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Re: RES: [compost_tea] Re: Pumping air in is not the best way to aerate your tea



Well Elaine, to be perfectly honest the only cows I have any experience with come from the freezer, and as long as they end up medium rare, I'm a happy camper. ;-)
Now, personal attacks aside, can I make some observations and suggestions? I guess I should have taken the time before, but I don't sit at this computer day and night. The bio-film is the result of organisms being smeared into the walls of the pipe right? Well if that is the case, is the pump too large? Remember we want the line pressure to be minimal. Pressure and volume are inversly proportional. The problem I have noticed with my air-blast sprayer is not at any of the 90 degree bends, but at the regulator. I use a positive displacement pump, which means that what gets sucked in, gets pushed out, so the excess has to overcome the spring pressure of the regulator to get back to the tank. This area requires disassembly periodically. Now what about a non-positive displacement (centrifugal) pump? What happens when it can't discharge the amount of fluid, or in this case CT, to have the pressure in a safe range (for CT surival)? The CT  stays in the pump housing longer, the impeller chops up the critters real fine, and you got the makin's for some real prime biofilm worthy of serving the neighbours in a dip at the next cocktail party, heat build-up, and wasted energy. The finer they're chopped, the easier it is for them to stick to the pipe surface. Once the build up starts it just gets worse. While I agree that the 90's should be kept to a minimum, there are other factors at work here. Right or wrong, this is what I see. Based on personal experience, mileage may vary........offer void where prohibitted
respectfully
Bill  (also grinning with you, not at you)



soilfoodweb@aol.com wrote:
Thank you for your observations, Jose! 

When we consider the theoretical condition without testing to see what we've neglected to include in the equation, we end up, for example, with the engineering approach to cows....."Consider a round cow..."

Those legs sticking off the bottom are just such an inconvenience....  Just the way that the cow GETS to the food you want to feed "the round part". 

So often the engineering world takes that approach.  They do not recognize all the factors actually at play.  When you look at pipes and ninety degree angles, the biolfilm actually doesn't BEGIN on the impact surface, it begins where the water stream carries most of the debris....which is on the opposite side of the pipe, just around the bend.  Engineers didn't predict that, but it is what has happened time and time again.  Once the biofilm gets going there, then the rest of the pipe soon follows.

There are maybe a few things that the engineering world needs to learn about biology.  I shouldn't just pick on soil chemists....

:-))))

That was BIG grin, folks.  Some of my best friends are chemical engineers.....

Elaine Ingham
President, Soil Foodweb Inc.
SFI Corvallis, OR
SFI Port Jefferson, NY
SFI Lismore, NSW, Australia
SFI Hilversum, The Netherlands
SFI Cambridge, New Zealand
www.soilfoodweb.com


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