Bewildering Smell

Hi Everyone;

We have a bewildering taste in our water. I can't describe it. It has almost a fishy type taste. Key points:

Lake water - 3/4hp Jacuzzi at lake, 40 foot lift to house.
50 gallon water fiberglass holding tank with float switch in house (pump at lake shuts off when float switch in tank actuates), this feeds a 3/4hp Jacuzzi in house, hooked to a 20 gallon pressure tank.

A tee feeds the cold water for the house and a 50 gallon hot water tank. Cold water is filtered, hot is not.

The cold water filtering is as follows - 5 micron, 1 micron, charcoal, UV. There is a bypass around the filters for use during filter replacement.

The taste we get seems to only be present in the cold water line. I can't determine what the taste is like. It is not a sulphur or rotten egg smell, only a fishy type taste to the water.

The Hot water line does not have this taste however.

Originally I could not detect the taste in the water directly in the holding tank, and since it was not present in the hot water, this led me to believe it was in the filtering system. I bypassed the filters, but the taste did not go away.

I shocked the cold water line in front of the filters with chlorine, but the taste returned after the chlorine dissipated.

Confused, I went back to the holding tank. I can now detect the taste in the tank. I sampled the water coming in from the lake, it tastes OK.

We clean the tank every year, so possibly we messed something up this fall when cleaning. We just drained and cleaned the tank again tonight.

A couple of questions:

Why can I not detect the taste in the hot water? The temp is at 125F, is this hot enough to kill whatever (bacteria, algae, whatever)?

Besides bleach and/or Spray Nine, what do you recommend for cleaning out the holding tank?

I recently changed from a 5 micron foam type filter to a string type 5 micron filter. Are these any more susceptible to bacteria or anything? I'm pretty confident that this is not the issue as the taste is in the tank before the filters, but maybe the string filter aggravates an existing issue. The water in the tank does not taste as bad as the water in the line.

Should there be anything else I should look at regarding the taste?

Sorry for the long post, but I wanted to make sure I covered all my bases.

Thanks for any ideas you have.

Hope everyone has a Happy New Year!

Rick

Hi Everyone;

Hope everyone is having a good new year.

If anyone has any ideas on what could be causing the funny taste in our system, please let us know.

I am going to try shocking the pump/pressure tank tonight before we go to bed to see if there can be a build-up of growth of something possibly in the pump.

Its weird, we have lived here for over 7 years and have never had this taste before.

Regards,

Rick

Ricketts said:

Hi Everyone;

Hope everyone is having a good new year.

If anyone has any ideas on what could be causing the funny taste in our system, please let us know.

I am going to try shocking the pump/pressure tank tonight before we go to bed to see if there can be a build-up of growth of something possibly in the pump.

Its weird, we have lived here for over 7 years and have never had this taste before.

Click to expand...

Have you cleaned and disinfected the storage tank with the float switch in it?

If not I suggest you do after bypassing all water treatment equipment.

I would drain it, wash it down with a strong bleach solution, rinse it well and refill and add x amount of bleach (depends on how many gallons of water it holds- you want a strong smell of bleach in the water in the tank) and run that water through the plumbing to each faucet, toilet etc.. Not through any water treatment equipment.

Let the bleach water sit in the plumbing/fixtures for ten minutes and just run each cold water faucet for 10 seconds and let sit for 15-20 minutes and repeat that 4-5 times.

At the end of the the last time, wait 15-20 minutes and then flush all bleach water out of everything and put the water treatment equipment into the service position and sanitize any water treatment equipment.

Hi Gary, thanks for the response.

We cleaned it approx 2 months ago with bleach (we try to do it every year, but sometimes it is two years), then again 2 nights ago with bleach and Spray Nine, but there has been no change. I have shocked the cold water from the filters up.

I just don't get it. The hot water seems fine (like whatever is in the water is dying in the hot water tank - while I would assume that the hot water would make it worse, it isn't, almost like the heat is killing off whatever is in the water).

The water is not milky or cloudy or anything, the tank looks nice and clear. I'm really grasping at straws now, but we had a really mild fall, then it got really cold and the ice came in hard and thick this year, normally ( we're on a big lake) the wind breaks up the first layer of ice, and wave action keeps working for awhile. Could there be a die off of lake weeds causing this, or a dead animal below the ice?

Still completely confused why the hot water is OK. Does this point to an algae issue vs a bacteria issue?

We will shock the entire system from the holding tank through the pump and the pressure tank tonight. We didn't get a chance to do it last night.

Thanks,

Rick

High enough heat kills bacteria and it doesn't take very long so it may be bacteria and the water heater is killing it.

You should sanitize the filters if possible and housings if the filters are disposable cartridge types. Carbon/charcoal provides bacteria a large source of food adn a great place to live. So what type filters do you have?

You should have removed the filters before bleaching the system and then installed new ones after you were finished...

Thanks for the replies guys

We have shocked the entire system from the holding tank, through the pump and pressure tank, and the filter asembly.

I had already removed and disposed of the filters because I had read that bacteria like charcoal.

If it was bacteria, should the UV filter have killed them off as well, eliminating the taste, or is this process too fast for the taste to go away?

I also took the UV apart to clean the quartz tube and do a thorough inspection (again) but it looks good and the lamp is functioning.

Another clue: I did not (and my wife did not) notice any taste in the water coming from the intake into the holding tank when we first started investigating this but now we do. So we are convinced that the taste is right in the lake water. Maybe its peaking (still thinking/hoping its just a big weed die-off or something) and we couldn't notice it before, but now we can. So shocking the system may not solve the issue afterall...but I feel better after doing it.

One last thing - since the charcoal filter can provide a nice environment for bacteria, should I move it to the outlet side of the UV filter, assuming the UV will kill all the bacteria in the water? I had installed it before the UV thinking the UV should be last in the chain.

We are going to get a sample analyzed this week when we get into town.

Thanks again,

Rick

You are drinking Lake Water?

Ricketts said:

We have shocked the entire system from the holding tank, through the pump and pressure tank, and the filter asembly.

The cold water filtering is as follows - 5 micron, 1 micron, charcoal, UV. There is a bypass around the filters for use during filter replacement.

If it was bacteria, should the UV filter have killed them off as well, eliminating the taste, or is this process too fast for the taste to go away?

I also took the UV apart to clean the quartz tube and do a thorough inspection (again) but it looks good and the lamp is functioning.

we are convinced that the taste is right in the lake water. and we couldn't notice it before, but now we can.

since the charcoal filter can provide a nice environment for bacteria, should I move it to the outlet side of the UV filter, assuming the UV will kill all the bacteria in the water? I had installed it before the UV thinking the UV should be last in the chain.

We are going to get a sample analyzed this week when we get into town.

Click to expand...

You have also said that you have a by pass around the filters... hopefully not the UV too. A by pass for any of it is a bad idea, and especially if there's one for the UV.

You will have a problem sanitizing it and it creates dead ends in the plumbing for bacteria growth. The family can certainly go without water for the little time it takes to do maintenance on the equipment once every whenever.

What is the hardness of your water? UV has a max of usually 5-7 gpg and I suggest none or only 1-2 gpg. Hard water scale (or anything else) will build up on the quartz sleeve and prevent proper dosage.

You are changing the lamp every year right? If not or your hardness is capable of forming scale, there's no reason to have the light.

Yes if you just must have carbon (I wouldn't on lake water) move the carbon to after the UV. And why so many filters instead of one 5 micron sediment just before the UV?

Things are clearing up

Well, I guess this is a good lesson for me...never assume lake water quality will be constant. We have lived here for 7 years and never had any changes to the taste, until this year.

The taste is already going away about as quick as it appeared, so whatever is happening out at the intake (under 2 feet of ice) is dissipating.

Thanks for all the information and expertise, I am going to make some changes to the configuration of the filters and general setup over the winter.

Regards,

Rick