New install, 7000SXT, salty foamy water

[Isailer]

This system was installed yesterday. I performed the first regeneration and after it completed, I ran water inside the house and it was extremely salty and foamy (water looked white). It ran this way for a few minutes and then cleared up. The softener consists of the following:

1.5cuft (10x54") Vortech Tank
7000SXT Valve
Supposed to be 1.5cuft Purolite resin but was delivered in a clear bag marked Aqua Soft so not sure.

BLFC - .125gpm

Current Settings:
VT - dF2b
CT - Fd
C - 48,000
H - 10
RS - rc
RC - 150
DO - 14
B1 - 10
BD - 60 (Completely empties water (12") from brine tank in 30 minutes)
B2 - 5
RR - 10
BF - 45
FM - t1.2

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Reach4]

City water or well? If well, what is your iron level? Chart below presumes city water. It is much more salt-efficient.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[Bannerman]

The white foaminess is likely air that is being purged from the system since it is just new. That should go away within the next regeneration or two.

Your capacity is set to too high. While your resin quantity totals 48K capacity, the total capacity should not normally be utilized.

Regular resin is commonly specified as 32K grains per cuft when first manufactured. As some resin will be fractured during manufacturing and during repeated regeneration over time, broken fragments will be flushed to drain so some capacity will be lost. In addition, some capacity is consumed during regeneration as regeneration of a single tank softener is performed with hard water. For those reasons, total capacity is commonly estimated as 30K /cuft.

The salt quantity required to restore 30K of capacity/cuft is 15 lbs per cuft. Your 1.5 cuft softener would then require 22.5 lbs of salt to regenerate all 45K of capacity which would equal only 2000 grains per lb of salt.

Your current BF setting of 45 minutes X 0.125 BLFC = 5.625 gallons. As each gallon will dissolve 3 lbs salt, your current salt setting is 16.875 lbs which is not enough to restore all 45K of capacity.

Salt efficiency can be drastically improved by setting 'C 'as a lower number and reducing the salt setting (BF) accordingly. With your softener, if you set 'C' as 30, your usable capacity between regeneration will be 30K, but to restore that capacity will only require 9 lbs of salt (6 lbs/cuft) which is an efficient 3,333 grains per lb. As usable capacity is set higher, salt efficiency will decrease but the interval between regeneration will be longer. For instance, 36K of capacity would require 12 lbs (8 lbs/cuft) = 3000 grains/lb whereas 40.5K capacity would require 15 lbs (10 lbs/cuft) = 2700 grains/lb.

You experienced salty water after regeneration as there was too much water in the brine tank for the BD that is set. That water was likely added manually by you since the unit was only just installed. Since the water was added manually, that does not indicate that your water will continue to be salty after a properly set fully automated regen cycle occurs.

BD is actually 2 processes in one setting. Brine is initially drawn from the brine tank until the brine level reaches the air check valve which will then close, preventing air from being drawn into the brine line. Water will continue to slowly flow through the resin during the remaining time, thereby rinsing away the brine that is within the resin.

The time required to draw brine from the brine tank should be no more than 1/4 of the total BD setting. That is 15 minutes for a 60 minute BD setting common for most, depending on the injector that was installed. As it initially took 30 minutes to draw brine, not enough time remained to rinse away all of the brine from within the resin tank.

Suggest setting 'C' as 30 and 'BF' as 24 minutes (.125 X 24 = 3 gallons X 3 = 9 lbs of salt)

Currently, your brine tank will contain almost 6 gallons of water so you may again experience some salty water after your next regeneration. With the settings as suggested, I expect that should not occur again.

H - currently set as 10 grains. How did you determine that setting?
RC - reserve currently set as 150 gallons. Commonly calculated at 60 gals per person.

 

[JTROANOKE]

You experienced salty water after regeneration as there was too much water in the brine tank for the BD that is set. That water was likely added manually by you since the unit was only just installed. Since the water was added manually, that does not indicate that your water will continue to be salty after a properly set fully automated regen cycle occurs.

BD is actually 2 processes in one setting. Brine is initially drawn from the brine tank until the brine level reaches the air check valve which will then close, preventing air from being drawn into the brine line. Water will continue to slowly flow through the resin during the remaining time, thereby rinsing away the brine that is within the resin.

The time required to draw brine from the brine tank should be no more than 1/4 of the total BD setting. That is 15 minutes for a 60 minute BD setting common for most, depending on the injector that was installed. As it initially took 30 minutes to draw brine, not enough time remained to rinse away all of the brine from within the resin tank.
.

Quick question as I am new to this and trying to figure it out as well. Even if it drew too much brine, wouldn't the following backwash and rapid rinse cycles remove the excess? Not questioning your knowledge just trying to figure out how all this works.

 

[Isailer]

Thanks for the reply and info. To clarify a couple of points, I thought the air had been completely purged from the system before I started its first regeneration as I used the softener for a day before manually starting the regeneration process.

Also, I didn’t manually fill the brine tank. I did add approx. 2” but the rest was from its fill cycle that I manually initiated. After the regeneration, it filled to the exact same height (approx. 11.5-12”). It’s an 18x33” tank.

I’ll take your advice and modify my current settings to C=30k and BF=24. Any chance there is an average water height to determine the water volume in the brine tank? Easy to calculate with an empty tank but not so much when it’s filled with salt pellets… After I change the settings, I’d like to verify that there is 3 gallons of water in the brine tank.

I determined the hardness setting by using hardness test strips and my TDS meter. They indicated a hardness level of ~10.

 

[Isailer]

Forgot to mention, it is city water. There may be slight amount of iron present as the sediment filter starts to turn orange after a few days.

 

[Reach4]

Quick question as I am new to this and trying to figure it out as well. Even if it drew too much brine, wouldn't the following backwash and rapid rinse cycles remove the excess? Not questioning your knowledge just trying to figure out how all this works.

The first backwash (B1) happens before brining, so that does not remove salt. The second backwash (B1) would contribute to removing salt. However with the reduced brine amount, the brine drawing portion of Bd will be much faster. The slow rinse portion of the Bd will become much longer.

 

[JTROANOKE]

I realize that B1 does not rinse the brine but I would have thought that B2 and rapid rinse with their much higher rates would contribute more than the slow rinse at the end of brine draw cycle. I was of the belief that the latter part of the brine draw did more to distribute the brine throughout the resin than actual removal of the brine.

 

[Bannerman]

The most reliable method to measure the BF volume, is to remove the brine line at the top of the brine tank, so that the water can be measured into a bucket, commencing at the start of the BF setting.

As it is city water, it should be chlorinated by the municipality. Clearwater iron (ferrous) will be oxidized by the chlorine and converted to ferric iron which will precipitate out from the water as solid rust. Once converted from ferrous iron, your softener then isnt dealing with iron in the water. You maybe seeing some rust debris collecting in your sediment filter.

The injector installed maybe smaller than one normally selected for your softener size. That is not a problem but your BF setting may need to be increased to 4X the time required to draw the brine from the brine tank.

In reply to RT's question, the slow rinse cycle (the second part of the BD setting) is to rinse away the brine from the resin. Rinsing away the brine should be performed slowly so as to not shock and potentially damage the resin. If the rinse is incomplete (as with taking 30 minutes to draw brine during a 60 minute BD setting), then there will be brine remaining in the resin which will enter the house plumbing system after regeneration.

 

[Bannerman]

A small amount of fresh raw water flows through the injector which acts as a venturi to create suction on the brine port, thereby drawing in brine at a slow rate (ie: 0.2 - 0.4 gpm), which is mixed with the raw water flowing through the injector. Once the air check closes, only the initial raw water continues to flow, but that maybe only at 0.5 - 0.7 gpm, depending on the injector installed. As virtually all of the brine volume will be contained within the resin, it will require some time to rinse the brine away completely. As the raw water enters at the top of the tank, it will push the brine down through the resin, to exit out through the center riser tube screen at the bottom of the tank.

Regarding the air remaining, while you may have purged the majority of air initially, some air will have been trapped between the resin beads. That air will be released as the resin is saturated with water and will collect in a pocket at the top of the tank. Water entering the softener will flow through that air pocket. As the air will be compressed due to the pressure of the water, it may take a few regen cycles before the air is eventually pushed out.