Having fought a multi-year battle with a stubborn Greensand system, and after doing a ton of reading, I finally swapped it out for a manganese dioxide based system from Budget Water. Worked great for a couple of months, but now appears to be also failing and the retailer isn't being of much help.

The well does not seem to be anything special. It's about 100' deep, and the pump delivers about 6-7 GPM of water with 21 gpg Hardness, 4.5 ppm Iron, 0.1 ppm Manganese, and a pH of 7.4.

I realize that the flow rate is on the low side for a solid core media, but based on the calculations I found online and the sales guys assuring me that the well could support an even larger system, I set up 2 separate 7" filters in parallel with a staggered backwash schedule.

Initially, the system worked stellar. While the water came in looking like poop, the filter would clean it up to where it was perfectly clear. I filled up a couple of clear water bottles, set them aside, and they are still clear 4 months later. Unfortunately, about 3 months later, I noticed that the drain line form my water softener (installed after the Terminox at the same time), was starting to stain with iron.

That said, I've now verified that the backwash is working properly. It's putting out the 5-6 GPM that the valve is set up for. I've double checked the schedule and verified that it is backwashing nightly for 14 minutes. I've also shined a light at the tank, and can see that the media is getting "fluffed" up to the top during the backwash. However, when I fill up a clear water bottle, it turns completely orange after standing there for a few hours.

I'm guessing that the media got fouled, but why? Is there any way to bring it back/regenerate it? I'm thinking of dumping some bleach in the filter, letting it sit, and then backwash. Is this practical?

I don't want to merely replace the media without understand what caused it to fail in the first place as Pyrolox can get very expensive every few months!

Any help/insight/ideas will be greatly appreciated!!!

 

How much Pyrolox media is in the tank? or the size of the tank?

 

The 7" units are 0.5 ft^3. Measuring from the bottom, there's about 24-28 inches of media (in the 7" cylinder) with about a 12" air pocket on top.

 

"The 7" units are 0.5 ft^3. Measuring from the bottom, there's about 24-28 inches of media (in the 7" cylinder) with about a 12" air pocket on top. "
How many are there?
First in last out?
Each has 1/2 cubic in a tank?
Service flow would be 1.25gpm to 2.5gpm per tank and 8gpm for the backwash.

Off hand I would say that yes they worked at the start but the lack of backwash has let the media get over loaded.

Seen it way to many times.

Last time that I used Pyrolox was in the early 90's when I worked for a company and even then there where challenges with the media.

 

No, the two tanks are in parallel giving me about 3 GPM service. I suspect something other than lack of backwadhing as the units are sized for 5 GPM bw and are definately getting that.

I wonder if iron bacteria could be the culprit here. We had it in our last well on this property and just because there aren't any obvious signs, doesn't mean it's not preset. Wonder if inline chlorination would be effective?

 

You can look at other items all day but at the end it is Backwash Flow Rate that is the killer.
your units should be at 8gpm... not 5gpm.
And how often are the backwashing?