This can't be good... Water softener

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diggity

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So I was finally feeling pretty good about our new system:

Well ---> Soda ash injection ---> Katalox Light ---> Softener

Per my thread a few days ago, I got the pH back up to where it should be. It does seem as though Katalox lowers the pH, in my case by a point or more, but I compensated by increasing the feed rate.

My iron test kit finally arrived and showed zero iron at the kitchen sink. Woo hoo!

Then I decided to check the quality of the water between the KL system and the softener, and that's when my moment of joy ended. The water coming out of the KL system is black! I mean, really dark grey/green cloudy. THIS is the water I'm sending on to my softener? This can't be good...

Any idea why the KL system would turn the water grey/green? It seems like the KL system is not removing all the iron, either. The test kit showed it is around 5 ppm coming out of the KL. This is less of a surprise, as our water starts off at around 20 ppm. I always suspected that I might have to inject chlorine or peroxide ahead of the KL system and I'm prepared to do so if necessary.

But what's up with the blackish, slightly green water? Is this oxidized manganese? Any advice is appreciated!
 

ditttohead

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20 ppm should use injection. You are probably over running the capacity of the media. I would backwash it aggressively and add some chlorine to it to get it cleaned up.
 

diggity

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OK thanks - I ordered another Stenner pump. After I posted my question here, I had a chat with the company who sold me the KL system. They seem to agree that injecting an oxidant ahead of the KL is a good idea, but they were cautious that I shouldn't add too much of it. Apparently the target is an ORP reading of -170. So I can inject peroxide, but make sure not to bring the ORP greater than -170 because it could damage the KL. Interesting...
 

Reach4

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20 ppm should use injection. You are probably over running the capacity of the media. I would backwash it aggressively and add some chlorine to it to get it cleaned up.
Picture snipped from http://www.watchwater.com/katalox_light/katalox_light.php shows tanks in series for higher levels of iron.
img_3.jpg
Sounds like the oxygen would get depleted if no oxidizer was added.
 

ditttohead

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1-2 ppm of chlorine for every ppm of iron is acceptable. It will require some testing on your part to find the balance of chlorine/iron reduction. KL can easily remove 20 ppm of iron, in the ideal conditions. Inadequate DO or ORP will negatively affect the performance of any Manganese Dioxide based iron reduction treatment.

I am sure you could damage KL by overdosing, but so far, I have yet to see anyone do that. I have a lot of companies massively overdosing Chlorine (in my opinion) and so far... so good. Recently, I had a guy using KL for H2s reduction, the system got unplugged for 6 months. The water stopped flowing, but the h2s was still being removed until that point. When he backwashed the unit, it was like a sewage line, almost vomitous. He poured a few cups of bleach into the pre-filter ahead of the system, and he claims it is still just fine. I recommended he rebed the unit...

Point of the story, so far... KL has been one of the heartiest medias for iron reduction.
 

Reach4

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1-2 ppm of chlorine for every ppm of iron is acceptable. It will require some testing on your part to find the balance of chlorine/iron reduction.
Is that continuous, or during backwash? And if continuous, could that bleach be added to the soda ash tank sharing the same injection pump?
 

ditttohead

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Continuous,

Yes it can, no it shouldn't.

Get a second pump, this will allow for a much better control of both chemical injection systems. A lot of minor problems occur when mixing the 2. The ppm of chlorine injection is much lower than the soda ash, and sludge is common when mixing the two.
 

diggity

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Interesting information, thanks. While waiting for my 2nd Stenner pump to arrive, I obsessively observed the system all weekend, driving my family nuts running around testing this and that every time someone would use a drop of water.

Part of my problem is simply that it wasn't backwashing frequently enough. I had it set to backwash every 3 days, which was the default and sounded like a decent stab in the dark. Turns out the day after a backwash, the water coming out of the KL unit is pretty good (although it still has a green tint). Two days after the backwash it looks a little grey - three days after backwash it looks dark grey/green and pretty nasty. So for now I changed it to backwash every 2nd day. I don't know if adding peroxide will cause it to need to be backwashed more often or less...

... anyway, I have all the test kits so that I can monitor it pretty closely now. My ORP meter arrived over the weekend and (assuming it is calibrated correctly), it shows the raw water has an ORP of about -280, which, according to what they told me means that I definitely need to add an oxidant to get it up to -170.

Interestingly, the ORP at the kitchen sink is currently pretty close to zero. So, while the KL is apparently overloaded at the moment, it is still managing to add enough oxidizing power to raise the ORP to near neutral.

It's funny, all this work I'm putting into raising the ORP, then I read about Kangan water and all that and wonder if it's true what they say about negative ORP water being more healthy? Conversation for a different day perhaps...
 

diggity

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Yeah, I know, my snake oil alarms are going off, especially when I see the price of those water ionizers. But I wonder if there's anything to it, especially since my whole focus lately has been to RAISE the ORP of my water to remove iron. Certainly ORP is a real thing... measurable and easy to change. And certainly the body produces and is exposed to free radicals. So it makes sense that a low ORP water would in fact have some antioxidant value. Maybe the question is how much? Does drinking an 8-ounce glass of Kangan water equate to eating a bowl of blueberries, in terms of the number of free radicals it can zap? Or a hundred bowls of blueberries? Or one blueberry? Who knows...

Again, thinking about it in the context of water treatment, my untreated raw water has an ORP of around -280. Granted, it tastes disgusting, but does that negative ORP mean that our water might help us prevent cancer? And if I raise the ORP and lose that protection, can I compensate by, say, drinking a cup of green tea each day? Or a teaspoon of green tea? Or 20 gallons of green tea?

Yeah, I'm probably over-thinking this...
 

ditttohead

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Ummm, do to the excess of cease and disist letters that get sent anytime someone says anything negative about magic water machines...

Common sense needs to prevail sometimes, what would high levels of oxygen in the water do to the orp? Is oxygen bad for you? LOL
 

ditttohead

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Serious about the letters, the companies that push magic water have a lot of lawyers.

As to the oxygen... serious.

High oxygen levels do what to the ORP? Is oxygen in water bad for you?
 

diggity

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Well that's an interesting question and it seems like the answer is not very straightforward. Check this out:
http://www.vivo.colostate.edu/hbooks/pathphys/misc_topics/radicals.html

In the case of iron removal, anyway, I don't think the goal would ever be to add so much oxidant (be it chlorine, peroxide, ozone, or whatever) that it carries a residual. In other words, sure, it is important to carry residual oxidant (disinfectant) to all the fixtures in the house if we're talking about killing e-coli or other pathogens. But for iron removal, it would seem that adding so much oxidant that it carries a residual to the sink is just a waste of oxidant. Ideally, you'd use only what you need to zap all the iron, right?

So maybe the question is not so much what the water may have in it (extra oxygen), but what it DOESN'T have in it (antioxidant potential). So your water may not be unhealthy, but it is not explicitly healthy either. It sounds like that's what the ionizer people are saying.

It sounds somewhat plausible, but I'd just like to know how metabolically effective ionized water is, compared to foods that contain antioxidants like vitamins C and E. So is drinking a glass of ionized water the same as eating a lemon? Or just a drop of lemon juice? Or a hundred lemons?

Who knows... I guess I'll stop obsessing about it now. :)
 

Richard Cropper

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Paramedic here but the excess oxygen fight is kind of similar to us, there have been a lot of studies lately about hyperoxia and oxygen toxicity that it is bad for you. We used to be taught oxygen oxygen oxygen. Well now they are actually starting to teach that and Oxygen saturation in the blood of 94% to 99% is within normal limits and not to treat it unless there is an unstable airway. I don't know how this would transition over to the ORP but that is what we are being told now in the medical field.
 

ditttohead

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Effectiveness... the claims online are crazy with claims of never getting cancer, curing diabetes, etc. I get tired of the crazies coming up to me at trade shows telling me about how their life has been changed by their most recent miracle cure. I now have a drawer full of hydrogen releasing tablets a customer dropped off and asked me to put in my catalog.

And as stated before, "I read it on the internet, it must be true... :)"

Here is an interesting read.

http://drsircus.com/medicine/sodium-bicarbonate-baking-soda/alkalinity-ph-2

Oxygen toxicity is also a potential in deep diving.

LOL, Oxygen bars, Oxygen Chambers, Hydrogenated water... I think nature does a fine job without us trying to manipulate it.
 

ditttohead

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I compare it to voltage vs. amperage. You can use a coil to create very high voltage, but what can it actually power? Low voltage with lots of amperage available can turn your cars engine.
 

diggity

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It's funny how life comes full circle sometimes - I actually read Dr. Sircus' information on magnesium bicarbonate water some months ago, while researching a problem I'd been having with an internal fungus infection that was giving me eczema. Too much information, I know, sorry. Anyway, one of the home remedies for treating it is to eat a more alkalizing diet and drink mag bicarb water. It was at that point that I tested the water coming from our RO unit and found that the pH was super low. So (on a parallel track to fixing our iron water problems), I have been making mag bicarb water and adding it to our RO water for the past several months. It's really easy to make - all you need is a liter bottle of seltzer water and 3 tablespoons of pure milk-of-magnesia. My eczema is much better, but I can't credit it all to mag bicarb, as it has been only one part of my shotgun approach to the fungus, using every conceivable antifungal known to man. I don't know if I'll keep making mag bicarb or not - tea and coffee taste better with it, but it makes plain drinking water taste sweet, which I find a bit off-putting.
 
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