Sulfur denitrator experiment

[Delphinus]

Ok new update. I was out of town last week and got back Monday so on Tuesday (Jan. 2) I was able to finish off the mods for upflow and get the reactor going again on my test tank.

So after a couple of days, there's been a bit of an "interesting development" as well as a "slight disappointment."

The bad news for me is that the nitrate monitor I ordered came yesterday and it appears to be defective. I can't get a reading out of it despite many calibrations, and the readings I get on the calibration fluids, after calibrating, are whacked out. (For example, 93ppm on the 10ppm calibration fluid). Bummer.

But, I did some old-school tests and came up with these readings:

NO3 of tank water - 50ppm
NO2 of reactor effluent - 0
NO3 of reactor effluent - 25ppm

I'm somewhat suspicious of the #'s since they're indicative of a nearly complete cycle at 2 days already, so it will be interesting to see what the numbers are at in another 2 days. I was expecting the nitrite #'s to be non-zero for a while yet, if it went non-zero and came down then I've missed it already. Since they hadn't come down after 4 weeks on the previous trial I'm at a loss to explain the profound difference.

I should mention that besides changing the unit to a non-pressurized upflow design, I also have the flow-through cranked way, way back. Unfortunately due to the flow control being on the input, getting a consistent flowrate day after day is a bit of a challenge, but the last time I measured the flowrate it was approximate 3ml/min. That's 180ml/hour, or assuming a total water volume of 115gal, about a 0.04% volume turnover per hour, or just under a 1% volume turnover per day.