoff valves. It's very inconvenient as let's say you need water to the toilet or kitchen and the whole freaking house don't have water while you wait for a part to come in. My kitchen ceiling got soaked because of this. Bad, BAD, design. Let us know if there is some kind of plumbing code but if so, why do toilets and typical sinks have shutoff valves?

hex2006- Just 4 times a day? Is that the practice? I've heard about switching on/off every 15/30 mins and that sounded somewhat less than optimal to me... If you flood the roots for 15 mins, wouldn't that be too much for many plants? Conversely, leaving it to dry for 6 hours, isn't that detrimental or at least stressful for many varieties (and even if there is enough moisture, does the plants have enough access to nutrients)? Jeremiah- Yeah, the power consumption was high on my priorities when I considered hydroponics. It's not like I'm gonna sell the produce but I am in a dire lack of excess money to burn- that's why the pump power consumption actually did seemed important to me (unless I'm growing weed then that is a whole different matter). I calculated that if a simple 10W pump ran for 24/7, 365 days, it would amount to 87.6KW. I pay 20c for KW/h, so a yearly cost would be around 17.52$. The price of tomatoes at my local market is a little more than 1$ per kg. That means that simply to cover the usage cost of this one pump I need to grow more than 15kg. You can see why I'm not a fan of letting the pump work more than it needs to. Lol, I missed your meaning, when you said "making the box water tight " ,did you mean the timer box or the grow box? because in both cases I just use a discarded bucket/cereal box with some water proof glue on the lid. Ghetto to the max! And when you say “digital plug timers” you are referring to this type of thing?: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Digital-LCD-Display-24H-7day-Programmable-Timer-Electronic-Plug-Switch-110V-US-/361252796244 If so, then like the with my opening post, they have up to x powerons per day. Very annoying. , , , The second scenario you described is actually pretty nifty, but I fail to see the advantage if indeed rapid switching will burn out the pump. My case however is the common first scenario (mostly because of space constrictions (the sun is at the top)). I don't know if it is that 'rapid', but if the pump fills the bucket in 4 minutes (and turned off due to power conservation) and the drying occurs for another 11 mins- then we are talking about 90 cycles per day (I have no idea if that is a good growing practice, but speaking hypothetically). I took your warnings about the quick burnout to heart, but I'm not sure what's the alternative in an ebb-flow system (other than cycling it to 2 operations per hour). One thing I thought of changing is the placement of the pump. according to Kleeems explanation ,a partial cause for the failing is the column of water already present in the pipes, overloading at each start up. Seems like it can be solved by placing the pump in an upside fashion near the top... thanks guys.