Joy of Katalox Short Lived

[ktop]

Replaced 8 year old 1 Cu ft Filox media (that rarely had any sulfer smell) with katalox Light 1.0 cu ft
and now my water stinks. 1 week ago

I thought Katalox Light was supposed to "remove" stink - not "add" it.
Drew water just after KL filter and definitely coming from there.

Water seemed great for all of 4 days - the cold water side started stinkin

Since discovered 2 days ago I have been backwashing like crazy - no help.

Any suggestions?

 

[Mialynette2003]

The only thing I can advise is to add a chlorinator. I have not been impressed with the Katalox media. Had a customer's unit do the same thing. I was smart, I warned him first.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[ktop]

Thanks for the response.
Were you able to resolve your customers smelly water?
Is what you are referring one of below?
1. Inline injection prior to KL
2. Injection plus contact tank
3. Regen with chlorine solution
4. other


I have never played with chlorine/injection/contact tanks....... may need to bring someone in for that.
Or other options?
maybe I should remove the KL completely? just not sure what I would replace it with

Maybe due to IRB
System worked prior (marginally well)
1.0 cu ft filox
1.5 cu ft softener
Had some discoloration (green tint) and some iron slippin thru to softener which eventually fouled the softener.
But water was "ok". rarely any stink

 

[MichaelSK]

Replaced 8 year old 1 Cu ft Filox media (that rarely had any sulfer smell) with katalox Light 1.0 cu ft
and now my water stinks. 1 week ago

I thought Katalox Light was supposed to "remove" stink - not "add" it.
Drew water just after KL filter and definitely coming from there.

Water seemed great for all of 4 days - the cold water side started stinkin

Since discovered 2 days ago I have been backwashing like crazy - no help.

Any suggestions?

If you have iron/sulfur metabolizing bacteria you most definitely will need the NaClO injector, which btw works very well with the katalox lite. You should sterilize your water system with the Clorox as well. But do NOT use the NaClO on the resin in the softener. Use peracetic acid instead. (If you are in an agricultural area, a commercial seed/fertilizer/ag company sells the peracetic acid product.) If you inject NaClO, then you will need to add activated carbon to get rid of the chlorine and by-products. (injector, katalox lite, retention tank, activated carbon, softener)

 

[MichaelSK]

The only thing I can advise is to add a chlorinator. I have not been impressed with the Katalox media. Had a customer's unit do the same thing. I was smart, I warned him first.

The Katalox lite needs an oxidizer; if it's a bacteria problem, then try NaClO and activated carbon before a softener.

 

[ditttohead]

Katalox Light is basically a lightweight form of Filox. Filox is manganese dioxide ore, KL is clinoptilolite coated and impregnated with mangese dioxide ore. The two work very similarly except for the extreme difficulty in properly backwashing filox is eliminated.

Any manganese dioxide ore based media has limitations in regard to the incoming pH, ORP, DO etc. KL works far better then most medias but considering filox is pure Manganese dioxide ore...

All that being said. A simple chlorine injection system should allow the KL to work flawlessly in most applications. But like Mialynette said, giving a customer fair warning of the possible need of adding an oxidant can go a long way.

I would estimate that 90% of our customers use KL without an oxidant.

 

[ktop]

Thanks MichealSK.
week prior to replacing Filox with KL performed a decent well shock
1 gallon Clorox mixed in 5 gallon bucket with water in the top of well and dropped 40 x 1 gram 70% Calcium Hypochlorite
pellets. recirc'd for about and hour. pretty strong chlorine odor. let it sit for 8 hours. flushed.


Wonder if the KL being a 3 micron Mang Ox sediment filter is causing the stink to accumulate.
Did not have stink with Filox.

If you inject NaClO, then you will need to add activated carbon to get rid of the chlorine and by-products. (injector, katalox lite, retention tank, activated carbon, softener)

Thanks for this recommendation and the nice break down
- seems I would need a retention tank and an additional carbon filter to complete.
I will do some research on these additional items

A simple chlorine injection system should allow the KL to work flawlessly in most applications.

Thanks Ditto - presuming this would require retention and carbon as well or are you just recommending a slight feed prior to KL?

What do you all think about H2O2?
Do you think I could get away with H2O2 injection prior to KL without retention tank and no carbon?
Just trying to wrap my head around all the options.

Thanks All

 

[MichaelSK]

Hydrogen peroxide wold be a suitable oxidizer for the katalox lite. It is bactericidal, but its consumable costs are considerably higher than the NaClO. Disinfection byproducts aren't an issue.... Cost/benefit decision, but you need more data describing your water.

 

[MichaelSK]

Hydrogen peroxide wold be a suitable oxidizer for the katalox lite. It is bactericidal, but its consumable costs are considerably higher than the NaClO. Disinfection byproducts aren't an issue.... Cost/benefit decision, but you need more data describing your water.

..I just looked at the well sterilization procedure you used. NaClO reactants are not innocuous. Use an appropriate model to properly dose the well, or you could produce large amounts of nasty disinfection by-products.

 

[Reach4]

..I just looked at the well sterilization procedure you used. NaClO reactants are not innocuous. Use an appropriate model to properly dose the well, or you could produce large amounts of nasty disinfection by-products.

After disinfecting with chlorine bleach, the water with the chlorine is pumped out and away. Any by-products should get flushed out with the chlorine, don't you think?

 

[MichaelSK]

After disinfecting with chlorine bleach, the water with the chlorine is pumped out and away. Any by-products should get flushed out with the chlorine, don't you think?

I agree, except my neighbor didn't....sigh. Also, the NaClO is not as effective penetrating and "washing" the slime Fe and S metabolizing bacteria produce - the disinfection byproducts, I have been told by folks smarter than I, are somewhat ensconced in the slime.

 

[MichaelSK]

I agree, except my neighbor didn't....sigh. Also, the NaClO is not as effective penetrating and "washing" the slime Fe and S metabolizing bacteria produce - the disinfection byproducts, I have been told by folks smarter than I, are somewhat ensconced in the slime.

He also destroyed his resin bed by not flushing......the Chlorine level was so high.

 

[ktop]

Thanks MichealSK.

Hydrogen peroxide wold be a suitable oxidizer for the katalox lite. It is bactericidal, but its consumable costs are considerably higher than the NaClO. Disinfection byproducts aren't an issue.

This is what I was suspecting and was looking for an option that may not need more tanks.
I did post my water analysis in another post - copied here also.

Thanks Reach

After disinfecting with chlorine bleach, the water with the chlorine is pumped out and away. Any by-products should get flushed out with the chlorine, don't you think?

I was under the same impression.

So a little update:
I began to second guess myself as to where the stink was coming from.
Testing/sniff after Kl filter again seemed as if no smell or inconclusive
Prior test I drew water from test port after KL but believe I had the whole filtration system disco'd from main supply.
I have shut off's that completely isolate the filtration system so I can bypass all filters
Thinkin I may have been drawing water "backfeeding " from softener due to pressure in the filter complex?
I did not do a full sanitization after service (when I cleaned valves, replace softener resin and KL)
I put a few NaClO pellets in the well and let that circ into KL during regen hoping it would disinfect the KL a bit. flushed afterwards
Also performed a sanitization on the softener - stink was gone. was hopeful maybe I just needed to sanitize all.
3 days later - stink was back - cold side only again.

Next - Set my KL to backwash more often - daily, 10 min, 5.3 gpm DLFC on 9x48 vortec 1 cu ft)
So far so good.
Going on day 3 and no stink
fingers crossed .
I also have a 7 gpm DLFC ordered/in route - so may bump up BW gpm and see what that gets me. if needed

I was considering regen with NaCIO to see if that may fix the smell (as opposed to injecting full time, more tanks, carbon......)
I would need to reprogram and convert my Autotrol Logix 263 from filter to conditioner, add injector plug/line, brine tank and maybe use Cl pellets. See if that works.

Right now I am just trying to see if I can find a pattern.

 

[Reach4]

I agree, except my neighbor didn't....sigh. Also, the NaClO is not as effective penetrating and "washing" the slime Fe and S metabolizing bacteria produce - the disinfection byproducts, I have been told by folks smarter than I, are somewhat ensconced in the slime.

I did not understand the bit about your neighbor. edit-- maybe I understand. Your neighbor was feeding chlorine continually as a treatment, vs the sanitizing event I was thinking of. Yes, during the sanitizing event, I would keep the softener in bypass most of the time. I would want the softener to see some chlorine, but not the strongest, and not for many hours.

For well and plumbing sanitizing (an event -- not continual), you want at least 100 ppm free chlorine. You want the pH lowered. I want 200 ppm or more free chlorine. The first line of https://terrylove.com/forums/index....izing-extra-attention-to-4-inch-casing.65845/ has a link to a nice sanitizing article, but then I go into my possibly-overkill extension.

For a continuous injection, rather than call that sanitizing, I would call that chlorination or treatment, or some other term.

 

[MichaelSK]

I did not understand the bit about your neighbor. edit-- maybe I understand. Your neighbor was feeding chlorine continually as a treatment, vs the sanitizing event I was thinking of. Yes, during the sanitizing event, I would keep the softener in bypass most of the time. I would want the softener to see some chlorine, but not the strongest, and not for many hours.

For well and plumbing sanitizing (an event -- not continual), you want at least 100 ppm free chlorine. You want the pH lowered. I want 200 ppm or more free chlorine. The first line of https://terrylove.com/forums/index....izing-extra-attention-to-4-inch-casing.65845/ has a link to a nice sanitizing article, but then I go into my possibly-overkill extension.

For a continuous injection, rather than call that sanitizing, I would call that chlorination or treatment, or some other term.

This "event" happened almost twenty years ago - I remember his frustration vividly.

He had a very expensive water treatment system installed by a water treatment company (very hard water, tannin, hydrogen sulfide, iron of some sort, iron/S metabolizing bacteria with considerable slime). He stated that the system was not correcting the water problems. He stated that he was told by the company owner to "put Clorox in the well" - he did. He put, per their instructions, "four gallons of Clorox in the well."

If the well was like mine, it was a 4" well ~120' deep with maybe 90' of iron pipe casing. Then he ran the treated well water through his treatment equipment "to clean it." It is fascinating to me that my well, maybe 400 yards away has much better water.

I am on top of a ridge of sort - he is on the bottom in sort of a depression. Could it be that he is getting ground water (lots of organic material) pouring down through Florida karst into his well?

We are now having considerable problems with Fe/S bacteria. I am designed a system, and purchased the components, that will proportionally inject NaClO to yield about 2ppm chlorine into a retention tank, then moving on into a zeolite filter (Next Sand), then activated carbon, then asoftener with a wonderful resin

I built a softener around 1.5 ft3 of (Purolite SST- 60). I have been using this fantastic resin for about 12 years. I "clean" it with citric acid when it restores with KCl. It has not become unusable because of the iron in the water. Still going strong after more than a decade.

 

[MichaelSK]

Thanks MichealSK.

This is what I was suspecting and was looking for an option that may not need more tanks.
I did post my water analysis in another post - copied here also.

Thanks Reach

I was under the same impression.

So a little update:
I began to second guess myself as to where the stink was coming from.
Testing/sniff after Kl filter again seemed as if no smell or inconclusive
Prior test I drew water from test port after KL but believe I had the whole filtration system disco'd from main supply.
I have shut off's that completely isolate the filtration system so I can bypass all filters
Thinkin I may have been drawing water "backfeeding " from softener due to pressure in the filter complex?
I did not do a full sanitization after service (when I cleaned valves, replace softener resin and KL)
I put a few NaClO pellets in the well and let that circ into KL during regen hoping it would disinfect the KL a bit. flushed afterwards
Also performed a sanitization on the softener - stink was gone. was hopeful maybe I just needed to sanitize all.
3 days later - stink was back - cold side only again.

Next - Set my KL to backwash more often - daily, 10 min, 5.3 gpm DLFC on 9x48 vortec 1 cu ft)
So far so good.
Going on day 3 and no stink
fingers crossed .
I also have a 7 gpm DLFC ordered/in route - so may bump up BW gpm and see what that gets me. if needed

I was considering regen with NaCIO to see if that may fix the smell (as opposed to injecting full time, more tanks, carbon......)
I would need to reprogram and convert my Autotrol Logix 263 from filter to conditioner, add injector plug/line, brine tank and maybe use Cl pellets. See if that works.

Right now I am just trying to see if I can find a pattern.

Hope the sterilization works for you. The water test is quite comprehensive, who/where did you get your water tested? The Strontium is just barely under the EPA limit of 1500. But it is easily taken care of by a water softener. Speaking of water softener resin - be very cautious about using any chlorine to "disinfect" the resin. Clorox will ruin the resin. If you need to replace the resin, I can tell you that the Purolite SST-60 resin that I designed my softener around has been great resin - it handles clear water iron very well when regenerated with brine and citric acid to clean it of iron.

 

[Reach4]

The Strontium is just barely under the EPA limit of 1500

Where did you find such a limit?

 

[ktop]

The water test is quite comprehensive, who/where did you get your water tested?

I used University of Illinois - Illinois State Water Survey. Tests are reasonably priced ($35 each) and quite comprehensive.
They do not test for bacteria or tannins though and additional items like lead are extra.
http://www.isws.illinois.edu/chem/psl/

I also had tests done after iron/softener and after RO. Strontium was kicked way down to 17.4 micro gr/l after iron filter and softener.
And further down to .55 micro gr/l after RO. Attached is water test after iron& softener.
These numbers are from before I rebedded my softener and replaced filox with KL

Spoke with a Chemist at ISWS re possible Tannins in my water, they do not test for tannin specifically.
They indicated the combined Non-Volatile Organic Carbon number plus Color (PCU) value can be a good indicator of presence of tannins.

I am waiting for my tannin test kit from NTL labs now

 

[JRC3]

I love how you can toggle between the pics and see the different results.

Just curious why you replaced your Filox? Was it fouled? Did you not have enough BW? After 8 years I'd assume neither.

Wanna trade used media? I have 1 cuft of 4 month old Pyrolox that I want to change to KL. I'm joking but a small part of me is almost slightly serious. LOL

 

[MichaelSK]

Where did you find such a limit?

google EPA, strontium, new guidelines