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greentreetrunk

Fleck 5600sxt sanity check

9 years ago

Greetings. After two years my water softener stopped producing soft water. I inspected the media, it looked fouled, and I purchased replacement media. The media I am going to use is 'Fine Mesh Hi-Capacity Ion Exchange Resin Media'. I'm suspicious that my softener settings are bad and so I'm looking for some guidance before putting the new media into service. My goal is to be reasonably efficient in my salt and water usage and, most importantly, to avoid replacing the media every two years.


Here's what I know:

Tank: 2 ft^3, 64k Grain

Hardness: 160 mg/L (9.4 Grain/gal)

Iron: 400 ug/L

Household consumption: 110 Gal/day

Water source: well

Valve: Fleck 5600sxt, BLFC 0.5 Gal/min


Current Settings:

DT gal

VT df 1b

CT fd

NT 1

C 64

H 20

RS SF

SF 20

DO 21

RT 2:00

BW 12

BD 60

RR 10

BF 20

FM t0.7


My thinking is to drop the DO to 7 and the BF to 10. I appreciate any suggestions.

Comments (3)

  • 9 years ago

    You softener is really oversized for your water usage, which would be fine if you didn't have the iron in your water. With iron in the water, you want to regen every 4 days to mitigate fouling. Your oversized softener means you will have to make a choice between lugging a lot of extra salt and being salt efficient, because you can't do both.

    Set C at 48

    H at 12

    BF at 11

    Do at 5

    You're going to use a lot of salt. Additionally, you need to do some maintenance to slow down iron fouling.

    The
    problem with iron-laden water in a softener is that softener resin
    has a great affinity for iron and does not release it easily. Iron
    will slowly foul the softener resin from the inside out. Extra
    measures need to be taken to remove the iron. For this you have
    several options.

    1. The
      easiest option may be to simply use Iron-Remover salt.
    2. Alternatively,
      you can use Super Iron Out. You may choose to layer this in with
      your salt. If you choose this option, use 1/4 C per 40 lb bag of
      salt.
    3. Super
      Iron Out is more effective if used monthly with the following
      procedure: Ensure
      you have a strong brine in your brine tank - at least 24 hours since
      the last regen. Dissolve
      1 C Iron Out in cool water and pour it into the brine well inside
      your brine tank. If you don't have a brine well, for some reason,
      pour it down the side of the tank rather than through the salt.Place
      your softener into manual regen and stay right there.When
      backwash is complete, the softener will move to the brine/slow rinse
      mode. Pay attention to the way it sounds. After 10 minutes or so
      the sound will change when there is no more brine to draw. At this
      point, we want the Iron Out to sit in the softener for an hour. To
      do that, push the button to advance to the next regen step, then the
      next until your softener is back in service mode. Do this as quickly
      as you can. Switch
      your valves so your softener is bypassed and wait one hour minimum. Place
      your valves back in service mode and manually start a softener regen. Once
      the regen is complete you're good to go for another month.
    4. A
      liquid iron removal system such as Res Up can be installed in your
      brine tank to feed citric acid to the brine to aid with iron removal.


    My preferred methods are 1 or
    4 because they employ phosphoric acid, which is a much safer chemical
    than those in Super Iron Out (sodium hydrosulfite and sodium
    metabisulfite). The choice is yours - pick a method and follow it
    religiously and your softener will give you many years of reliable
    service.


    Since your softener is so large, you could go a month between regens if you installed an iron removal system upstream from your softener, dropping your salt usage from 98 to 16 lb of salt per month. A little light reading about iron removal options in case you are interested:


    Oxidation/Filtration:
    An oxidizer such as ozone, air, or chlorine may be used to react with
    the iron and force it to become particulate iron that can then be
    removed via filtration. This will also remove most sulfur
    compounds. A typical setup would involve the oxidizing unit, a
    holding tank, then a media filter. This type of system works quite
    well, but takes some expertise in sizing - you would want a water
    treatment pro that you trust to help you with this option.

    Oxidizing
    filtration media: This type of treatment consists of a sealed tank
    filled with one of several media. Water passes through and is
    oxidized and filtered by the media. Most will remove sulfur compounds
    as well as iron. These are relatively easy to operate and what I
    would recommend for the average homeowner. There are several
    different media that can be used:

    1. Manganese
      greensand: water runs through for treatment. The media must be
      regenerated with potassium permanganate. Care must be taken with
      dealing with potassium permanganate as it readily dies organic
      material, such as your skin, a purple-brown color. Some people are
      quite comfortable dealing with the chemical; others are not.
    2. Synthetic
      greensand: This is essentially the same as option (1) but consists of
      a coating of greensand on a silica sand core so does not require as
      much backwash flow. Service flow rate is 2 - 5 gpm/sqft. Backwash
      flow rate is 12 gpm/sqft.
    3. Birm:
      This media acts as a catalyst to force oxidation of iron. While it
      does not need to be regenerated, it does need fairly high dissolved
      oxygen in the water. If your water does not have adequate dissolved
      oxygen (and it probably doesn't since it is well water), air
      injection would be necessary prior to the birm. Additionally, birm
      requires a minimum pH of 6.8. Service flow rate is 3.5 - 5.0 gpm per
      sqft. Backwash flow rate is 11 - 20 gpm, depending upon water
      temperatures and desired bed expansion.
    4. Pyrolox:
      an ore that oxidizes then filters the iron out. It does not need
      regeneration, but needs to be backwashed (to rinse out the iron) at a
      high rate. pH range is 6.5 - 9.0. This type of filter works very
      well, but backwash is critical. Service flow rate is 5 gpm/sqft.
      Backwash is 25-30 gpm/sqft. Backwash daily.
    5. Terminox:
      Similar to Pyrolox, but a proprietary formula . It does not require
      as much backwash flow rate and is more resistance to a low pH. The
      particulars are only available from the company that sells it - this
      means you have to rely entirely on the vendor for proper sizing.
      Backwash daily.
    6. Filox:
      Also similar to Pyrolox. pH range 5.0 - 9.0. Backwash flow 12-15
      gpm/sqft. Service flow 6 gpm/sqft. It must be backwashed daily.
    7. Pro-OX:
      Essentially the same as the previous three. Requires 12-15 gpm/sqft
      backwash. As with Terminox, specs are lacking information so you'll
      have no way of knowing if the unit you get is sized appropriately.
    8. Katalox-light:
      Similar in action to the previous four, but is comprised of zeolite,
      manganese dioxide and hydrated lime. It should be designed for 6 -
      12 gpm/sqft service flow atnd 8 - 10 gpm/sqft backwash. For well
      water, it's a good option as it requires lower backwash.

    In
    all cases, media ought to be replace somewhere between 5 - 10 years.
    If any vendor tells you their media lasts forever, walk away - they
    aren't trustworthy.



  • 9 years ago

    Thanks Alice.

    First I just wanted to mention that, your posts in this forum have been very beneficial in helping my understanding here. Thanks.


    In my original post should have mentioned that I have an automatic feeder in the brine tank filled with a product called 'PRO Res Care'. I'm not sure if this changes your recommendation for DO.

    Additionally, there's a 5k Gal tank up stream with an ozone percolator (triple-0) in it. The water is fed from there into the house via a 3HP pump and two 50 Gal (?) pressure tanks. Not sure if that's sufficient to make the 10-20GPM requirement for some of the iron removal systems you identified. Oh, and my last water test shows a ph of 7.5.

  • 9 years ago

    Pro Res Care is phosporic acid, the same as Res Up. Its use will help to maintain your resin, provided you keep the DO short. Time is against you when you have iron in your water. Ferrous (clear-water, dissolved) iron reverts to ferric (particulate) iron slowly and steadily. As soon as iron is captured in a softener, it starts reverting, fouling resin beads from the inside out. The phos acid will keep the exterior and a little bit of the interior of the resin beads from from iron, but can't entirely reverse fouling.

    Your water system should be fine for the less-dense iron removal media, such as birm, synthetic greensand, or Katalox light. If you are interested in this option, you will need to contact a local water treatment vendor to see what they recommend, then double-check to ensure their design meets media manufacturer specifications. Sadly, the vast majority of water treatment vendors lack sufficient training/education to properly size a system and take a one-size-fits-all approach to water treatment.

    If you do install iron removal, operate it for a week, test to ensure it is working properly, then reset softener DO to 30 and H to 10.

    greentreetrunk thanked User