Options for 15ppm iron and PH 6.6

[timeport]

Apologies for asking yet another iron question, but I see so much conflicting info I'm still really not sure what to do.

Bought this house a year ago with a terrible iron problem. Already installed is a non-working softener with some sort of Fleck valve(won't pull brine) and some unknown media backwashing filter. Neither appear to be doing anything useful.

Local water treatment guy recommended a "Charger Iron Breaker" and a UV filter. I declined the UV due to the maintenance required (all of my lines are brown, I can imagine the UV filter would soon be brown also) but approved the "Iron breaker" which I believe is just a standard AIO, with Katalox (light?) media and a Clack WS1 valve. He installed it after the two other useless filters. This worked for about 6 months until the backfill line clogged(too-smart-for-my-own-good-me installed a check valve that got clogged up with iron chunks and whatever else). Fixed the clog (removed check valve) and things mostly settled back down until recently the iron 'smell' has started ticking back up again.

I checked out the filter. It's backwashing and drawing air correctly, the tank itself is now iron stained to the point that it's no longer translucent(above the media line). I haven't measured the backwash rate but my pump has no problem keeping up (pressure switch cycles fairly slowly while backwashing). System is fed with a 3/4 line.

I dumped and rinsed the media(which seemed to have way more iron in it than seems like it should), replaced the gravel and re-filled the tank. Now it's significantly worse, almost equivalent to bypass.

I'm really not sure what Katalox media should look like, but a sample of the media seemed to me like it had a ton of iron "granules" in it.

From what I'm reading, I think 15PPM is well outside the capability of this setup to reliably remove.


I've left the PH alone, I'm told by the local water guy the Katalox has some ability to fix, and it really doesn't bother me. The coliform doesn't really concern me either but I know the h2o2 will likely take care of it also.


It seems that one of the simplest things and most-likely-to-work things to do from this point is add h2o2 injection before the AIO, fix or replace the softener and put it after the AIO, and possibly replace the Katalox media in the AIO. Maybe could disable the air-draw portion of the Katalox since we will be getting o2 from the peroxide?




Purewaterproducts.com suggested:

AerMax with Katalox. Pretty good/
Aermax with Filox - Better.
AerMax with a Calcite filter followed by Katalox. Very good.
AerMax with a Filox filter followed by Katalox. Excellent.
Or, consider this: AerMax, put calcite into your current Katalox filter, then Filox.
Lots of possibilities. Raising the pH with a Soda Ash injector rather than the calcite filter is also a good plan."

Water test:

Suggestions/constructive criticism is much appreciated

-timeport

 

[GReynolds929]

Chem feed system needed. Give us a call and I will be glad to help. Too much to type on this subject.
aquapurewatersolutions.com

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[timeport]

Well after much money spent and time I have brown water with .4ppm iron.

I now have

h2o2 injecting at 100ppm (way overkill I know)
12x52 coconut carbon filter
10x54 AIO w/katalox
10x54 softener

the h2o2 injection turns the water brown and nothing after it removes the brown.

I'm guessing it's the manganese not being fully oxidized? from what I'm reading 6.6ph is a little low to try to fully oxidize manganese. That's why I cranked the h2o2 up to 100ppm hoping to compensate.

But oddly after I run 200-300 gallons through it, it starts clearing up and iron drops to 0.00ppm.

I thought maybe something wasn't rinsing enough? Each filter regenerates nightly. Softener first, then katalox, then carbon.

I increased the rinse period on the carbon filter from 10 mins to 20 mins. I confirmed rinse rate is ~12gpm via water meter.

The backwash rate is pretty low though and I'm not sure why (~2gpm). It's a fleck 5000 valve, the backwash 'cap' is labeled for 7gpm. I don't think it's a supply or drain flow issue since rinsing hits 12gpm (when it was filling it hit 20gpm fill rate, so supply is definitely good).

Am considering removing the backwash cap and hollowing out the restrictions.

But that doesn't explain my brown water and still present iron that clears out after significant usage.

any other thoughts?