Choosing the right softener equipment

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mrtmills

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Hi,
I'm trying to make my water better and would really appreciate some advice from the knowledgeable members of this forum. My most recent water test showed the following:
Hardness: 20 gpg
Iron: 2.07 ppm
Manganese: 1.2 ppm
pH: 7.3
TDS: 460 ppm
tannins: 1.2 ppm

The water smells swampy very briefly when a bowl is filled, the hot being by far the most pronounced. The colour when drawn is a little yellow and it stays that way. I'll attach a photo. I'm testing now to see how long it takes for the colour to settle out but from memory I remember it being around a whole day. I don't see any evidence of IRB in the toilet tank and I've tried increasing the temp of the hot water heater which did not change the smell. The water is from a 360' well which is why I was a little surprised by the tannins.

I've had two companies offer solutions both which came to me as obscure model numbers. I've tried to have this water treated in the past and found that all the companies around where I am (nova scotia, canada) throw a meaningless model number at you. When asked about the product details they offer cold responses. I do know that what they are offering is a water softener and what I think is some modification that will fix the tannins too. Funnily enough what prompted me to finally get on this forum is that I actually ordered this equipment the other day and when it arrived they said it takes special salt and normal softener salt won't work. It was then that I realized I need serious help.

thanks a lot
travis
 

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Reach4

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Does your well casing extend above ground? If it is below ground, I would worry that surface water is getting in giving you the tannins.

Regarding your special equipment, how about photos? Remove easily-removed covers for the pictures.

Regarding the iron, the best is to have a backwashing iron and manganese filter at the front end of your system right after the pressure tank. That may also even deal with the H2S. The softener follows.

A less good approach is to let a softener deal with these, and then to regularly do treatments.
 

_John_

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yeah, I'd wanna makes sure there wasn't a crack in the well casing before spending any money on treating equipment.

An anion exchange resin on top of softener resin (set on a timeclock regen using normal salt) in one tank is a pretty common treatment in some areas near me. We've never had to install one so I've not gotten into learning the intricate details (bad me, slacking on my job). That setup would also work "OK" for iron and Mn, but I'd put a Katalox filter ahead (iron, Mn, H2S and sediment) of that one if it were my water (and that's easy for me to say because I get to install at dealer prices).
 

ditttohead

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Since you have iron and tannins, you could always lean toward a chlorine injection system with contact tank, this does a surprisingly good job of masking/lessening the tannins and virtually eliminating the iron/manganese. Tannin selective anion resin also works, but it is highly susceptible to fouling if you don't remove the iron and soften the water first. Catalytic GAC can also be effective in some tannin applications but it tends to have a short life expectancy when used for tannin reduction.

What equipment did you buy? Why wont it work with regular softener salt? I want to hear their explanation, I am guessing it will only work with the type of salt that they sell...
 

mrtmills

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Thank you for your time and advice, clearly you all know water treatment. I swear you need a doctorate to understand this stuff. So I'll add a few more little points and we'll see where that takes us:
1) well casing extends above ground and goes 80 ft below.
2) how would I check to see if I have a crack in my casing?
3) there is currently no treatment because I told them to hold up on the equipment. They stated that the system needs 99.9% pure salt or some garbage like that, I have the rep looking into it but I don't get a good feeling. I had to mail my water sample and by the time it gets there they have no way in knowing what proportion of my water is dissolved iron, iron precipitate or colloidal etc.
4) I'm pretty sure the equipment they want to sell me is all in one tank with a pH neutralizer on it after. I am certainly wary of using a softener of any kind that is susceptible to fouling given my luck.
5) the water samples I drew this morning are still foggy and yellow - unchanged. It does precipitate out eventually I think, I'll keep waiting. I did a few other tests for fun because I am sure there is dissolved minerals in there too. For one test I dropped some bleach in. After about 5 min the water turned violently orange and when I came home from work it still looked that way, no settling. But if you look close you can see tiny flocs which I can filter out with a coffee filter. The other test I did was to atomize the water with a spray bottle into a large bowl. I then poured this into a glass. When I got home from work this water looked like the freshly drawn water, so there was no oxidation of the minerals that I know are in there.

Does ozone do the same thing as chlorine? I lived with chlorinated water for a long time and I thought living in the country would be better - boy was I wrong. Maybe a new well? That is gambling though.

Thanks again to all of you.
travis
 

Reach4

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Does ozone do the same thing as chlorine? I lived with chlorinated water for a long time and I thought living in the country would be better - boy was I wrong. Maybe a new well? That is gambling though.
If you have a chlorine injection, you will probably have a contact tank followed by a backwashing activated charcoal filter to remove the chlorine and precipitated stuff. Then you will have your softener. Chlorine treatment should also take care of the sulfur smell.

I think ozone works the same. I think in practice that you could use hydrogen peroxide. It costs more. I doubt that an electrical ozone generator would be easy to automatically control. Chlorine is cheap, and the backwashing filter takes it out.


If your casing is steel, it is unlikely to be cracked. I am glad to read that your casing extends above ground.

I am not a pro.
 
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