Your moisture problem could just be that you were relying too much on the water evaporating/being absorbed rather than needing to drain out. Gravel at the bottom of a pot with holes in helps water drain really well. Alternatively, without the gravel you could place the pot on a dish, fill the dish and let the water be absorbed from the bottom up.
Alittle more details about watering:
IIRC many plants grows best in the long run if watered thoroughly and then left to dry up a bit in between.
The reason for the drying is the drying causes the roots to grow. And the reason for why it should be really soaked when watered is so that the roots will stretch towards the bottom instead of spreading out on top.
(Correct me if I'm wrong, I left farming school almost half my life ago && English is not my mother tongue.)
Also I get the sense that I shouldn't just be leaving standing water in the tray forever, but it's also pretty difficult to remove the tray and empty it.
This way, it cannot get to Wet, and you could just Pump that Pot full with watter, any excess watter, will just drain through the Soil back into the reservoir :)