Basically there was a lot of dead space between the reservoir and pump. I'm trying to remember my justification for why I designed it like that, I know in the original topic I said I wanted the pump handle in line with the ball valve. The net result was that it would take a good 150 pumps just to 'prime' the thing so all the dead space has water in it and the pump can actually draw water from the reservoir.
Much less horrible to pump now.
