No soft water on Tank 2 of 2 tank system.

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Oldschoolrogue

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System is Fleck 9100SXT Twin Tank 64K Capacity

I recently installed this system and have managed to program it to my liking! However, it only makes soft water on Tank 1. When it switches to Tank 2, my hardness returns to the untreated level. I have regenerated it several times making sure there was brine in the tank and verified it was drawing properly. I have repeatedly manually switched it back to Tank 1 and verified 0 hardness. I purchased this system from an online store with the resin tanks prefilled. My thought is possibly Tank 2 has no resin, only gravel or that there is an obstruction in the valve preventing the brine from reaching the resin. Again, the system is working perfectly except for the lack of soft water on Tank 2 only. Any thoughts or previous experiences would be greatly appreciated.
 

Gary Slusser

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You may want to check the programing per the manual. I doubt you would have missed the lack of 50 lbs per cuft of resin in a tank.

More likely is a missing o-ring in the tank adapter that seals against the outside of the distributor tube or.... a cracked/broken distributor tube allowing water to enter and exit the tank without it going down through the resin when the tank is in Service.

There may be something wrong with one of the pistons or their seals also. You should speak wit the place you bought the softener from. And if they aren't helpful, tell us who they are and help others so they don't buy from them.
 

Oldschoolrogue

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Thank You Gary, that may be helpful. I'll look at the distributor tube and o ring.
I wasn't sure how much the resin weighed that's why I thought I may have an empty tank! They were both equally heavy so that's probably not it! This unit set in my pole barn disassembled for about a year. As far as programming, I did use the manual, then I adjusted some settings based upon some of your posts on this forum and your website.
 

Oldschoolrogue

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image.jpg

Found the distributor adapter disconnected from the tank adapter and laying in the bottom of the turbulator. I'll regenerate after dinner and update. Thanks Gary for pointing me in the right direction!
 

Gary Slusser

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In your picture you have the tank adapter, the pilot and a top basket, no Turbulator.

I suspect that you put the pilot in and the top basket and did a regeneration and still no joy. If the resin is exhausted of its capacity, and it should be since it hasn't regenerated lately, you need to regenerate it with 15 lbs of salt per cuft of resin and then do it again (with a regular softener you would do them with no water use during or between the two regenerations, but you have a twin tank and can get softened water while one tank is in regeneration). That will get the resin back to 30K per cuft. So change the brine refill to 15 lbs per cuft, do the regenerqtions and set the refill back to what you had before.

Then if no soft water from tank 2, there is something else wrong.
 

Oldschoolrogue

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I regenerated twice and same result. I took the tank adapter apart again to see if it had separated again and sure enough it was in the bottom of the basket! I found a crack on one of the locks of the tank adapter. I snapped the pilot back into the adapter and using a spring scale tried pulling it out. It separated at less than 10 lbs. Water pressure must be pushing it out. I will order a new adapter and pilot in the morning.
 

Reach4

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I regenerated twice and same result. I took the tank adapter apart again to see if it had separated again and sure enough it was in the bottom of the basket! I found a crack on one of the locks of the tank adapter. I snapped the pilot back into the adapter and using a spring scale tried pulling it out. It separated at less than 10 lbs. Water pressure must be pushing it out. I will order a new adapter and pilot in the morning.
I may have the wrong idea about how these things go together, but wouldn't the diptube atop the bottom basket press upward, holding everything in place once the tank adapter is screwed into place? I would think that would all be in compression before water pressure would arrive. Could it be your dip tube is too short?
huge3.png Is this how your top basket and adapter go together? Or is your adapter below the basket with the smaller diameter down, which I was thinking originally?
 
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Oldschoolrogue

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I may have the wrong idea about how these things go together, but wouldn't the diptube atop the bottom basket press upward, holding everything in place once the tank adapter is screwed into place? I would think that would all be in compression before water pressure would arrive. Could it be your dip tube is too short?
View attachment 23540 Is this how your top basket and adapter go together?


The pilot/adapter is held in place on the tank adapter by 3 plastic locks, the basket then screws onto the tank adapter. The dip tube then slides into the pilot which has the o ring. Your pic is correct but there is a space between the basket and pilot, it is not held in compression.
 
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Gary Slusser

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The distributor tube should never make contact (bottom out) into the hole it is received into in the valve or tank adapter.

If it does it will deform (to crack, break later), crack, break right then as the valve or tank adapter is screwed down. either the tube itself or more likely the bottom basket. There should never be any stress (or compression) on a distributor tube or the bottom basket.

Each control valve manufacturer states the max/min measurement based on the top of the tank the valve etc. is installed on. I.E. Fleck allows a variance of 1/2" below to a 1/2" above flush, Clack is flush (+/- a 1/4" or 1/2", I can't recall), Autotrol is no variance, IIRC 1.25" above. I don't recall the big box brand measurement but IIRC it is flush.

A broken DT or bottom basket can dump resin, resin and gravel into the valve and plumbing, a real mess to correct and usually expensive parts may have to be replaced; such as toilet, sink and washing machine valves.
 

Reach4

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Ahh... So the adapter gets locked in place to the controller housing, as does the top basket, and it is chosen to match the diameter of the chosen distributor tube. I suppose there are 2 O-rings for the adapter, which stop water from going around the adapter. One of those O-rings would, I presume, be around the distributor tube to block that leakage path. The adapter was found to have fallen maybe a couple inches into the top distributor basket. I was thinking the adapter had ended up at the bottom of the tank because that is where a turbulator would have been.

Interesting stuff.
 

Oldschoolrogue

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Ahh... So the adapter gets locked in place to the controller housing, as does the top basket, and it is chosen to match the diameter of the chosen distributor tube. I suppose there are 2 O-rings for the adapter, which stop water from going around the adapter. One of those O-rings would, I presume, be around the distributor tube to block that leakage path. The adapter was found to have fallen maybe a couple inches into the top distributor basket. I was thinking the adapter had ended up at the bottom of the tank because that is where a turbulator would have been.



Interesting stuff.

Exactly!!! I mistakenly referred to my basket as a turbulator in the original post, my bad.
 

Gary Slusser

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But then with a Turbulator, you don't use a top basket, they have a 'deflector' for the lack of a better word, and it goes on the DT at a certain height (maybe 1.5" to 2") to allow it to catch resin as it is thrown up toward the top of the tank during a regeneration, so it doesn't get out of the resin tank. The part also breaks up the inlet stream of water and spreads it out toward the side of the tank. The part is sloped down just a bit and has a solid edge going down about a 1/4" and the top has slits in it like a top or bottom basket.
 

Oldschoolrogue

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:eek:
Got home from work shortly after midnight and found new parts on the porch! So I installed the new tank adaptor and pilot, manually regenerated tank 2, put tank 2 back in service and ran for a while to flush the pipes(my well and softener are about 100 feet from the house). TA-DA.... 0 hardness! I now have soft water on both tanks! Thank You again, Gary, for pointing me in the right direction. Problem solved!
 
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