cloudy looking water?

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Johnny Turner

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So guys it rained a lot yesterday and I decided to dump the water I had in my 1550 gal tank and refill it .The water before was clear but after filling it today I noticed it looks cloudy any ideal what would cuase the spring water to look this way after a lot of rain??I have yet to test the water .
 

Johnny Turner

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Ok so just got home from work checked the tank again still seems cloudy looking but when I got a quart jar full looked clear in it .IDK I`m going to get the water tested and see what is in it .
 

Valveman

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It usually means rainwater is washing into the ground water supply. This is not good as it can also wash anything on the ground into the water supply.
 

Reach4

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Is there a chance that Johnny has a carbonated spring, or that his pump is aerating the water?

I wonder if a laser pointer through a glass jar could show low levels of particles or tiny bubbles. It may be over-sensitive, and that city water will show the beam too. It seems to me that small particles would clear up near the top of the jar first, and bubbles would clear up near the bottom of the jar first.
 
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Craigpump

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What he has is a spring that is influenced by surface water which means that like Valveman said, anything on the ground can and most likely will get washed into it. Cow manure, deer droppings, dog crap....

Just what I'd want to have running through the pipes in my house
 

LLigetfa

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So guys it rained a lot yesterday and I decided to dump the water I had in my 1550 gal tank and refill it ...

Just wondering what the connection to the rain is. My guess is you thought that with all the rain there would be lots of water so it to be a good time to dump and refill the tank.

If you pump a well long and hard, it can stir up a bit of sediment. It does not necessarily mean that you have fecal matter in the well. As the heavy draw lowers the cone of depression, it motivates fines that would otherwise stay put.

If I guessed wrong, boil the water and get it tested.
 

Johnny Turner

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this month I have filled the tank to the 250 gallon mark and was clear dumped that and filled to the 400 gallon mark and was clear then dumped it and filled to the 800 gallon mark and was clear that time as well.last time I filled it to the 1200 mark and was clear that time as well but when I emptied it this time and filled it the day after a good rain like I said looks cloudy in the tank but not in a jar.The other times I put it in like 3 days after a rain not the next day after a rain .I will send it to be tested soon and see what they find in it also would I boil it before the test? I would think I would send it as is.
 

Johnny Turner

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Boil to drink, not to test.

Why do you keep filling and dumping?

I filled and dumped it because I moved clay dirt or mud really under it for a base so I would fill it let it settle then dump it and move the tank and make sure I got any rocks or sharp objects I may have overlooked that might puncture the tank.Also I called the health department here and they don`t test the water here so I had to call a lady in Adair county she told me to take a sample with a container the health department would provide from the tank and bring it to here tomorrow and she would test for bacteria in the water and have the results back to me in 24 hours .I talked to another guy and he asked what I wanted to look for in the water and said it would be expensive to test for chemicals from farming . I doubt very much anything like that would be in the spring as it is located at the foot of this massive hill just behind me and their is no one locate on the hill .there is a farm to the left and right of the hill but in low laying areas below it.and they just run cattle and grow no crops close by .closest crops being raised is probably 8 miles on the opposite side of the hill with another hill between that .
 

Johnny Turner

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also I decided to be safe and make sure I remove the bad stuff in the water .So I will use a big blue 1 micron 20" X 4.5" whole house filter just before it enters the pside kick system then I will use an UV light rated at 12 GAL a min just after the pside kick system.Here is links to what I have ordered so far .

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Couldn`t post the links so I just made some images .So I hope this will be adequate to clean the water .
 
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Reach4

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I would put in 2 housing. The first could be a courser filter.

You need some silicone grease to lube up the O-ring(s). Never use petrolium jelly or other petrolium, because that swells the O-ring guaranteeing you cannot reuse. Even so, get some O-rings on order too, because if you ever go to change the filter element and the O-ring is bad, you are dead in the water until you get a new O-ring. You can remove an element, but you cannot go without an O-ring.... unless you build in bypassing valves. I put in combo Apollo unions+valves on each side of my filter assembly, but I did not put in a bypass. Also consider adding a boiler tap or two. They can be used to hold a pressure gauge, and they can be used to get water at a point in the system. Or your could just put in pressure gauges. That would let you easily measure pressure drop. Do not filter your outside taps if that is easy enough to implement.

I run a PENTEK-DGD-5005-20 followed by a PENTEK-WP1BB20P in my second and third housing. I left the first housing empty. I did not read your filter element description, but you should only use a polypropolyne filter-- not cellulose.

My 3 filters following my backwashing filters are more than I needed. . My filters looked almost new and new respectively after 13 months. I did not know what to expect, and I felt that overdoing it was OK. Knowing what I know now, I would have put in 2 housings following my backwashing filter.

You might try to leave room for a backwashing filter before the big blue filters in case they clog too quickly. A nice thing about Big Blue filters is that there are many different elements available. It/they may be all you need. Monitoring the filter loading will be a good measure of things.
 

Johnny Turner

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ok guys it's done I dropped the water sample off and she said she would call me tomorrow and tell me what's in the water and then send an email.
 

Johnny Turner

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Ok so I got the result back and she told me that it had 1 count of E.Coli and 38 counts of coliform bacteria .She said I would have to treat the water before bathing or consuming it .I told her I was going to use a UV light and 1 micron filter she said the UV light would take care of the E.coli but I should retest after I treat it.So what do you guys think ?She also said the 38 counts of coliform was from rot in the ground IDk if she ment something had died or what on that .
 

Johnny Turner

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I know I need to do something with the spring because when I cleaned it I seen a frog and 2 white craw fish and a salamander .Also I noticed even after I cleaned the hole out there is now mud and leaves back in it I assume from rain wash from around it.
 

Johnny Turner

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So do you guys have any opinions on the results she found?I read online that any body of water or pool has coliforms in it and that it was also in all wells.I talked to a city police officer lastnight that used to be a game warden and I asked him is he missed it and he said not the lake part that the tourist where let to do whatever they wanted .I told him once when I was fishing a boat stopped out from us in the middle and then got on a speaker and told us to enjoy our lunch and that the water turned into a big brown cloudy stain and he laugh and said that they all do it and that it was treated.when I asked him what he ment by treated he said it was liquid form and not solid turds floating around .I told him he has to be kidding that they should have laws in place that monitored the septic tanks on those boats and he said they just remove the safe guards and go around it all and dump it in the lake.And I said yeah and then they treat the water and send it to our taps he just laughed and said yep.
 

Reach4

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So do you guys have any opinions on the results she found?I read online that any body of water or pool has coliforms in it and that it was also in all wells.
Not in most wells. http://extension.psu.edu/natural-re...er/water-testing/pollutants/coliform-bacteria
Coliform bacteria are one of the most common water contamination problems in private water systems in Pennsylvania and throughout the United States. A 2006 survey of 450 private wells found coliform bacteria in approximately 35 percent and E. coli bacteria in about 15 percent of private wells.

Coliform bacteria are much more common in springs and shallow wells compared to deeper wells because bacteria are naturally filtered out by soil and rock as surface water infiltrates into the ground. Deeper wells (greater than 100 feet) can still be contaminated by coliform bacteria if they are improperly constructed by allowing surface water to flow along the well casing directly into the deep groundwater or if nearby land uses are causing contamination of deep groundwater.

The game warden story was weird.
 
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Johnny Turner

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Yes the wardens comments on how the tourist here at lake Cumberland where given free reign was kind of disturbing to me as well. But I beleave every word their is a holler around here somewhere where all the houseboats gather and they have huge party's after the lake levels where lower to fix wolf creek dam we had a very dry year they said in that holler was so much garbage it was unreal .also after seeing that boat dump raw sewage into the water myself and hearing him say they knew they where dumping liquid sewage into the water I knew it to be true .
The tourist industry is big money and big money runs this country always has and always will.I would say the water people drink everyday here from their taps has had far more e coli and other nasty's in it then that spring water ever will.Also I say the wardens comments but he is actually a city police officer now lol.
 
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