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March 26, 2008
Sara, Dave, and Kevin made corrections and touch-ups to the sed tank design. Sara and Kevin met with Monroe, and decided to look into buying a new tank with more appropriate dimensions. From US Plastics we found these tanks with the appropriate cross-sectional area (.5m):
Rectangular Tank with Cover: 30"x30"x30", 115 gallons, $604, item # 8356
Heavy Duty Graduated Polyethylene Tank: 30"x36", 100 gallons, $235, Item #4210
Heavy Duty Polyethylene Tank: 36"x24"x24",90 gallons $230, item #6330
Nara, Leah, and Rebecca went to the plant. Leah investigated why the water height was high in the flow measuring bucket. She discovered that small fish and crustacea were getting into the system and getting plugging the holes. A metal grate was added to the inlet side of the pump from the stream water to filter out large particles and remedy this problem. Nara and Rebecca collected data from runs before and after the improvements to the tank set-up. They also developed a preliminary procedure for "profile runs" in which the tube settlers are moved to various locations within a relatively short period of time in order to develop a floc profile at that time. Rebecca secured the use of the CUWTP laboratory turbidimeter for grab sample testing.