Softener. Iron has (almost) defeated me...

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diggity

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Sorry for the long post here, but I have to get this off my chest, and maybe this will be a breadcrumb trail for anyone else with horrible problems with iron in water like we have. Some of you have been kind enough to offer me some really good advice on some of my previous posts, and for that I am grateful. I have definitely learned some things about my water, but unfortunately, despite all the money spent and time and mental energy put into it over the past few months, I have to admit that our water is really no better than when I started.

To recap, we have over 20 ppm of iron, TDS well over 1000, pH around 5.25, and 50 grains of hardness. Our big softener system did a reasonable job of cleaning it up over the past decade, but we've always had iron breakthrough and staining. So a few months ago I went on a crusade to fix it once and for all.

Step 1: Rebed our old calcite filter with new calcite. This did virtually nothing to raise the pH.

Step 2: Install soda ash injection system. This did indeed raise the pH, and seemed to improve overall water quality (taste, odor), but we still got iron breakthrough.

Step 3: Install Katalox Light system in front of softener. I also installed a spigot just before the softener, to monitor the quality of the water as it goes into the softener. My goal all along has been to get the iron down to zero or near zero BEFORE it gets to the softener, so as to prolong the life of the softener and its media. Unfortunately, it quickly became evident that the 2 cuft KL system was not up to the task, as monitoring revealed there was still a huge amount of iron hitting the softener. There was also apparently some sort of other oxidized mineral (manganese?) coming out of the KL, because the water was green. Green when you first pour it out, then orange if it sat in a bucket for an hour. Horrible stuff to be sending on to my poor old softener.

Step 4: Install peroxide injection system. So at this point we're injecting both soda ash and peroxide with 2 Stenner pumps as soon as it enters the home. Then contact tank and on to the KL and eventually the softener. Unfortunately, this did not help at all... all it did was oxidize more ferrous iron to ferric, such that the water going into the softener was now orange as soon as it was poured.

Step 5: Install Catalytic Carbon filter to remove oxidized iron. Let's just say this was my mistake. Catalytic carbon is not a good media for removing sediment.

Step 6: Rebed carbon filter with Chemsorb media. OK, now we're getting somewhere. The Chemsorb does a much better job of removing oxidized iron. However, there is STILL a substantial amount of iron going into the softener. If I fill a bucket it will be slightly orange, and darker orange a few hours later.

Step 7: Adjust feed rates of soda ash and peroxide. Strangely enough, it seems like the soda ash is counter productive at this point, so I have turned that Stenner pump off at the moment. With it on, the water going into the softener looked even worse. I have no idea why, because I had thought that raising the pH was an important pre-treatment before any kind of oxidizing filter. So this makes no sense. I have cranked up the peroxide injector so that I am now using about a gallon of 7% peroxide per week, which seems like a lot to me. Injecting this much peroxide seems to help, but it is not helping enough, because there is STILL iron going into the softener.

Meanwhile, months have now elapsed and I shudder to think what all this experimentation with the incoming water has done to the softener. :-(

Every morning I fill a bucket of water for the chickens. This has been a good opportunity to monitor water quality, as I've been giving them the water from the monitoring spigot described above... chickens don't care about iron. So I get to observe changes in water quality at the same time every day. A few days ago, I decided to do a little experiment. I filled a 35 gallon trash can with raw water (no treatment of any kind). I had an old 1 cuft tank and flow-through head laying around which I could use as a crude filter. I also had an old fish pond pump lying around, so I had the makings of a very primitive water treatment system. The media I used is literally sand and dirt which I scraped up from the driveway. I swept and shoveled up about a half cu.ft. of it and dumped it in the old tank. Managed to find the appropriate fittings and hooked it up to the fish pond pump. Now you'd have to see the water in the 35 gallon trash can - I should have taken a picture. Although it comes out of the well crystal clear, after sitting overnight, it is absolutely horrific. It is the color of chocolate milk with big particles of rust and Heaven knows what else floating around. But guess what... after it goes through my hillbilly driveway sand filter, it looks really good! When I first turned the pump on and started using the filter, it blew chunks for a while, and I had to do a manual "backwash" by swapping the hoses around and dumping out the soupy effluent. But after that it settled down and it does a surprisingly good job filtering out the rust. I took a sample this morning and tested the water. Although it looks crystal clear, the total iron is still at 3 or 4 ppm - I assume this is from very fine rust particles that the driveway sand can't remove (because, let's face it... it is driveway sand!). Remember, this is down from 20+ppm in the raw water. pH actually came up a little, going from 5.25 to around 6. I assume this is because the water now has some CO2 in it, so there might be a little bit of carbonate buffering going on? And the TDS went down... The TDS from my hillbilly treatment system is about 1150, whereas the TDS coming from my main household treatment system... the one I have spent so much time and money on... is 1300. So at this point, by some measures, the chickens are now drinking better water than I am! (we actually have an RO at the sink, so not really, but you get my point)

So where on Earth does this leave me? A few observations:

1) I have to give my old softener credit, because, while it never removed 100% of the iron, it did in fact remove MOST of it. Which is a Herculean feat, as I have found out. I imagine it did so well because the incoming water was so low in pH and because all the incoming iron was ferrous.

2) My water apparently wants to be surface water. There seems to be no substitute for good old air when it comes to oxidizing. At the rate that we're currently using peroxide, I'll be spending $40 per month on peroxide. Air is free. And if my guess is right, exposure to air also helps moderate the pH somewhat via carbonate buffering.

So I'm thinking maybe my next step is to do one (or both) of the following:

1) Re-plumb the system so that the softener is FIRST, not last. I know this goes against conventional wisdom, which says that you should put iron treatment before softening. But that just doesn't seem to work with extreme water like ours. If the softener can remove, say, 80% of the iron through ion exchange, then I'm happy to let it do so. Maybe putting the KL system after the softener will remove whatever is left.

2) Install an atmospheric storage tank. I've been Googling around and it seems there are a few different ways to do this, so if anybody has experience with atmospheric storage tanks, I'm all ears. The goal would be to not flood the basement. I could put a high volume aquarium pump in the tank to make sure that plenty of air gets circulated. And the Grundfos MQ pumps look like a decent option for re-pressurization.

We have thought many times about drilling a new well, but we just can't afford it, especially when success is not guaranteed. Our neighbors all have better water than ours, but none of them have perfect water. Everyone has a softener at minimum and everyone gets at least a little bit of iron staining. Ours is the worst, by far, but nobody has perfect water, so even if we did drill a new well and the water was somewhat better, we'd still probably need some form of treatment.

<sigh> What to do, what to do?

Anyway, sorry for the extremely long post. I just had to vent.
 

ditttohead

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Atmospheric tanks can be very beneficial but some problems will occur but can easily be dealt with.
1: A simple sprayball on the inlet to aerate the water. Typically the more aeration the better. You can make your own sprayball or they are readily available at many dealers. I prefer Mcmaster.com.
3377kp1l.png

http://www.mcmaster.com/#spray-balls/=11grdfk

Conical bottom tanks. not flat bottoms are preferred. They are much easier to sanitize, clean, maintain etc but they will require more space for the volume they provide. http://www.tank-depot.com/product.aspx?id=333
TOTALDRAIN-180.jpg


The tank is going to likely get nasty. A good pool brush and a large opening are helpful to clean the tank. Also a full port drain valve at the bottom of the tank. Larger tanks are better. We have seen 2-3 foot long stalactites of iron, goo etc hanging from the tops of atmospheric tanks. This is a good indicator that they are working.

As has been said before by the pros on this site, no single solution works every time and every place for any water treatment method. Catalox Light is an amazing media, as are all the other medias and treatment methods you mentioned, none are absolutes. It may be time to start experimenting a little.

Switch from Hydrogen peroxide to bleach. You will need to get the ppm of bleach well above the ppm of iron. Are there any other competing elements? Manganese, bacteria, etc? See what happens. At worst you will have wasted a couple gallons of bleach.
 

diggity

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Smooky, yep, that's all it is - a sand filter. Or as I like to call it, a Hillbilly Sand filter! ;-)

Bannerman, thanks for the info on tanks. I was not familiar with the conical bottomed ones, but I can see the wisdom in that. Do they typically have a valve at the bottom, so that you can periodically flush out whatever settles there? Also, what would you recommend for a float valve? From what I can see, there are mechanical ones, which seem to operate just like a toilet float, and electric ones that would actually trip an switch to call for more water. I was thinking of going the mechanical route, since I already have a pressure tank. So in other words:

Well --> pressure tank --> softener --> soda ash injection --> atmospheric tank (with mechanical float valve) --> sediment filter.

Could possibly even put the KL after the sediment filter if there is still iron that needs to be removed.

Thanks so much!
 

Bannerman

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Bannerman, thanks for the info on tanks.
That was Dittohead.

I think water would flow from the well to the atmospheric tank first. Another pump would then pump from the atmospheric tank to the pressure tank to provide your house plumbing pressure. As such, a float in the atmospheric tank would control the well pump whereas the existing pressure switch would control the new pump.

I expect the softener will remain the final treatment device.

I'm sure Dittohead will clarify.
 
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ditttohead

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The conical bottoms usually have an outlet at the conical bottom. Depending on how you want to do your system, some people use the bottom as an easy flush spot and allow the crud to collect in the bottom, and use a bulkhead on the side of the tank for the water outlet. Others use the conical bottom tanks as a large contact tank and a place to aerate the water, the stuff that falls out then exits the tank and goes to the filtration. It is one of those things you will have to decide on if you are going to DIY. Both ways have their pluses and minuses.
 

diggity

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Thanks Dittohead - do you have any experiences with float valves like this one? http://www.freedrinkingwater.com/tank-float-valve.htm

It looks simple and easy to install, but I'd just wonder how reliable it would be, especially once it sits in our nasty water for a few months.

Looks like the alternative would be one that sends an electric signal to shut off the well pump (thus replacing the pressure tank and switch): http://appliedmembranes.com/tank-level-control-float-switches-and-float-trees.html
 

diggity

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Gotcha on that. I'm just wondering about the float switch. The one which would tell the well pump to come on or off. Seems to me the float switch would have to be super reliable because if some day it fails to turn the incoming water off, you could easily overfill the storage tank and flood the basement.
 

Reach4

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Seems to me the float switch would have to be super reliable because if some day it fails to turn the incoming water off, you could easily overfill the storage tank and flood the basement.
Maybe put two in series?
 

diggity

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Reach4, two in series might be a good idea for other reasons - namely, because I don't think I could fit a single giant tank through the basement door. But how would 2 tanks prevent overflow?
 

Bannerman

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I think Reach4 was referring to two float switches wired in series. If one is mounted lower in the tank as the usual control for the pump, then the upper float switch would act as a safety if the lower switch ever failed to operate.
 
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diggity

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Oh wow, I'm really in space this morning! I think I need to go back to bed.
Thanks for clarifying - I should have realized... two switches in series makes perfect sense and sounds like a really good idea.
 

diggity

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Yeah, I was looking at those yesterday. They seem like a pretty good solution and reasonably affordable too. I assume to mount a float valve on the sidewall you'd have to drill through the tank and then seal the screw holes up with silicon or something. Or figure out a way to suspend the float valve from the top.

At some point if I decide to go this route I'd have to figure out what size tank I need. I just did an online water usage estimator and came up with about 275 gallons per day for our family. It's kind of shocking that we use this much water, but I don't disbelieve it. Anyway, I don't know how long the contact time should be. Based on observation, it appears that 12 hours or so is sufficient to oxidize most of the iron in a 5 gallon bucket (or my 35 gallon trash can). But that's just based on appearance - it goes from clear to chocolate milk in 12 hours or less. I don't know what percentage of it may still remain unoxidized or what the rate would be or anything like that. I know it would also depend on surface area, temperature, and whether or not I'd use an air pump to bubble some air through the tank.

I think this weekend I'm going to re-plumb what I've got now, with the goal of putting the softener first instead of last. So well --> pressure tank --> softener --> KL --> sediment filter

I'll observe and test and see where this leaves me. The only bummer part is that I won't be able to use either of the Stenner pumps because I'd have to put them after the softener, which means they'd be after the pressure tank too. I assume inserting them after the pressure tank would be a bad idea unless I use a flow switch, which I don't have at the moment. So I won't be able to correct the pH because I won't be able to use my soda ash injector. Bummer, but I can live with it for now. My primary goal is to be victorious over that darned iron.

Thanks as always for the comments and suggestions!
 

Bannerman

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The sprayball inlet which Dittohead suggested, would aerate the water directly as it enters the atmospheric tank, thereby hastening the aeration process and at least potentially reducing the tank size required and the amount of aeration needed by an air pump.

I consider the main purpose of the atmospheric tank is to provide initial oxidation so that a substantial amount of iron, manganese etc, is reduced so that your other equipment is no longer overwhelmed when removing the remaining amounts.

I believe it would be a mistake to again expose the softener to iron fouling by placing it as the initial treatment device.
 

diggity

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Yeah, I know, but I think I've got to try it. My stubborn water seems to defy logic. Right now, even with using a gallon per week of 7% peroxide, plus a trip through the KL filter and sediment filter, I'm still sending orange water on to the softener. That can't be good for the media, right?
 

Bannerman

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I'm still sending orange water on to the softener. That can't be good for the media, right?
With no pre-treatment, iron entering the softener will be un-oxidized and therefore remain clear (ferrous). That ferrous iron is removed in the softener by adhering to the softener's resin beads, coating them while impairing their ability to remove hardness ions from the water. That is not exactly good for the media either.
 
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