Remove equipment or repurpose?

[Softener_rookie]

My well water treatment is 25um 20" big blue bag filter, 1354 tank with 2cuft of turbidex, water softener with Crystal-Right CR-100, 1um 1 Micron 20 Inch big blue Spun Wound Polypropylene filter, and finally UV (was Hg lamp, now LED).

Water testing shows Iron and Manganese not detected after water treatment, but I am still seeing Iron and/or Manganese residue on the UV Quartz sleeve and PEX plumbing.

Back in 2016, I was originally told that I had a total of 4.1ppm of Iron (ferric + ferrous), but from experience about 50% of that was ferric. Fast forward to 2025, I got the water test lab to test ferric and ferrous Iron separately so I could determine if I really needed 2cuft of turbidex to filter out the ferric Iron. It turns out, my Iron content is way down to 0.3ppm ferrous and ferric not detectable at 0.1ppm.

I have no smells or iron bacteria. There is a residue on the inside of the toilet tank that looks like manganese, but I am not completely sure.

Question:

1)What does a guy do to get rid of Iron and/or Manganese residue that is below lab detectable limits of 0.1ppm?

2) Should I repurpose the 1354 tank with turbidex for ferric iron to something else or just leave it idle?

Thanks

	Units	Method Reporting Limit (MRL)	Untreated after well drilled	Untreated after 9 years	Treated after 3 years	Treated after 9 Years
Date			5/31/2016	8/8/2025	12/26/2019	8/8/2025
Treated?			No	No	Yes	Yes
pH			7.55	7.11	7.75	7.8
Specific Conductance	umhos/cm	1	176.4	202	173.7	246
Arsenic	mg/l	0.002	0.0035	0.0034	0.0032	ND
Chloride	mg/l	0.3	4.55	4.57	2.63	6.61
Copper	mg/l	0.1	ND	ND	ND	ND
Fluoride	mg/l	0.2	0.291	ND	0.234	ND
Hardness as CaCO3	mg/l CaCO3	10	72	84	ND	ND
Iron, Total	mg/l	0.1	4.11	0.29	ND	ND
Ferric Iron	mg/l	0.1		ND		ND
Ferrous Iron	mg/l	0.1		0.29		ND
Lead	mg/l	0.001	ND	ND	ND	ND
Manganese	mg/l	0.05	0.21	0.192	ND	ND
Nitrogen, Nitrate	mg/l N	0.2	ND	ND	ND	ND
Sodium	mg/l	1	7.52	7.39	43.8	57.7
Sulfate	mg/l	0.2	8.17	7.01	3.28	11.2
Zinc	mg/l	0.1	ND	ND	ND	ND

 

[TJanak]

I don't have a good answer for you other than the lab's Method Reporting Limits seem marginal. 0.05 ppm for manganese isn't going to cut it, that's the generally accepted staining level for manganese, and I see staining below that.

Softener sized correctly for flow rates?

 

[Sponsor]

 

[Softener_rookie]

Thanks for your feedback on manganese reporting limits. The toilet tank residue is a very light film. As an experiment, I put some Red-b-Gone in the toilet tank for 30 minutes and the tank now looks like new.

We have a two person household and we don't use alot of softened water. We use a max of 3 gpm (~80 gal per day) and the softener is sized for at least 6 gpm.

In my original message, I neglected to say that I have and 50 gpd RO drinking water system with a 40 gallon FlexRO diaphram accumulator tank. There is no solenoid shutoff on the inlet to the RO water system. I think this is a major contributor to the problem.

My VFD well pump system has a 4 gallon diaphram accumulator on the source side; no accumulator on the softened water side. Lets say my RO accumulator needs to be refilled just as my water softener goes into regen. Untreated watrer is bypassed at the softener (in regen) and fills the plumbing from my softener to my RO system. The softener is in my pole barn, goes through 50 ft of 1.25 PEX to my house, then to the RO system. All that plumbing would be filled with untreated water.

I'm planning to install a timer and solenoid shutoff on the RO water inlet. I'm also planning to replace the turbidex with katalox light unless there is a good argument not to do it.

 

[TJanak]

Thanks for your feedback on manganese reporting limits. The toilet tank residue is a very light film. As an experiment, I put some Red-b-Gone in the toilet tank for 30 minutes and the tank now looks like new.

We have a two person household and we don't use alot of softened water. We use a max of 3 gpm (~80 gal per day) and the softener is sized for at least 6 gpm.

In my original message, I neglected to say that I have and 50 gpd RO drinking water system with a 40 gallon FlexRO diaphram accumulator tank. There is no solenoid shutoff on the inlet to the RO water system. I think this is a major contributor to the problem.

My VFD well pump system has a 4 gallon diaphram accumulator on the source side; no accumulator on the softened water side. Lets say my RO accumulator needs to be refilled just as my water softener goes into regen. Untreated watrer is bypassed at the softener (in regen) and fills the plumbing from my softener to my RO system. The softener is in my pole barn, goes through 50 ft of 1.25 PEX to my house, then to the RO system. All that plumbing would be filled with untreated water.

I'm planning to install a timer and solenoid shutoff on the RO water inlet. I'm also planning to replace the turbidex with katalox light unless there is a good argument not to do it.

Wow, 40 gallon RO tank. Household must use a lot of RO water.

I guess that's possible, but the timing would have to be just right, because a 50 GPD RO system uses so little water (low flow rate) that it would have to be running during the entire softener regen to draw any sort of significant amount of untreated water through the softener. And even then, I don't know if the RO could use 50' x 1-1/4" worth of water during softener regen. I guess I'm skeptical. No harm in trying the RO shutoff timer though.

I can't be helpful on the Katalox light, never used it.

 

[Softener_rookie]

It's a 40 gallon diaphram tank; spec says it holds 30 gallons. Many times I've seen the RO system run all night. 50 feet of 1.25 pex is about 3 gallons with RO waste water using at least another 3. I agree the timing of RO system running all night during softener regen might be a stretch, but I'll eliminate this variable by putting a shutoff solenoid.

In the meantime, as an experiment, I installed an ultra filter instead of my 1 micron spun Wound Polypropylene filter right before my UV system and have captured all sorts of iron and/or manganese colloids. I believe the colloids are the problem.

 

[TheH2OGuy]

My well water treatment is 25um 20" big blue bag filter, 1354 tank with 2cuft of turbidex, water softener with Crystal-Right CR-100, 1um 1 Micron 20 Inch big blue Spun Wound Polypropylene filter, and finally UV (was Hg lamp, now LED).

Water testing shows Iron and Manganese not detected after water treatment, but I am still seeing Iron and/or Manganese residue on the UV Quartz sleeve and PEX plumbing.

Back in 2016, I was originally told that I had a total of 4.1ppm of Iron (ferric + ferrous), but from experience about 50% of that was ferric. Fast forward to 2025, I got the water test lab to test ferric and ferrous Iron separately so I could determine if I really needed 2cuft of turbidex to filter out the ferric Iron. It turns out, my Iron content is way down to 0.3ppm ferrous and ferric not detectable at 0.1ppm.

I have no smells or iron bacteria. There is a residue on the inside of the toilet tank that looks like manganese, but I am not completely sure.

Question:

1)What does a guy do to get rid of Iron and/or Manganese residue that is below lab detectable limits of 0.1ppm?

2) Should I repurpose the 1354 tank with turbidex for ferric iron to something else or just leave it idle?

Thanks

	Units	Method Reporting Limit (MRL)	Untreated after well drilled	Untreated after 9 years	Treated after 3 years	Treated after 9 Years
Date			5/31/2016	8/8/2025	12/26/2019	8/8/2025
Treated?			No	No	Yes	Yes
pH			7.55	7.11	7.75	7.8
Specific Conductance	umhos/cm	1	176.4	202	173.7	246
Arsenic	mg/l	0.002	0.0035	0.0034	0.0032	ND
Chloride	mg/l	0.3	4.55	4.57	2.63	6.61
Copper	mg/l	0.1	ND	ND	ND	ND
Fluoride	mg/l	0.2	0.291	ND	0.234	ND
Hardness as CaCO3	mg/l CaCO3	10	72	84	ND	ND
Iron, Total	mg/l	0.1	4.11	0.29	ND	ND
Ferric Iron	mg/l	0.1		ND		ND
Ferrous Iron	mg/l	0.1		0.29		ND
Lead	mg/l	0.001	ND	ND	ND	ND
Manganese	mg/l	0.05	0.21	0.192	ND	ND
Nitrogen, Nitrate	mg/l N	0.2	ND	ND	ND	ND
Sodium	mg/l	1	7.52	7.39	43.8	57.7
Sulfate	mg/l	0.2	8.17	7.01	3.28	11.2
Zinc	mg/l	0.1	ND	ND	ND	ND

If the media in the filtration system is 9 years old, it's time for a rebed of the system. Filtration media typically last 3-5 years before it becomes too fouled to remain effective. This would account for the bleed-through of iron of 0.3ppm.

 

[Softener_rookie]

In the 14 weeks since my original post, my water softener has regened 5 times at exactly the same time my RO water filter unit was running. Let's approximate that to "33% of the time, my water softener regens at the same time as my RO water unit is generating water". As an experiment, I replaced my 1um spun filter with a hollow fiber ultra filter. Iron residue problems are gone. The issue seems to be iron colloids.