REACTOR FEED QUESTIONS????

[Canadian Man]

So Tony and I made a copy of DJ88's reactor with a 26" tall tube in 6" acrylic.
The reactor is comming off line on friday to do some plumbing adjustments. It's been running for 3 weeks now and it works wonderfully and keeping my levels where I want them.

The problem I am having is the feed:
- My sump is in the basement and the return pump is a LG4. The feed for the reactor is currently T'ed about 6" off the pump.
The feed origionaly had a John Guest Ball valve to slow down the input but it pluged after a day cause it could only be opened about 1/5 of the way.

So yesterday I put a 3/4" ball valve from the same T point in the return line and added the JG valve after this T. The reason for this is so the JG valve can be fully open and the control is mainly with the 3/4" valve.
Now this 3/4" ball valve can only be opened a crack or the flow is too fast.

Anybody have any suggestions or questions if more info is needed.

I guess I am worried of blowing up my reactor. If I restrict the output and let the input run open then the rectangular base of the reactor swells!