added a chlorinator and my micron filter is solid orange

Why is so much iron making it to my in-line filter

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Lee Ann Henneke

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No knowledge or experience with a water well....We just bought a house with 15 yr old well that had a 15 yr old Rainsoft system. The Rainsoft has not been maintained so we removed it. Our water has zero hardness and the iron was 1.5 ppm so we added a chlorinator, contact tank & an in-line Micron carbon filter. My problem is the filter is completely covered in iron after a day, what am I doing wrong?
 

ThirdGenPump

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You have a high level of iron. Most of it was dissolved iron until you added chlorine which causes it to oxidize. Dissolved iron is best removed by a water softener. If you choose to oxidize the iron as a method of removal you need a filter capable of handling larger amounts of physical particles. A carbon filter is not meant to handle large amounts of particles so plugs up quickly.

There is a separate water softening/treatment forum which may be able to better assist you.
 

Lee Ann Henneke

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You have a high level of iron. Most of it was dissolved iron until you added chlorine which causes it to oxidize. Dissolved iron is best removed by a water softener. If you choose to oxidize the iron as a method of removal you need a filter capable of handling larger amounts of physical particles. A carbon filter is not meant to handle large amounts of particles so plugs up quickly.

There is a separate water softening/treatment forum which may be able to better assist you.
I thought 1.5 was a low iron level?
 

Lee Ann Henneke

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You have a high level of iron. Most of it was dissolved iron until you added chlorine which causes it to oxidize. Dissolved iron is best removed by a water softener. If you choose to oxidize the iron as a method of removal you need a filter capable of handling larger amounts of physical particles. A carbon filter is not meant to handle large amounts of particles so plugs up quickly.

There is a separate water softening/treatment forum which may be able to better assist you.
I have zero hardness so there is no softener only chlorinator to help remove the iron.
 

Reach4

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No it’s 4.24 x 9.75

Typically where you are trying to remove chlorine after injecting it for rust etc removal, you would use a backwashing carbon filter. This might be 54x10 or even bigger.

Does your contact tank have a blowdown port? Maybe you need to blow out the sediment more frequently.

Edit: what is your contact tank (make and model)?
 

ThirdGenPump

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I have zero hardness so there is no softener only chlorinator to help remove the iron.
Chlorine doesn't remove iron, it oxidizes it. Once it's oxidized it still needs to be physically filtered. So if you are going to use chlorine you also need a filter with the capacity to filter the iron, a carbon filter doesn't have enough capacity.

A water softener in addition to softening water also removes dissolved iron, hardness in my area is usually very low but softners are still used extensively to remove iron.
 

Lee Ann Henneke

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Typically where you are trying to remove chlorine after injecting it for rust etc removal, you would use a backwashing carbon filter. This might be 54x10 or even bigger.

Does your contact tank have a blowdown port? Maybe you need to blow out the sediment more frequently.

Edit: what is your contact tank (make and model)?
Yes we flush the tank
 

Lee Ann Henneke

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Typically where you are trying to remove chlorine after injecting it for rust etc removal, you would use a backwashing carbon filter. This might be 54x10 or even bigger.

Does your contact tank have a blowdown port? Maybe you need to blow out the sediment more frequently.

Edit: what is your contact tank (make and model)?
So do we need a another filter or bigger filter?
 

Reach4

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So do we need a another filter or bigger filter?

For the sediment that is clearly not all settling out inside the contact tank, you would want a bigger filter. A pleated 4.5 x 20 maybe 5 micron in a Pentair Big Blue housing might be good. I think you will want to remove chlorine too. Is the existing filter big enough for that? I have my doubts. Is that carbon filter a block filter? Those have a lot of backpressure.

Keep a spare o-ring for your filters. If an o-ring won't go back in, your water system would be down without a spare o-ring.

You shoud get some low-range free chorine paper so that you can measure the residual chlorine.
 

Lee Ann Henneke

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For the sediment that is clearly not all settling out inside the contact tank, you would want a bigger filter. A pleated 4.5 x 20 maybe 5 micron in a Pentair Big Blue housing might be good. I think you will want to remove chlorine too. Is the existing filter big enough for that? I have my doubts. Is that carbon filter a block filter? Those have a lot of backpressure.

Keep a spare o-ring for your filters. If an o-ring won't go back in, your water system would be down without a spare o-ring.

You shoud get some low-range free chorine paper so that you can measure the residual chlorine.
I have 4.5x10 to remove the chlorine but it is filling up with iron
 

MichaelSK

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Lee Ann, I agree with Reach4, consider installing a suitably sized backwashing activated carbon filter. This AC filter would remove the chlorine and precipitated oxidized iron. Unlike ThirdGenPump, I would not recommend a water softener with a strong acid cation resin to remove any form of iron - there are better solutions - more targeted solutions.
 

Lee Ann Henneke

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Lee Ann, I agree with Reach4, consider installing a suitably sized backwashing activated carbon filter. This AC filter would remove the chlorine and precipitated oxidized iron. Unlike ThirdGenPump, I would not recommend a water softener with a strong acid cation resin to remove any form of iron - there are better solutions - more targeted solutions.
Yes I believe that may be the best solution at this point thank you for the input
 
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