Tannins keep ruining softener quickly

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jmg

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I bought a house about a year ago in a new area that we moved to. The house is on a well and we knew going in that there are Tannins in the water. The prior owner had installed a water softener/tannin removal system years ago from Culligan, but I don't think he really maintained it. Perhaps now I am starting to see why.

We had the local Culligan guy come and check the system out and test the water. We had both tannins and somewhat high levels of arsenic (70 ppb). He suggested that we put in a carbon tank first in line that would catch the iron and other heavy minerals (apparently these clog tannin filters quickly). The second tank in line he just used the old tank we had with the Culligan controls, and that contained the tannin media. Then we installed a new, third tank in the line with some media that removes arsenic.

When we first installed the system, it worked great. The water began running nice and clear in no time at all. He used a media in the tannin filter that I think was called "Macro T." Unfortunately, within about a month, we started getting some slight coloring back into our water, and within 2-3 months, it seemed like our system was a waste of money. Water was back to pretty brown.

We had brown water for about 6 months when our water guy suggested we go with Tanex media from Purolite. I was hesitant to try this because it's really expensive, and we had already put about $8,000 into our system. But I read some stuff online and the Tanex received high praise. Our water guy said that this was the best media there was, and he didn't put it in initially because he was having trouble getting it from Culligan. He also said that given the amount of money we had already spent, he would install this media at cost - about another $800.

That was two weeks ago. We are now starting a slight tint of brown back in the water, and that tells me pretty much where we are headed - back to brown water and more waste of money. I feel like both of these medias did a great job of removing the tannins initially, but their lifespan runs out very, very quickly. Anybody have any idea why that would be? My real question is whether the media is perfectly fine, but that the settings on the controls are simply not cleaning/regenerating the media sufficiently? Does my water guy really know what the settings should be to keep the media clear on a regular basis? I honestly have no idea.

I don't know a lot about this stuff, I fully admit that. I don't know about backwash rates and all the different settings. But I also feel like media that retails for something like $1000 a batch should last more than two weeks if the settings are correct. I've got about $9000 into a system in the last year that has given me about a month of nice, clean water. That's just not ok.

Any thoughts? Thank you so much for reading this and any advice you could give would be much appreciated.
 

ditttohead

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Unfortunately it sounds like your local dealer does not know what they are doing. Tannins are not a specific contaminant but rather a family of potential contaminants. The treatment method can vary greatly. Tannin selective anion resin may work but these do require consistent regeneration and the water should be completely free from iron, manganese, and preferably very low in hardness. Carbon is not an iron reduction media. Unless the iron is completely oxidized it will simply pass through the carbon bed potentially fouling is your medias past that unit. Are there any other water treatment companies local to you? I would get a second opinion. Tannin reduction methods include ultra filtration, tannin selective anion resin, ecomix, or even chlorination/dechlorination methods.
 

jmg

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Unfortunately it sounds like your local dealer does not know what they are doing. Tannins are not a specific contaminant but rather a family of potential contaminants. The treatment method can vary greatly. Tannin selective anion resin may work but these do require consistent regeneration and the water should be completely free from iron, manganese, and preferably very low in hardness. Carbon is not an iron reduction media. Unless the iron is completely oxidized it will simply pass through the carbon bed potentially fouling is your medias past that unit. Are there any other water treatment companies local to you? I would get a second opinion. Tannin reduction methods include ultra filtration, tannin selective anion resin, ecomix, or even chlorination/dechlorination methods.

It sounds like maybe I need to get someone else out here. Pretty frustrating to have already sunk this kind of money into a system with not much for results. I was thinking about your post above and it really does make sense - that perhaps the tannin filter works just fine, but the first tank is not taking out things it needs to take out, so it is clogging the tannin filter to the point it can't operate effectively. I don't recall what all was in our water when we initially had it tested, but maybe I'll try to send in some raw water straight from the pump with no filter to a new company. I don't know what kind of tank we can put in on the front end that will leave the water ready for tannins, but I guess I'll see what the next company says. Thanks for the response.
 
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