New Old well stainig toilets and yellow/brown water

[Leed1315]

Some of you may have saw or helped me diagnose my issue where my pump was loosing pressure and ended up I was pumping my well empty. After diagnosis and getting everything plumbed in I've been using the well for about a week and all has been well. We have just had to be a little water aware and try to space out bigger water usage but so far everything has been fine. The problem I'm having is that my water is a light yellow color and within the week has stained both the toilets. My wife sent me a pic where she ran bath water for one of our kids today and it just looks like dirty water. The water tastes ok with a slight sulfur taste but other than that not bad. For a little back ground in case you didn't read my earlier post this is a well that was at my house when I bought it (4 years ago)and never used it. I decided to use it and pulled up the old lines. The lines did look like they had been pulled out of a well full of red mud, of course there wasn't. The lines we pulled up were 100' deep so thats what I went back with and a submersible pump. I am unaware of exactly how deep the well is. I was unaware of how well stuff worked in general and instead of measuring just went back with the depth of the old lines. At this point the well has only been back active and in use regularly for about a week. I did clean or cycle bleach through the well a recommended online. At this point I'm looking at steps to take to correct the issue. Personally I'm ok with the taste and we use a big Berky filter to filter our drinking water anyways. My concerns are ruining clothes and staining everything up. I'd also like for the bath water to not look dirty when my kids get in it.

Here are my questions
1. What is causing the issue? Could the well just need more run time, is the pump too low, or is this just the quality of water I'm going to get?
2. What should be my steps of correction? Should i bleach the well again, make sure the pump isn't too close to bottom and sucking up sediment, look into a filter?

 

[Leed1315]

I haven't had a response bu I will update a little to see if it helps any. Last night I decided to shock the well again. I put bleach in it and cycled the water for about an hour. I let it sit over night and pumped it out this morning. The first time I shocked it it was dark orange for a couple minutes this time less than a minute. The pump did run longer without losing pressure though but was only about 20 minutes. The entire time the water was still a dull yellow and had a strong bleach smell. I come home from church to run it some more to make sure the chlorine was out. The first 5 seconds were orange then back to the dull yellow but only for maybe a minute. After that the water went very clear compared to what it had been. it continued to be clear for about 7 minutes until i turned it off. I used a cup to look at the water and it looked much better. What looked good outside in the hose wasn't as good inside. It was much better than the yellow that came out when I shocked it and pumped the water out but still a lemonade color. I plan to shock it again in about a week since this shock also had a lot of colored water that came out. I guess at this point I'm wondering what my expectations should be Is the off color water just what I'm going to have to deal with or do i have some hope that with time and another shock or 2 it will clear up.

How much dirt and sand should I expect to see in my water. I checked our Berkey filter that we use in the house and there is a fair amount of dirt/sand in it. Could that be I'm too close to the bottom or can that happen even if the pump isn't too close to bottom.

I also ordered a Big Blue 20" filter, it should be in by the end of the week. If nothing else it will help for what sediment I'm getting.
Thanks for any help

 

[Sponsor]

 

[Valveman]

Moving to softener forum. Maybe get more help there.

 

[ditttohead]

Without a comprehensive and proper well test there is no way we can give you any answer that would be of any help. We can only assume that you have an iron issue and sentiment. You could have a multitude of other problems including manganese hardness tannins etc. You mentioned that you have a hydrogen sulfide smell as well and this creates its own unique problems. Throwing a big blue at it may help but will probably just mitigate the problems temporarily as the big blue will catch the majority of the sediment and likely foul up very quickly it could also create bigger problems due to the amount of bacteria that it can harbor and colonize.

Realistically if you're going to try to do this without spending the money on a proper water test you would be looking at a sediment filtration system chemical injection, iron and h2s reduction, softening and post ultraviolet or quantum filtration to start. With a proper water test you may only need one of these items.