Under normal circumstances, the start-up of the reactor takes some time depending on
available anaerobes and how they interact with changes in organic loading, temperature
and other environmental conditions which directly interfere with their metabolic process
and growth. However, the reactors containing EM consortium were able to stabilize faster
than the UASB control reactor signifying that EM played important role in speeding up
start-up processes by facilitating the growth of diverse microbes in the reactor as noted in
other studies (Jin et al., 2005). After the stabilization of the reactor, the performance of
individual set-up was monitored in terms of COD and TSS removal efficiencies at steady
state condition operated at HRT of 6 h.