Murphy's Law had to kick in sooner or later.
This week's run started off promising, but has ended not so good.
Date/Reactor Effluent/Tank nitrate readings:
May 7: 10 / 33
May 8: 1 / 31
May 9: 0 / 31
May 10: 14 / 34
May 11: 21 / 32
Not sure what happened on the May 9/10 there, but ever since then Murphy's Law has been showing up. Haven't been able to keep a consistent drip rate since then either, so last night I switch the feed pump / flow control valve around so that the pump is Aqualifter pushing into the reactor (as before) but with the dripline irrigation valve on the output.
Worked awesome to get a nice steady rate, but, it looks like the reactor just can't handle the pressure. Although I have my flange bolts as tight as I can make them, water just seeps through the flanges like crazy. I wish I had noticed this last night (or this morning). I came home from my bike ride today (I left before the tank lights turned on), checked on the tanks and found a good 5-10gallons on the floor. Argh.
And, I found that the intake tube had wiggled its way out of the sump and the reactor was just full of air bubbles. I figured at this point the bacterial cultures are a total writeoff and I have to start the cycle from the start all over again.
Bummer. For an inanimate object, it sure seems as if it's quite determined not to work. I tell you, between the nuisance crabs (who just killed a fish on me
.. I have to declare an all out war on the little bastards now), the out of control nitrates and the out of control phosphates, and faulty test meters, my patience for this hobby is wearing dangerously thin.
Oh well, next week's another week, we'll see where it goes...