Modify Existing Iron Filter or Scrap and start from Scratch

[ktop]

Hi all - new to the site and new to water treatment. many thanks to all who post here.
Your information here is truelly helpful and informative.

Was hoping to get recommendations on new water treatment or modify existing setup.
Only the wife and I in a 3 bath house.

water analysis results from 3 weeks ago by lab at U of Ill. State Water Survey - attached(Raw, Treated).
Raw Water Key Points:
Iron 1.53 mg/L
Manganese 20.1 micro gr/L
Hardness 269 mg/L
pH 8.00
Turbidity 9.6 NTU
Color 7.1 PCU

I will apologize up front - may not be using correct terminology.Still getting up to speed.
I have a private well (300') that provides ~12gpm (per well doc's).
Grzzly 20G11 Submersible, on demand, no storage/pressure tank.

Current treatment system has been in Since 2008:
1 cu.ft. Iron Filter:
Filox/Metalease 9x48 Vortech Logix Performa Autotrol 263 set to backwash 14 min every 2 days at 9 gpm DLFC
1.5 cu.ft. Softener:
8% C100E 10x54 Vortech Logix Performa Autotrol 268 on demand set to 9lbs/cuft salt and 20 gpg
treat the softener with Resup/rescare regularly.
(I rebedded softener resin this last weekend, changed top basket, cleaned out tank & valve a bit(screens,ports).

Main issues are:
discolored water - slight clear green tint(only noticable when filling tub, white bucket)
This color exists at well, after iron filter and after softener filter but not on RO.
Iron taste - rare (when I forget to use resup/rescare in brine tank for a time).
Iron Bacteria - Toilet tank slime needs to be cleaned/bleached regularly.
I shock the well/house 1-2x per year
Other than that the water is quite good.


Seems the Filox/Metalease is slippin some of the iron thru.
Getting approx .3 mg/L of Iron (test strip) after iron filter but before softener (not sure if thats normal).
The softener is pickin up the iron load
I bumped up the GPG on the softener by 4gpg and treat with resup/rescare.
I was considering rebed of Iron filter with Katalox Light and a new internal DLFC of 5 gpm (maybe 7 gpm external DLFC)
Would this bring down the iron considerably to take the load of the softener?


Would a whole house carbon filter "polish" the water a bit after the softener to get rid of color?
Or maybe I should scrap the current Iron Filter and go with another option?
(GAC/Chlorine feed or other to deal with color & IRB?)
Sorry for the long post just tryin to get all the bits of info out there.

Any suggestions/Recommendations would be much appreciated.

 

[Reach4]

I would sanitize my well and whole plumbing system. The first line of https://terrylove.com/forums/index....izing-extra-attention-to-4-inch-casing.65845/ has a link to a nice sanitizing article, but then I go into my possibly-overkill extension. I would keep the softener in bypass most of the time when the heavy chlorine is present, but I would let the chlorine into the softener once the level is down... maybe 10 ppm.

I suggest that you change the Filox backwash to every day. I have never used that, but I read that daily is good with that media. Your backwash rate seems pretty high with your 15C backwash water. I understand that is heavy media. I hope it did not all wash out.

It would be very unusual to have no pressure tank. Don't you have a tank near your pressure switch?

 

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[ktop]

The sanitation procedure is a doozy but seems like it would be very effective.
I will give it a go..
Do you believe IRB can be controlled if this is done regularly? How often?
Wonder if thats the source of the green tint

I was told the well is a continuous pressure system - no tank.
there is a fairly good sized electric controller box on the wall connected to an inline pressure switch
(tapped on the pipe coming from the wall/well)
that regulates the pump. there is no storage or pressure tank.

I believe they set backwash to 3 days (I guess since there was only 2 of us at <150 gal /day total)
I have run it daily, every other and then 3 day and tested the iron levels after the filter.
there does not seem to be any change between day 1 or day 3.
i went ahead and set it back to daily

Hope I still have media in there
I do not notice any media in the sump after backwash
The 9 gpm DLFC came with the unit (definitely moving some water during backwash).

 

[Reach4]

The sanitation procedure is a doozy but seems like it would be very effective.
I will give it a go..
Do you believe IRB can be controlled if this is done regularly? How often?
Wonder if thats the source of the green tint

I am not a pro. I have an iron+sulfur backwashing filter that does not use Filox or other manganese media.

Usually green is associated with copper or algae.

Regarding how long the sanitizing lasts, as I see it, if the IRB is everywhere in the aquifer, I guess it would not be long. If the IRB was just in the casing and the area fairly near the well, it could last a really long time.

If you have a 5 inch or bigger casing, you can drop pellets made for the purpose to the bottom of the casing. In that case, a smaller flooding volume would be OK. The first time I did the sanitizing, I used a couple of drum liners in a garbage can to give about 32 gallons of flooding volume. Then I thought about the fact that I had to displace all of the water below my 3.75 inch pump in my 4 inch steel casing. So I went to a much larger flooding volume.

 

[ktop]

its a 5" inch casing. I drop food grade pellets (70%sodium hypochlorate )regularly (once a month)
and do a shortened version shock 1-2 times per year with pellets and liquid chlorine
Every home in the area has the same issue - maybe an aquifer thing?

Could a carbon filter have any effect on color (whether it be copper or algae)?
Copper levels in the water analysis seemed low but not sure how much it would take to discolor water?
Was hoping there maybe an option to deal with the color as well as the iron.

or add a carbon filter after the softener. But not sure that would help?

 

[ditttohead]

actually I would recommend backwashing that media at 11 gpm rather than the current 9. It is unlikely you could lift that media out even if you tried.

Replace it with KL, simple and effective. Your current tank and valve are excellent. I would recommend a 7 gpm backwash rate but... temperature compensation is important.

After the rebed, do regular iron testing for a while and see what happens. If it becomes necessary, a simple Stenner pump for chlorine injection does wonders for KL.

 

[ktop]

Thanks Dittohead.
I was originally leaning towards KL as it sounds like I could reduce backwash rate and frequency ( maybe reduce iron further before softener)
Not familiar with Stenner pumps or injection.
would that just inject somewhere upstream from Iron filter? Tap on pipe?
Do not have a whole lot of pipe real estate before the iron filter (maybe 4 or 5 feet of pipe before the wall)
Is that controlled by flow or is there wiring involved to well pump controller?
need to read up some.

I have also heard one can "regenerate" filox or KL - I am guessing the valve would need some modification though?

 

[ktop]

Water temp on backwash is like reach4 mentioned - somewhere between 15-20c.
readings with "not so great" thermometer were 18c
If using KL in 9x48 vortech would a 5gpm DLFC be sufficient at these temps?
If 7gpm needed - I believe I would have to go with an "external" DLFC for this valve?

 

[Bannerman]

Here's a link to the Stenner Pump site, specifically their flow switch page. This type of switch would activate the chlorine injection pump only when water is flowing.
http://stenner.com/products/accessories/flow-switch

 

[Reach4]

Here's a link to the Stenner Pump site, specifically their flow switch page. This type of switch would activate the chlorine injection pump only when water is flowing.
http://stenner.com/products/accessories/flow-switch

That injection control method seems to have the disadvantage that you would get the same injection rate using 2 GPM as you do at 6 GPM. At 1 GPM, there would be no injection, although at 1 GPM the iron media may need no oxidizing help. http://www.cleanwaterstore.com/reso...e-chlorination-systems-for-well-spring-water/ shows some configurations where the injection serves as a more primary means of iron control. But it seems to me that injection after the pressure tank should still have a proportional injection.

 

[Bannerman]

A flow switch is a simple control method.

A more complex method of chlorine control would be a water meter controlling a proportional injection pump:
http://stenner.com/products/accessories/water-meter

Regardless of the control method, if chlorine is used, a carbon filter should be utilized to remove any residual chlorine before the softener.

It appears there is no pressure tank installed.

 

[Reach4]

Here are numbers from extrapolating and interpolating the graph on http://watchwater.de/katalox_light/documents/KL_Brochure_NEW_ver_1.1.pdf
I put 14C (which I measure for my backwash temperature) for the last entry, but I could have put any temperature within range.

 

[ktop]

Thanks All.
Reach4 - cool Chart!

Could I inject Chlorine upstream of the KL filter without GAC just to help with oxidation.
Would the KL pull the residual chlorine out?

if I end up injecting chlorine - thought I may need contact tank and GAC
Sounds like that would be a total different direction ( may not need KL at all?)

 

[ditttohead]

Controlled injection with the Stenner is the best method. We are using the new S Series by Stenner with our stocked and common hall effect meters. This is very similar to a 4-20 ma design. By injecting the correct amount of chlorine, you should have virtually no residual. The pumps are very simple to program.

 

[ktop]

Update:

Swapped the filox for Katalox Light as recommended by the good folks here.
Still have the pesky "slight green tint" in water - Not too bad though but noticeable.
This one has me stumped.
Water test after 1.0 cu ft Katalox now shows "0.00" using test strips ---- WooooHooooo
Looks like the Katalox is pretty much completely eradicating the 1.54 mg/l iron.
Currently running the 9x48 Logix Vortec with a 5.3 gpm internal DLFC.
Also purchased the 7 GPM external DLFC incase I want/need to bump it up.

Thanks to all for your comments and suggestions!


Any other suggestions on the green tint would be much appreciated but I may just end up living with this one.

Thanks again

 

[ktop]

one other question:
Noticed the Logix Autotrol 263 on the existing iron filter setup did not have a top basket/screen.
I added the top basket/screen ( I already purchased figuring I would replace while I had it opened up).

Was that a mistake?
Should the iron filter top basket/screen be removed?

 

[ChadWright]

Update:

Swapped the filox for Katalox Light as recommended by the good folks here.
Still have the pesky "slight green tint" in water - Not too bad though but noticeable.
This one has me stumped.
Water test after 1.0 cu ft Katalox now shows "0.00" using test strips ---- WooooHooooo
Looks like the Katalox is pretty much completely eradicating the 1.54 mg/l iron.
Currently running the 9x48 Logix Vortec with a 5.3 gpm internal DLFC.
Also purchased the 7 GPM external DLFC incase I want/need to bump it up.

Thanks to all for your comments and suggestions!


Any other suggestions on the green tint would be much appreciated but I may just end up living with this one.

Thanks again

Have you had the water tested for Tannins? Im in illinois as well and i battle iron by using Katalox and i still have a greenish tint to my water if in a tub or a white bucket...Neighbor had the same thing and added a tannin media to his softener and now has crystal clear water..

 

[Reach4]

Have you had the water tested for Tannins? Im in illinois as well and i battle iron by using Katalox and i still have a greenish tint to my water if in a tub or a white bucket...Neighbor had the same thing and added a tannin media to his softener and now has crystal clear water..

I read about yellow and brown from tannin, but not green. But if tannin media works for the neighbor, that is quite interesting.

 

[ktop]

Thanks ChadWright. Sounds like we live on the same water
Same exact problem - water tastes good and looks ok - until the tub is filled or white bucket.

Any idea how much tannin resin they added?
I have read on some sites that it only requires a few inches.
I also read that tannin/anion resin sitting ontop of regular resin could (most likely will) develop amines (fish stink)
I just replaced my Filox with KL and now am dealing with stinky water.
Are you experiencing any odor from your KL?

Reach - I agree. I have seen references to yellow and brown. My water analysis above did not test for tannin and the other levels which may cause discoloration seem ok.
Gonna look into a tannin test - I guess the only way to tell.
I tried the "let it sit in a bucket and settle test" for tannins but never see any change

 

[ditttohead]

This thread is 4 years old... lol.