diggity
Member
So, very long story very short - I posted here some months ago about our lousy water which was really high in iron. I managed to get it under control, but as luck would have it, then something underground changed (probably because of the extreme drought here in central MA), and our iron concentration went from bad to extremely, stratospherically, cosmically, even comically awful. So we finally decided to drill a new well. The new water is much better, but unfortunately, it still has iron in it (about 18 ppm). Lab results for the old and new wells are below, though they aren't important for the question I'm about to ask.
My question is regarding our Katalox Light filter, which doesn't seem to be working very well. It's not a mechanical problem - I've been all over the unit and it is working fine. It's the media itself, which is barely removing any iron at all.
Problem #1: What I've found (and I think it's pretty interesting) is that KL does something to the iron which is actually counter productive:
If I fill a plastic bottle with raw water (KL in bypass mode, so no treatment whatsoever), then add hydrogen peroxide, it will immediately turn orange, and then the rust particles will settle to the bottom within an hour or so.
If I fill a plastic bottle with water that has been treated by the KL, then add hydrogen peroxide, it will immediately turn orange, same as above... BUT... what happens next is interesting... it takes DAYS, not hours to settle out. The rust particles must be so small that they stay in suspension for a lot longer.
I think this might be part of the problem we're having with the KL. It somehow changes the iron atoms so that they don't clump together very easily when oxidized. The iron that does get oxidized then sails right through my filtration equipment because the particles are so small.
Problem #2: The KL is clearly not oxidizing much iron. This is evidenced by the fact that I have to add peroxide to the bottle to get the water to turn orange. If the KL were oxidizing it all, I wouldn't have to add peroxide. I know now that this is because KL and other similar media don't actually oxidize anything... they catalyze a reaction between iron and oxygen that is already present in the water. If you don't have any oxygen in the water, you won't get any iron removal. I did not know this when I purchased the KL system, and honestly, I think the companies that sell KL units should be more up-front about this.
So my question is what to do next? We have a new high capacity softener on order which will probably help with all of this. But I'd like to remove as much iron as possible before the softener. I have injected Peroxide before (on the old well), but I was hoping to not have to do it again, in part because we may be selling the house in a few years and I think a Stenner pump and all its associated hoses and wires would scare off any prospective buyers. I desperately want to simplify. Is there any other media that I can use instead of KL? It looks to me like similar media (Pyrolox, Filox, etc.) all work the same way, which is to say they don't do diddly squat unless there is dissolved oxygen already present. Is there some media that doesn't require DO? KDF, maybe? Greensand?
Incidentally, I shocked the new well with peroxide (Neutra-Sul) and it did indeed help for a couple days. But I don't want to have to do that all the time either.
Thanks in advance!
My question is regarding our Katalox Light filter, which doesn't seem to be working very well. It's not a mechanical problem - I've been all over the unit and it is working fine. It's the media itself, which is barely removing any iron at all.
Problem #1: What I've found (and I think it's pretty interesting) is that KL does something to the iron which is actually counter productive:
If I fill a plastic bottle with raw water (KL in bypass mode, so no treatment whatsoever), then add hydrogen peroxide, it will immediately turn orange, and then the rust particles will settle to the bottom within an hour or so.
If I fill a plastic bottle with water that has been treated by the KL, then add hydrogen peroxide, it will immediately turn orange, same as above... BUT... what happens next is interesting... it takes DAYS, not hours to settle out. The rust particles must be so small that they stay in suspension for a lot longer.
I think this might be part of the problem we're having with the KL. It somehow changes the iron atoms so that they don't clump together very easily when oxidized. The iron that does get oxidized then sails right through my filtration equipment because the particles are so small.
Problem #2: The KL is clearly not oxidizing much iron. This is evidenced by the fact that I have to add peroxide to the bottle to get the water to turn orange. If the KL were oxidizing it all, I wouldn't have to add peroxide. I know now that this is because KL and other similar media don't actually oxidize anything... they catalyze a reaction between iron and oxygen that is already present in the water. If you don't have any oxygen in the water, you won't get any iron removal. I did not know this when I purchased the KL system, and honestly, I think the companies that sell KL units should be more up-front about this.
So my question is what to do next? We have a new high capacity softener on order which will probably help with all of this. But I'd like to remove as much iron as possible before the softener. I have injected Peroxide before (on the old well), but I was hoping to not have to do it again, in part because we may be selling the house in a few years and I think a Stenner pump and all its associated hoses and wires would scare off any prospective buyers. I desperately want to simplify. Is there any other media that I can use instead of KL? It looks to me like similar media (Pyrolox, Filox, etc.) all work the same way, which is to say they don't do diddly squat unless there is dissolved oxygen already present. Is there some media that doesn't require DO? KDF, maybe? Greensand?
Incidentally, I shocked the new well with peroxide (Neutra-Sul) and it did indeed help for a couple days. But I don't want to have to do that all the time either.
Thanks in advance!