Bad Iron problem, what to do

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Gary Slusser

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I neither did nor say that. What are you talking about? There's is no indication, declaration, implication or proclamation, statement or picture that shows the UV is AFTER the chloination. No use of sequential adverbs related to equipment descriptions were used. You base your statement on presumptive suppositions alone. Even showing you pictures doesn't seem to help. But then....oh well, never mind.

Whew! I'm glad that is settled. Or wait, maybe I'll need to explain it agian??? Next, you're probably going say I said that filters go after the UV, and solution pump inside the retention tank, right?

Anyway, Gary, you need to relax a little more, Take it easy. It's a beautiful day. Focus. Enough said on this topic.
Settled! you wish... I quoted what you said, you used UV and chlorination and now you're playing word games.

You may have the UV before the chlorination instead of after it, you can't tell by the poor quality of the picture you posted from another site that sometimes takes more than a minute to view the picture or it times out your browser BUT...

IMO there is no reason to sell people both UV and chlorination except to make more money and to do that you must be taking advantage of their ignorance of water treatment but please post your reason(s) or the need for both. Then it will be "settled".
 

Cue777

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This is the EXACT kind of arguing and bickering I am receiving around here from the local guys. Each seller says another's idea or product doesn't work, or theirs is the best. :rolleyes::(

My water was tested again today for the 3rd time from a Well and Pump water conditioner company they got 4 1/2 PPM Iron and 6 PH.
 

Speedbump

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Some of us just get very angry when we know someone is ripping you off. It goes against the grain so to speak.

Since we know what is good and what is bad in this industry, we can see through a lot of the BS that the ordinary customer/homeowner would tend to believe.

bob...
 

Gary Slusser

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This is the EXACT kind of arguing and bickering I am receiving around here from the local guys. Each seller says another's idea or product doesn't work, or theirs is the best. :rolleyes::(

My water was tested again today for the 3rd time from a Well and Pump water conditioner company they got 4 1/2 PPM Iron and 6 PH.
Actually I see it as debate and weeding out salesmen BS but...

Are you now saying you don't have IRB in your water? If so, then an iron filter should work but, with your low pH, you need an acid neutralizing filter. That will remove some of the iron and I suggest only the backwashed type. Then a specially built softener designed to remove 4.6 to 6 ppm+ of iron and the raw water and added hardness form the AB filter.
 

Cue777

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Actually I see it as debate and weeding out salesmen BS but...

From my end it just seems like more salesman BS when the arguing goes on, the consumer doesn't know who to believe so it all sounds the same.


Are you now saying you don't have IRB in your water? If so, then an iron filter should work but, with your low pH, you need an acid neutralizing filter. That will remove some of the iron and I suggest only the backwashed type. Then a specially built softener designed to remove 4.6 to 6 ppm+ of iron and the raw water and added hardness form the AB filter.


All anyone tests for around here is Iron, they don't say what kind it is only that it is 4 PPM. What specific kind of test is used to determine if it is Iron Bacteria? I assume it is since the slime. I have slime in the Toilet tanks and the plumbing lines.

I got a quote today and the guy said it had low PH, 4ppm Iron and Mud in the water, this is the only guy that has said Mud and I don't believe that. I Chlorinated the well yesterday for the second time and while the Chlorine is in the water it is crystal clear, as far as I know Chlorine wont remove mud :)

He wants $5300 :eek: for a Iron filter, Mud filter and softener LOL I don't think so....
 

ecpgroup

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use manganese greensand filter,then phup unit to get back to 7, then softner, then uv then ro under the sink unit. water will be clear and good

these are the units we sell

www.shakesby.net trouble is uk only i am affraid.

a lot of the stuff from the usa seems to be very old and looks odd like the culligan units horrible things.
 

Gary Slusser

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Cue and I spoke late yesterday and went over the things he mentioned above.

He does not have mud in his water.

A manganese greensand filter is not going to treat IRB problems and you can not use UV on any type of reducing bacteria problem; it will not cure that type of bacteria problems and they will prevent the UV from killing other bacteria.
 

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OK I am still confused. :confused:

I have shocked the well with Chlorine, this has made the water crystal clear. Now if there was Iron or Iron Bacteria in the water, which the tests says there is, from my understanding the Chlorine should have oxidized it and made the water brown but this is not the case. I have not run all of the Chlorine out yet so I don't know what the water will be like after I do.

And Gary, the Chlorination system you mentioned, the Chlorine is supposed to Oxidize the Iron, then it goes to the Carbon filter to remove the Chlorine, does the Carbon filter also remove the Oxidized Iron and should the water be clear after leaving the Carbon filter?
 

Mikey

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And Gary, the Chlorination system you mentioned, the Chlorine is supposed to Oxidize the Iron, then it goes to the Carbon filter to remove the Chlorine, does the Carbon filter also remove the Oxidized Iron and should the water be clear after leaving the Carbon filter?
From my experience (I have pretty much the same problem you do) the answer is "not very". I inject liquid chlorine while the pump is running, and the water goes into a 120gal holding tank. Coming out of the tank, there's a high residual Cl level. We then go through a string filter which needs to be changed every month. Then to the carbon filter and a softener. After all this the water looks OK and tastes fine, but there's an iron residue left in toilet tanks and on the dish drainer at the sink.
 

Leejosepho

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I have shocked the well with Chlorine, this has made the water crystal clear. Now if there was Iron or Iron Bacteria in the water, which the tests says there is, from my understanding the Chlorine should have oxidized it and made the water brown ...

In my own experience, the stuff that is oxidized and brown settles somewhere rather than being suspended in the water. After filling my 1000-gallon backyard pool a couple of weeks ago, I chlorinated it with bleach then came back the next day and simply swept the brown stuff off the bottom.

The same kind of thing should (or at least could) happen after chlorinating an iron-rich well. When I did mine, I used a trash pump at the top of the well to purge it the next morning and I got some very-slightly-tinted water as the barely-noticeable (visibly-diluted) stuff that had settled at the bottom of the well was stirred and pulled away.

I do not know how similar your well and mine might be, but the system Mikey has mentioned is something I had once considered before simply installing a pair of filters with .5 micron at the end leading into a water softener being fed by rust-remover salt ... and that is all I need for my water to be just fine. I do still get an occasional and slight sulfur odor, but that comes and goes with whatever changes evidently take place in the aquifer and it is quite tolerable. As an optometrist once said to me: "Less is better!" But, maybe he was just trying to keep me from seeing something?!
 

Gary Slusser

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OK I am still confused. :confused:

I have shocked the well with Chlorine, this has made the water crystal clear. Now if there was Iron or Iron Bacteria in the water, which the tests says there is, from my understanding the Chlorine should have oxidized it and made the water brown but this is not the case. I have not run all of the Chlorine out yet so I don't know what the water will be like after I do.

And Gary, the Chlorination system you mentioned, the Chlorine is supposed to Oxidize the Iron, then it goes to the Carbon filter to remove the Chlorine, does the Carbon filter also remove the Oxidized Iron and should the water be clear after leaving the Carbon filter?
As I told you, this is the second time you shocked the well in the last couple weeks. You shouldn't have much IRB in the well this soon afterwards. As far as ferric iron (rusty water), the water below your pump can not be pumped out of the well and rust will settle out into that area. The water above the pump's inlet will then be clear. And after the chlorine is unable to kill or oxidize anything then iron and IRB levels increase to what they were before.

My chlorination system kills all bacteria and oxidizes anything that can be oxidized. That happens in the mixing/retention tank. That will usually make the water rusty, depending on the amount of iron, manganese and IRB etc.. Then the carbon filter clarifies the water, meaning it removes the color/rust and removes the chlorine. The water past the carbon filter is chlorine free and pristine.

If you go with the AN filter (which you really need to protect the metals in your plumbing and fixtures), it buffers the acid in your water and raises the pH to roughly 7.0 to 7.5.
 

Gary Slusser

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From my experience (I have pretty much the same problem you do) the answer is "not very". I inject liquid chlorine while the pump is running, and the water goes into a 120gal holding tank. Coming out of the tank, there's a high residual Cl level. We then go through a string filter which needs to be changed every month. Then to the carbon filter and a softener. After all this the water looks OK and tastes fine, but there's an iron residue left in toilet tanks and on the dish drainer at the sink.
You should get rid of the toy "whole house" disposable cartridge filter and if your carbon filter is allowing chlorine and/or dirty water through it, then you need to replace the carbon and the filter is either too small for the SFR gpm of your family, number of bathrooms and type of fixtures or, you've ruined the carbon. That happens when retention is too short or you don't have a retention tank and are using the pressure tank for retention OR, you have the wrong type of carbon or you have a water leak somewhere etc.. Or you don't change your cartridge when it is needed and most probably that's fouled your carbon.

Solution feeders, regardless of the type/brand of pump used, rarely if ever work properly and/or for long without problems. I refuse to sell them. They require constant babysitting.

My inline erosion pellet chlorinator is a pressurized system, no mixing a solution every few weeks etc. in an atmospheric storage tank that allows the solution to start weakening as soon as it is mixed. No separation of the chlorine and water in the solution tank while the pickup tube is sucking up the strongest solution as it weakens to next to no chlorine content. There's no need to dump the retention tank and start over to get the right strength of solution and the right volume injected etc..

My system does not have those problems and works constantly without babysitting. All it requires is just once every month drain X gallons from the bottom drain on the mixing tank until the water gets as clear as possible and about every 2-3 months, you clean the hopper and add more pellets.
 

Mikey

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In my own experience, the stuff that is oxidized and brown settles somewhere rather than being suspended in the water.
Mine used to do that -- I just drained the holding tank now and then and some nasty brown water came out for a while. For the last 3 or 4 years, however, it drains clear. The oxidized iron stays in suspension and does not precipitate out. I took the system apart a while back and pressure-washed the tank just to be sure I wasn't missing anything, and it came out clean.
 

Mikey

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Sorry, Gary, I didn't notice Page 2 of this thread before I replied to Lee.
You should get rid of the toy "whole house" disposable cartridge filter
I'd love to.
and if your carbon filter is allowing chlorine and/or dirty water through it, then you need to replace the carbon and the filter is either too small for the SFR gpm of your family, number of bathrooms and type of fixtures
The carbon is in a 10"x54" tank with a Fleck controller (unknown model - no markings at all) on it. Don't know what kind of carbon he used. 2 people, 2 baths, we use around 125gpd including softener regeneration. "Outside" water (irrigation, etc.) doesn't go through the filter.
or, you've ruined the carbon. That happens when retention is too short or you don't have a retention tank and are using the pressure tank for retention OR, you have the wrong type of carbon or you have a water leak somewhere etc.. Or you don't change your cartridge when it is needed and most probably that's fouled your carbon.
I don't doubt I need to replace the carbon. The original installer, however, said I only needed to do that when the water started to taste/smell of chlorine. It's now been 5 years since the carbon filter was rebedded, and there's no such taste or smell yet.
My inline erosion pellet chlorinator is a pressurized system, no mixing a solution every few weeks etc. in an atmospheric storage tank that allows the solution to start weakening as soon as it is mixed. No separation of the chlorine and water in the solution tank while the pickup tube is sucking up the strongest solution as it weakens to next to no chlorine content. There's no need to dump the retention tank and start over to get the right strength of solution and the right volume injected etc..

My system does not have those problems and works constantly without babysitting. All it requires is just once every month drain X gallons from the bottom drain on the mixing tank until the water gets as clear as possible and about every 2-3 months, you clean the hopper and add more pellets.
OK, I'm sold. I can believe the carbon is in need of replacement, and would like to try your system. I've got a couple of questions, but will check your website and try to carry on from there. One question of general interest, though might be: How is the pellet system metered? My liquid system pumps chlorine whenever the well pump runs, so it tends to overchlorinate when we're doing a lot of outside work.
 

Mikey

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IMO ,that means you don't have the amount of iron you used to, or you don't have the chlorine strength or dose set right.
Maybe more iron, don't really know. The chlorine dose may not be set correctly, but it's too high if anything.
More questions on the way via e-mail.

Mike
 

Mikey

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Another reason your iron may not be precipitaing can be that the solution can weaken in strength depending on age and storage methods. Chlorine gases can escape and the solution becomes weak.
Don't think that's the problem -- residual chlorine in the settling tank outflow is very high.
So attach the unit to the whole house flow meter side (after the outside lines)
Flows on the house side are too low to trigger any reasonably-priced flow meters I've seen; can you give me a make/model?
 
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Cue777

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OK I finally got the Chlorine run out of the water, took around 9 hours total of running. The water was clear after it was out, for about 15 minutes. Now it is back to a very light brown color and it does not settle at the bottom when a glass is full which leads me to think it is Colloidal Iron? Will Chlorination remove that type of Iron?

Gary what are the specs of the Centaur Carbon filter as that item is not on your site?
 
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