The filter is regenerated with the chlorinated water out of the brine tank during the slow rinse/brine draw cycle position; the same as a softener.... here's info on that part of the system: the filter is upstream from my softener. It's a 3 cu ft resin tank with a Fleck controller on top and a water-filled tank attached to that Fleck. The setup looks just a water softener, with carbon in the resin tank and water from the brine tank that's used for backwash cycles instead of regen cycles. I was told to add a bottle of bleach to water tank weekly to shock that filter (which is what I meant by sanitizing earlier).
The filter is regenerated with the chlorinated water out of the brine tank during the slow rinse/brine draw cycle position; the same as a softener.
I have never heard of using carbon that way but, Pyrolox had been used like that for many years except the gallon of bleach was added every 3-4 weeks depending on how much iron, manganese and/or H2S was in the water and how much water was used. I sold many of them back in the '80s into the early '90s.
I can't imagine the average residential well pump successfully backwashing 3.0 cuft of Pyrolox. Pyrolox is very heavy an difficult to successfully backwash. Are you absolutely positively without any doubt that you have carbon in the filter? Pyrolox is black like carbon.
How sure are you that you were to add the gallon of bleach each week? That is way too much chlorine and way too frequently for any type of carbon. My Pyrolox filters only sucked 3-4" of chlorinated water off the top of the water in the salt tank and the tank had water in it up to about 11-13" from the top. So compared to once a week, the solution strength was much weaker.
Not following the schedule will ruin the filter's media. With carbon, more chlorine by adding it more frequently will also. So now the media needs replacing again.Based purely on the word of the designer/installer, there's carbon in there. And oops, I looked at my notes and I was originally toldto add 1 gallon bleach per month, not week. I don't think I've exceeded that rate. If anything, I did it less than once per month. The weekly instruction came recently, only for me to do for about a month.
You have a metered control valve on a filter that requires timely regeneration to prevent the media from fouling, not on gallons used.Attached picture shows this side of the system. Blue tank in back is pressure tank. That feeds into carbon filter in foreground with Fleck controller - cover. That filter is 12" diameter x 50" high. The white tube snaking around that goes to the black water tank. Culligan system is in back right of the picture. I'll also attach a picture of inside water tank. Yellow gunk on bottom is powder, I stirred it up and it re-sedimented after an hour or so.
The Taylor pool test kit is not great for potable water--alkalinity and hardness don't necessarily correlate. Total hardness is testing for the content of calcium and magnesium. The Taylor calcium kit tests only for calcium. Your total hardness is almost certainly higher than the result for calcium only.
So to get accurate results you need a total hardness test kit or have the water tested by someone who can give you that figure. You should also have tests done for iron and manganese.
To properly program your softener you need the above mentioned test results. You will also need to know the quantity of resin in your softener, the size of the brine line flow control (BLFC) and have access to a manual for the control valve on your softener. Of course you could have Culligan do all these things for you.
Your problems with the softener could be caused by low water pressure--restriction in the water supply. I would recommend you resolve the water pressure issue before spending time and effort on the softener.
Is the water level in the brine tank going down between regens?
The salt tast in the water, is it just the morning after or all the time?
This is awkward, but...
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