Good afternoon everyone!
Good morning.
I didn’t have any luck with curator at all. I had some luck with pre-filters...eg big blue Pentec with a reducing filter 25 to 1 micron. But that was on my already-softened water. My dual tank system gets the lionshare of the iron, but not all.
But with 4.4 ppm, I honestly think a dedicated iron prefilter or berm filter would be a worthwhile investment.
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To manage sourcewater of 4.4 ppm, you’re going to need a lot of sequestrant and need a lot of top ups.
You also have manganese in that water, which also requires sequestrant to manage.
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Here’s some general info that’s non-commercial:
Iron in Well Water - EH: Minnesota Department of Health
Thanks for typing again with your sore hand, swampwoman. The manganese tested well below MCL levels but the magnesium was 4.44 ppm and my lab report did not list a maximum recommended level for magnesium. I'll look into berm and greensand/permanganate. I've been trying to avoid what appears to be a substantial filter cost in a water softener. The filter systems I found online were well into the $1k+ price range, as I recall but they might be necessary. I know the iron (and maybe the magnesium?) in our spring water is a stain ticking time bomb! At least that MN Dept. of Health paper says the RIGHT softener COULD work for me:
Manufacturers report that some units are capable of removing up to 10 mg/L, however 2 to 5 mg/L is a more common limit.
Given that the FE limit is 0.3 ppm, I need something that takes out almost ALL my iron or the water replenishment requirements eventually doom me!
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In short, I believe a whole house water softener is the best way for you to deal with your very significant iron issues.
Yeah--I'm trending toward that conclusion too, Dave. I skimmed the links chemgeek provided elsewhere on the culator technology and I also suspect the problem with the culator "egg" treatment is it's not actually a filter so the vast majority of the water just takes the least path of resistance and bypasses it, even it it contains a technology that might work in a different embodiment.
I have 2 Culater fill filters.
They have made pool water in a historically miserable iron count neighborhood easy to service.
I have used them for both filling and recirculating.
Thanks for the report, Poolguy! I'm more interested in trying the fill filters than the egg, because I think water just bypasses the egg.
Does culator explain how they work?
I just called Periodic Product (Culator) spoke to Zach. I asked him how their fill pre-filter works. He said the 2nd stage of the fill filter contains the same technology as what I call "the egg." I need to go back and find that link to the patent that chemgeek posted in the forums and study it now. I asked Zach about running a smaller recirculation pump to process my existing pool water through their fill filter too. He said he was thinking about recommending this setup to me and it would work too. I have several large submersible aquarium filters. I'm inclined to use then with the culator fill filters and try this method. My pool pump is 1.7KW single speed so the smaller pumps would save me a lot of electricity! Even though I have a GFI to power them, I'd remove them before swimming in the pool but they could run 22 hours per day, minimum! Zach also said a sequestrant is necessary for their filters to work. I'll look for the reasons behind that requirement when I read the patent chemgeek posted.
If I do this "experiment," I'll probably spend the money for before and after pool water testing and report the results in the forums.
Yeah, that makes sense, I think. That is visible iron that has precipitated and decent filters will get that out.
I believe OP's issue is iron in soluble form and I am not familiar with a way to really remove that in ANY volume except ion exchange (water softener, R/O).
Green Sand filters will do it but they have almost no capacity......certainly not enough for a complete fill.
Reverse osmosis always produces much more "waste" water than "good" water, right? I don't think it can work for me because of that feature. rGeen sand might work to keep my Iron from increasing from fills, however. I am covering my pool religiously, BTW. Can't afford to waste valuable spring water around here!
As Swampwoman indicated, water softeners (those designed to remove hardness, ie, Mg and Ca) should NOT be used with high iron water unless there is an iron prefilter.
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I have commented on the CuLator in other threads and I honestly don’t believe it works. Their chemistry is valid (it’s simply a bag full of ion exchange resin) but the implementation is completely wrong...if it does work at all, it’s marginal at best.
Thanks for the inputs, Joyfulnoise! I think the "iron prefilter" is what makes the softener systems I looked at so much more expensive.
It's interesting that you agree with chemgeek (the culator chemistry is valid). A true filter appeals to me as being more likely to be efficacious than the egg! But who knows? If I'm going to spend money on an "experiment" with before, during, and after metals testing, I might even run an egg for a month and see if it does anything!