Katalox Light Help Needed

[Neil64]

Hello All,

I have some knowledge of water treatment but not as much as most of you, and what knowledge I have gained is from the 6 years of managing this system, from this forum and consulting Dittohead.

6 year old System:

Output to input: Softener (Fleck 5810 SXT 1.5 cu ft. 10x54), Katalox Light (Fleck 5810 2.0 cu ft. 12x52), Neutralizer (Fleck 5810 1.5 cu ft. 10x54). In front of the neutralizer is a 4x20 20micron filter and before that a 90 micron Atlas Hydra Spin down in front of the pressure tank. All filters are clean/new.

Lately when Katalox regens, water has been gurgling or trying to drain from the vent on a 1" drain line going into a p trap. Regens were every other day, BW for 10mins and RR for 3. Also, KL continues to flow water with bypass valves shut - tried to take pressure off the unit by placing it in BW and unplugging.

So I started to think the P trap to the drain could have sediment build up but I vacuumed out what I could using a 5/16 line down the vent to the beginning of the P trap. Don't want to cut pipe if I don't have to.

BW seems OK but RR seems to struggle.

I was thinking of adding some bleach to the spin down and trying to get it into the KL tank and letting it soak but not sure how and how much.

I've also read here that some use brine draw to add air. KL is setup as a filter and has no brine draw. How would this work and what are the benefits?

How do you know when to replace the KL media? Water seems fine and pressures seem fine until regen and drain during regen.

What could be clogged or in need of maintenance to cause the drain issue and KL flowing water with bypass valves closed?

Thanks in advance for the help.

Neil

 

[Neil64]

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[Reach4]

1. Alan (Ditttohead) is still available by phone at Impact Water Products.

2. KL needs quite a lot of flow for backwash. I would want 10 to 12 gpm for a 12 inch tank in Ohio. A lot of people under-backwash it, and it can clump. If you have an unpainted (tan) tank, you could shine a bright light thru during backwash, and see what you get for bed expansion.

3. Many pumps cannot deliver that much water.

4. Many cartridge filters can have too much pressure drop when carrying 10 to 12 gpm. The data sheets show pressure drop when the cartridge is new. The cartridge is not new for long. As a test, could you route your drain line into a 5 gallon bucket during backwash to measure the flow?
5. In the Watchwater literature, look up Regeneration / Dosing.

6. The plastic bypass has more than one position. If you are in total bypass (both valves in bypass) does that flow continue?


7. I expect there is some kind of symptom, such as too much iron or H2S getting past the CL. That might improve for a while with well sanitizing. https://terrylove.com/forums/index....izing-extra-attention-to-4-inch-casing.65845/ is my well and plumbing sanitizing write-up.

8. I would expect maybe 7 years of media life, but I could easily be wrong. I don't have KL.

I am not a pro.

 

[Neil64]

Hi Reach,

You've brought up concerns that I never thought about. When scaling for this system back in 2017, I checked gpm at the pressure tank, before any other filtration and If memory serves me correctly, we got very close to 10 GPM. Now that we've added an Altas Hydra 90 micron spin down, a 4"x20" 20 micron and a calcite tank that has never needed calcite in 6 years after the pressure tank, I doubt we have 10gpm to backwash anything. I think we were using a minimum of 8 gpms as our target and that was with the pressure tank contributing.

There is no doubt that as pressure drops so does the quality of the backwash and RR. I can hear it struggling but improves as well pump refills pressure tank. I read on someone's post that there is an option on 5810s to suspend regeneration while waiting for pressure to improve????

System has produced good water for 6 years.

All of the drain are 1" pvc so they would need to cut to test backwash drain rates.

When the plastic bypasses are fully shut, there is still audible flow with input water supply to the KL on. Didn't know they are multi-position.

Is it more cost effective to buy a new KL tank or have a local company remove and replace the KL? How long do Fleck 5810s last?

I have change KL to regen every night vs. every other.

Thoughts?

Thanks...

 

[Reach4]

I am pretty sure that the 5810XTR2 will do that regen in pieces with a user-defined order.

I suspect that the 5810SXT can do that too.

See page 9 of the service manual. See "If “Othr” is chosen under “Valve Type”, then R1, R2, R3, etc,
will be displayed instead". However what it does not clearly say is how to identify R1 as backwash, R2 as pause, R3 as backwash, r4 as pause. Page 12 section 12 of the service manual also says "Cycle steps can be programmed in any order using the Up or
Down buttons with the following selections. Up to 20 individual cycles can be set", so I presume you can make a selection from the table in Step 12. . Maybe you could consider experimenting. If you try that, take notes, and share what you find. I would hope there would be a way backwash for a minute, pause for a minute, and repeat several times. The pressure tank may not have enough water to assist with the first minute. But some or all subsequent minutes it would have enough water to support high backwash. Experiment to see what works with your tank and your pump.

Rather than pause, it could be some thing else that is not backwash. For example, suppose you did a minute of brine fill for each pause. Your filter has the brine fill path blocked, so I am thinking that brine fill should do nothing.

I would like to see a pressure gauge look at the input to the 5810SXT. I would like to see 30 psi available at the end of the backwash run. Maybe less would be fine, but I think 30 would give margin.

This chart is produced from the info in the Watch Water graph.

If the tank has 34 inches of media, then 25% bed expansion would raise the top of the roiling backwashing media to 34*1.25=42.5. And 50% bed expansion would raise the top of the backwashing level to 51 inches -- near the top of the tank. Too much.