Contaminated pressure tank?

[JohnnyMalaria]

Hello,

About seven weeks ago, I replaced a deep well submersible pump and chlorine-shocked the system. The water was great - nice and clear with no odors or funny taste. About a week ago, I started to get rusty-colored surges. All of our toilet bowls below the waterline are now a rusty color (it is easily wiped away). Accompanying the discoloration are small (< 2mm) black flecks that are also flat. They smear when rubbed between two fingers. I suspect that the surfaces of the Well-X-Trol bladders are contaminated with crud that the previous shocking helped to disrupt. Here are some facts:

1. The water directly from the well head is perfectly clean
2. The water after the pressure tanks is hazy. I have determined that most of the material is colloidal (based on the light scattering properties)
3. The water out of the standpipe (or whatever it's called) near the well house is as bad as the water in the house
4. When I first shocked the system I saw the same black flecks

So, does this sound plausible and, if so, what can I do short of replacing both pressure tanks (ugh)? If I have to replace them is there any particular reason that one of them is tee'd in with PVC piping and the other with galvanized iron?

Thanks,

John.

[Waterwelldude]

Does this clear up after awhile of running the water?
Did you have this stuff in the water before you shocked the well?
Is it a brown colored like stuff, that looks allot like tea grounds?

(You did say it smears when you rub it between your fingers?)



Travis

[sammyhydro11]

I would cycle the system by putting a garden hose on the tank. Holdings tank can collect a lot of loose iron and the tank will dump this material at the low end of the cycle. So keep cycling the system from the garden hose. Open the hose until the pump starts, kink the end of the hose so you let pressure build in the tank, then unkink it, and repeat the process.

sammy

www.tylerwellandpump.com

[JohnnyMalaria]

Thank you both for your replies.

Waterwelldude - sometimes it clears, sometimes it doesn't. Also, when water has been standing in the pipes near the faucets in the house, it comes out much dirtier for a second or two straightaway. I didn't have the cloudiness nor the black specks before shocking the well but there was a lot of brown gunk which was the cause of the previous motor failing. I've attached a picture of the sediment when it ran particularly cloudly. To give an idea of scale, the container is pint jug. It does smear but not easily - I need to applied a fair amount of pressure. The apparent white specks are just areas where the black specks have moved due to my agitating the jug slightly. Very close inspection reveals a mixture of flat, black and rusty particles. The blacks ones smear to give a dark rusty color.

sammyhydro11 - I like the idea of the cycling. I'll drain the tanks completely and then run it for a while such that the water should be (almost) directly from the well. Then refill just a gallon or two before emptying again and repeat the cycle a number of times.

A couple of other points I should add:

1. After replacing the pump, I installed a water meter. I discovered a leak equivalent to 100 gallons per day. It was a toilet flapper. It had probably been like that for ages and so the tanks (2 x 25 gallon - EDIT: they are WX-250 44 gallon tanks and rather pricey) would have been completely cycled twice a day, every day. Now that I have fixed the leak, water sits around for longer.

2. I replaced some of the pipework in the well house after changing the pump. The insides are black and slimey. The same is true for the copper piping in the house (I cut a piece to inspect the extent of corrosion due to low pH).

The colloidal matter I mentioned is certainly a new thing following the pump repair. After sitting overnight, the sample in the jug still shows evidence of the colloidal material. The two attached pictures show this - passing a laser beam through it causes a lot of scattering and allows you to see the beam (only colloids do this) and the stronger scattering looking towards the source (a laser pointer) compared to the looking away indicates large (>1 micron) material. I'm going to confirm this in the lab tomorrow.

Thanks,

John.