Brine tank too full with water

[freey29]

Installed a Fleck 5600 about 10 days ago. Added 3 bags of salt, and 5 gallons of water initially. The resin already came pre-charged, so no additional regeneration was needed. I wanted to test to make sure all fittings were leakproof, brine line, drain, regen cycle, etc -- I ran a regeneration the next day, and I noticed that the water level is well above my salt level now, about 2/3 full. I added 2 more bags of salt, but the water level is still over my salt level.

Will this water level go back down, or do I need to make adjustments to the float, remove some water, or something else?

 

[Reach4]

Did you get a 5600 SXT?
Is your brine tank a 15 x 17 rectangular tank?
What is your BF setting?
What does the sticker say your BLFC value is -- 0.5 GPM?

So the question is, is your brine tank too small for your 14x65 tank , is the programming set up wrong, or is your system failing to draw brine, and is only adding brine each time?

You can see if the brine gets sucked down during the BD phase.

If you have a 5600SXT rather than a 5600, provide the information on hardness, size, number of people, BLFC, other factors, I can give you a possible set of settings to use. But at this point, it seems to me that failure to draw brine might be the problem... but not necessarily.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[freey29]

Did you get a 5600 SXT?
Is your brine tank a 15 x 17 rectangular tank?
What is your BF setting?
What does the sticker say your BLFC value is -- 0.5 GPM?

So the question is, is your brine tank too small for your 14x65 tank , is the programming set up wrong, or is your system failing to draw brine, and is only adding brine each time?

You can see if the brine gets sucked down during the BD phase.

If you have a 5600SXT rather than a 5600, provide the information on hardness, size, number of people, BLFC, other factors, I can give you a possible set of settings to use. But at this point, it seems to me that failure to draw brine might be the problem... but not necessarily.

Yes it is the 5600SXT, and standard 15x17 tank. I purchased online and the setting were pre-set, I just adjusted my hardness.

Hardness was 20, now down to 0-4. 2 people currently, I will need to check the exact settings when I get home. Maybe I should run a BD phase just to see if the brine is getting sucked through properly.

 

[Reach4]

Hardness was 20, now down to 0-4.

The hardness after the softener should never get above 1 normally. If you are not drawing brine, the post-softener hardness will rise.

Maybe I should run a BD phase just to see if the brine is getting sucked through properly.

Yes. Maybe use a stick as a dipstick.

If you have a 0.5 DLFC and no iron, I would use the settings below for 2 people. If you have iron, you will need to compensate. If you are expecting a lot of visitors at some point, you could trigger an early regen.

System info (not programmed)
salt lb/cuft = 6 ; A choice ( efficiency vs capacity)
BLFC = 0.5 ; Brine Refill rate GPM
cubic ft resin = 1.5 ; ft3 resin = (nominal grains)/32,000
Raw hardness = 21 ; including any compensation
People = 2 ; gallons affects reserve calc
Estimated gal/day = 120 ; 60 gal per person typical calc
Estimated days/regen = 11.9 ; Computed days ignoring reserve
Fleck 5600SXT Settings:
DF = Gal ; Units
VT = dF1b ; Downflw/Upflw, Single Backwash
CT = Fd ; Meter Delayed regen trigger
NT = 1 ; Number of tanks
C = 30.0 ; capacity in 1000 grains
H = 21 ; Hardness-- compensate if needed
RS = rc ; rc says use gallons vs percent
RC = 120 ; Reserve capacity gallons
DO = 28 ; Day Override
RT = 2:00 ; Regen time (default 2 AM)
BW = 5 ; Backwash (minutes)
Bd = 60 ; Brine draw minutes
RR = 5 ; Rapid Rinse minutes
BF = 6 ; Brine fill minutes
FM = usually t0.7 ; flow meter, make note of what is there
(FM: https://terrylove.com/forums/index.php?attachments/img_fleck5600sxt_flow-png.31592/)

 

[freey29]

Thank you! I will look into the settings after work, and report what I am currently set at.

The 0-4 is just the range on the hardness test that I have. It may very well be zero.

 

[ditttohead]

New install... usually a loose brine connection or clogged/kinked drain.
If you want to DIY, please get a proper test kit. Hach 5B is the recommended.

 

[freey29]

New install... usually a loose brine connection or clogged/kinked drain.
If you want to DIY, please get a proper test kit. Hach 5B is the recommended.

Thanks, I will check all connections.

I'll also buy the Hach 5B. One of my exterior hose hook-ups is still hard water, so I should be able to test incoming hard water and outgoing home soft water.

 

[freey29]

Here were my settings:
DO- 14 (I changed this to 21, but could up it to 28 per your recommendations)
RT- 2:00
H- 20
RC- 150

I did a manual BD and it seemed to work fine. I went from about 4-5" of water above my salt level, ran for about 20 minutes, and the water level dropped below the salt. Could the cause have been me running the regeneration right away after installation, or is a setting of mine wrong? Should I go into the Master Programming to check the BW, Bd is 60, RR and BF times?

 

[Reach4]

DO will only matter if you are on vacation probably. With no iron, feel free to crank it higher.

RT: adjust to taste. Figure that is when the regen starts, and figure things are out of bypass about 1.5 hours later.

H is hardness. I would bump it up now, and consider adjusting after your testing.

It's good they are using RT IMO. At 2 AM, the softener will regen if it has less than RT gallons of capacity remaining.

Should I go into the Master Programming to check the BW, Bd is 60, RR and BF times?

Yes. I would be in there. I forgot there is User Programming Mode.

 

[freey29]

DO will only matter if you are on vacation probably. With no iron, feel free to crank it higher.

RT: adjust to taste. Figure that is when the regen starts, and figure things are out of bypass about 1.5 hours later.

H is hardness. I would bump it up now, and consider adjusting after your testing.

It's good they are using RT IMO. At 2 AM, the softener will regen if it has less than RT gallons of capacity remaining.



Yes. I would be in there. I forgot there is User Programming Mode.

2 nights ago I just ran forced regeneration, skipped through the steps, and did the brine draw for 20 minutes, skipped the rapid rinse at the end. Now it seems like water tasted salty. Will that subside?

 

[Reach4]

2 nights ago I just ran forced regeneration, skipped through the steps, and did the brine draw for 20 minutes, skipped the rapid rinse at the end. Now it seems like water tasted salty. Will that subside?

The good news is that you are drawing brine into the resin.

The BD step is typically 60 minutes with the expectation that the brine will be drawn in about the first 15 minutes, and the next aprox 45 minutes will serve as a slow rinse to wash the salt away slowly.

The salt will subside after you use up enough gallons of water.

When you did the 20 minutes of brine draw as a test, how long did it take to draw the brine?

 

[freey29]

The good news is that you are drawing brine into the resin.

The BD step is typically 60 minutes with the expectation that the brine will be drawn in about the first 15 minutes, and the next aprox 45 minutes will serve as a slow rinse to wash the salt away slowly.

The salt will subside after you use up enough gallons of water.

When you did the 20 minutes of brine draw as a test, how long did it take to draw the brine?

Immediately -- my water level dropped about 6" in the brine tank (17x15). I suppose I should have went through the full BD phase, but here we are now.

 

[Reach4]

Immediately -- my water level dropped about 6" in the brine tank (17x15).

It could not happen immediately.

Here are some suggestions:

Program in the settings that I wrote above.

At this point the brine tank did not go through a BF (brine fill) stage since your BD experiment. So the next test, or next regeneration for that matter, will not have brine. If that is the case, you will need to go through a BF. Do the BF stage only. Use a yardstick down the brine well as a dipstick, and do measurements from the bottom of the yardstick. How deep is the salt in the tank? How deep is the water/brine before and after BF?


Wait an hour or so for the salt to dissolve in the new water.


About an hour after the BF, I suggest you do a full regen. Wait the BW minutes, and when BD starts, start timing and measuring. How long does it take for the brine to drop to its low point? Expect between 10 and 20 minutes. When you do the BF, what is the water depth before BF, and what is it after?

Let the regen continue. That will wash out the salt, and it will fill the brine tank for the next time.

I trust that after all of this, the water is soft. Note that the hot water will take the longest to show softness, unless you drained the hard water out of the water heater tank.

 

[ditttohead]

Salty water...
You drew a bunch of brine into the water filter tank, then put the system back into service mode. Salty water will go away very quickly but the hot water will take a little longer if you have a tank water heater as it will act as a dilution chamber.

 

[freey29]

I'll use the information above.

Let me clarify my previous statement. The brine didnt drop immediately, I only meant that the brine draw 0.5gpm started sucking into the resin tank immediately. It took about 20 minutes for the water level, which was about 4 inches above my salt line, to drop below the salt line. So my assumption was that the super concentrated brine was sitting in my tank, and needed time to be diluted.

From what dittohead said above, I believe this to also be true -- it was mainly for hot water, but has affected both hot and cold. I will give it a few days to play out, and see how it progresses.

Thanks for everyones help so far.

 

[ditttohead]

Brine draw is controlled by the injector, not the BLFC button.
The BLFC button shifts out of the way during draw allowing unrestricted draw. You can use the draw charts in the manual to determine the draw flow rates. A #1 injector draws about .35 GPM at 60 PSI.