At my clinic we have hard city water at 26 gpg. we have a softner in our ro system which now has iron in the resin beads. we have only been open four years and already replaced the resin beads,lost our water heater and have a lot of water corrosion. would it make sense to put a dual water softner in the building begining where the city water enters the building (before the ro system, water heater, etc) Are there any other suggestions?

It doesn't sound like another softner would solve the problem. It sounds like you need something to remove the iron prior to the softner (greensand etc.). If you put an additional softner in you'll just end up rebedding two softners when they both get encased in iron. the other thing you can try is putting IRON OUT in your brine tank with the salt, it may protect the resin. I would try this before spending money on modifying water treatment system.

What is "IRON OUT" and how does it work. I am like I say the Rookie MT. I am actually a CHT and have only been "acting" MT. I have a company "US filter" that supposedly maintains the RO and water system but they did not mention adding anything to the brine tank to take out the iron. Also what is "greensand"?. I hate to sound ignorant but I really have no knowledge regarding the inner workings of the water softner. I am waiting to go to Fresenius Tech school.

Being that you state the supply is city, the iron that you have attracted is evidently chemically sequestered to keep it in a non-staining mode. That would be a good question for the water utility. When the water temperature changes (this is heater deal) the chemicals can let the iron lose.

If there is no sequestered iron in the supply then it is coming from the corrosion of the piping.

Iron out (sodium meta-bisulfate) can strip the iron from the resin matrix and is rinsed out in the regeneration cycle. Esiest to use salt that already contains the proper dosage rather than try to add it yourself.

A greensand (manganese-treated) or Birm filter utilizes the oxygen molecule to oxydize the iron (Fe2 to Fe2O3) and the iron oxide is then trapped in the bed and expelled during a backwash cycle.

With 25 gpg coming in, a building softener will protect the water heater and building piping from scale. Pay for itself in the long run. Grains per gallon comes from the fact that if you evaporate the water from a 1 gpg source, the resulting scale will be the size of a grain of wheat.

That's it for me.

willie brings up some good points that i overlooked on my first posting. Determine where the iron is coming from before you decide on a course of action. Contact the city get a copy of their analysis and target levels, draw samples from pre heater post heater etc. local the problem then try and correct it. softner pellets do come with iron out already in them to protect the resin.

willie isn't it all good anymore?

Willie et al,

Will a "green sand" filter act as a "normal" sediment filter as well? That is, if you had a sediment filter could you replace it with a green sand filter and get both iron removal and 10micron filtration? Willie alluded to a softener salt that has Iron Out already in it, did I read that right? Where does one find such a product. Iron Out I can get, but combined with salt? Wow!

ask your local salt supplier about mortons rust remover super pellens. You should be able to get it in 40 to 50lb bags.

Thanks to all who replied. I am going to see
what I can do with all of your info. I already have the city water analysis which of course states the iron levels in the water are WNL. I am sure everything you guys suggest is AAMI approved? I really do appreciate all the suggestions, but as this is a new field more me I just try to double check everything. I have been a certified dialysis tech for 10 years but the back rooms are still a fairly BIG mystery to me, and to make matters worse I am not certified as a machine tech just yet. So by all means I truly have been quite the rookie. I will hopefully be a CMT within the next month. I work under a very experienced CMT but he has never encountered the iron in the water situation, and is only working for us as a favor and works on call. Thanks Again !!!

Greensand (any closely meshed media, even resin) will provide filtration. Meshed is the key. In a Multi-Media, it is the Garnet layer that is the closed mesh and provides 10 micron particle size filtration. It is also the smallest layer. A full bed of garnet would have a pressure drop out of this world.

As an add-on. Greensand is regenerated with Potassium Permanganate. Spill that and it's not a pretty scene.

And you bet....

Life is GOOD!!!

Willie B