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Been immersing myself in everything I can find on the Internet on removing iron from well water (or borehole water as some call it).

This is in regards to a new aspect of my fish rearing business of hatching trout eggs vs. purchasing juveniles from a trout hatchery. And eventually I hope to rear trout in a partial recirculating aquaculture system (RAS).

The concept is quite simple as in oxidizing the ferrous iron bicarbonate to cause it to precpitate into a solid -- ferric iron -- and then filtering the ferric iron particles out. You can do that with aeration, chemicals, ozone, or special media that quickly oxidizes the iron on contact. Examples are greensand, Birm, or manganese dioxide. Many times the filtration material is a mixture of the special media and plain sand. Plain sand, and sand and various grades of sand, course sand, and gravel will trap iron particles in a vessel if the incoming water is sufficiently aerated and for a minimum time of about 20 minutes. Then it's a matter of backwashing or agitating with air and then backwashing to remove the iron particles once they clog the filter up.

The problem with the iron particles are they can suffocate the eggs and fry by collecting on them.

Anyway I was able to develop a simple DIY iron filter in the past to produce a few hundred gallons of iron free make up water per day, for my small warmwater ras's, but producing a continuous 24/7 flow is going to be more of a challenge.

i came to a shocking conclusion on the commercial iron filters out there: You can buy the components and media separately and safe a ton of money! The mark up on those things is extremely high!

I was floored to find prices ranged from over a grand to to over three grand for turn key mineralization tanks, the media, backwash valves and bypass valves for the flow rates I need. Bought separately you can put together a system for as low as 20 percent of that!

I was relieved to see if I went the mineral tank route I didn't have to spend an arm and a leg!

Anybody else mess with iron filtration? Thought I'd share this for those that are rearing fish in tanks or thinking of it, and have iron issues in their well water.

Last edited by Cecil Baird1; 02/15/16 11:48 AM.

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I've never heard of a problem with iron particles in well water. Can you explain what that is all about?

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If you don't have iron in your well water consider yourself blessed. It's one of the most common elements on earth and very common in well water. In the home it produces bad taste issues above 0.3 mg/l in well water and can stain clothes, sinks, toilets, bathtubs etc. Many times it's accompanied by smelly hydrogen sulfide (smells like rotten eggs).

Perhaps your water softening system is taking care of the problem before you notice it?

In aquaculture in tanks etc. the precipitate, ferric iron, collects on the eggs and gills of fish and can cause suffocation or chronic irritation of gills. Optimally it needs to be removed before the well water makes contact with the fish. There is no precipitate initially as the anerobic water first comes out of ground, (water is clear). However with as little as 0.15 mg/l of dissolved oxygen making contact with the ferrous iron, this causes the iron to precipitate becoming known as ferric iron. The iron that coats things is known as iron hydroxide and actually promotes precipitation as the ferrous iron makes contact with it.

Another way to remove it, I didn't mention in my initial post is by settling, as it is heavier than water, but this adds a significant foot print and can be rather slow. The water can warm up or cool down to the ambient temp in the mean time, which may not be wanted depending on the species cultured.

If running well water with iron into a pond of any size, it's usually not a big deal as there is enough area to settle it out.

Last edited by Cecil Baird1; 02/15/16 08:53 AM.

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Cecil,
I have a part-time bathtub repair and refinishing business and I see a lot of bathroom fixtures that have iron stains or heavy lime build up.Some of the old farm houses smell like rotten eggs and the owners are unable to wash whites in their laundry for fear staining everything orange. The last few years most of the house in the county have switched over to rural water which has been filtered and treated getting rid of the iron but we still have really hard water.On the other hand,crushed limestone for my driveway is cheap.

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Cecil,

You just described our well water perfectly.

We have a Kinetico 2100F OD Overdrive filter with macrolite media. It works great. We started out with just a water softener but that wasn't getting it done so we added the filter before the softener. I don't recall what we paid but, you're right, it wasn't cheap.

I use water straight from the well for my little aquarium setup. For water changes I fill a 5 gallon bucket and let a simple box filter filled with filter floss run in it for several hours and that clears it up well before adding to a tank.

Last edited by Bill D.; 02/15/16 08:33 AM. Reason: Typo

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Originally Posted By: tubguy
Cecil,
I have a part-time bathtub repair and refinishing business and I see a lot of bathroom fixtures that have iron stains or heavy lime build up.Some of the old farm houses smell like rotten eggs and the owners are unable to wash whites in their laundry for fear staining everything orange. The last few years most of the house in the county have switched over to rural water which has been filtered and treated getting rid of the iron but we still have really hard water.On the other hand,crushed limestone for my driveway is cheap.


Tubguy,

Just in case you didn't know, the interesting thing about hardwater (a different issue than iron) is hardwater is not an issue to the fish themselves, and in fact hardwater is preferred over soft water in fish culture.

Last edited by Cecil Baird1; 02/15/16 09:29 AM.

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Originally Posted By: Bill D.
Cecil,

You just described our well water perfectly.

We have a Kinetico 2100F OD Overdrive filter with macrolite media. It works great. We started out with just a water softener but that wasn't getting it done so we added the filter before the softener. I don't recall what we paid but, you're right, it wasn't cheap.

I use water straight from the well for my little aquarium setup. For water changes I fill a 5 gallon bucket and let a simple box filter filled with filter floss run in it for several hours and that clears it up well before adding to a tank.


Bill,

You remove iron pretty much the same way I do, but I do it with larger volumes of water for my small scale RAS's in the basement. I remove even more by adding another barrel and moving the siphon to the other barrel when the iron is removed from one barrel.

http://aquaponicsnation.com/forums/topic...-hours/?hl=iron

Note: the filter pads aren't necessary. The netting is sufficient.


Last edited by Cecil Baird1; 02/15/16 08:58 AM.

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Have you looked into swimming pool sand filters (those big eggs)? I suspect you can get one for less than $500 complete with backflush valve...or maybe just to get some more ideas for your DIY....


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Bill,

Yes looking at it all. When I get involved in solving a problem I eat, sleep, and drink the subject and become obsessed with it until I come up with the simplest most economical solution, and usually but not always it's DIY. I'm a big believer in gedanken experiment too! But that isn't as easy as it sounds!

What helps me too of course is to post my questions and ideas on forums like this, and get feedback from folks that have all kinds of skill sets and different ways of solving problems. I've been accused of already knowing the answer but It's really me thinking outloud.

Just about any kind of sand filter will work to remove the ferric iron, but the trick is to oxidize the ferrous iron and have a large enough water holding tank to allow a minimum of 20 minutes of retention time to fully precipitate the iron if aeration is used. You can get around that by oxdizing on contact various media like greensand, birm, manganese dioxide etc.

I can even build an S & G filter like the following. However in the basement I don't have the required gpm's to sufficiently clear it after the blower agitates the mixture.

http://www.koiphen.com/forums/showthread.php?68132-Birdman-s-Sand-Gravel-Filter&highlight=Birdman%27s+sand+and+gravel+filtrr

Ouside where my aqaculture well is located, it's actually simpler as I can enlarge my epdm lined pit to increase retention time. It's alread 8 x 8 by 3 feet deep. And having enough backwash flow is not an issue as my well is 45 gpm. However it's overkill for hatching eggs that only need 1 gpm (1/2 gpm by recirculating). I prefer to hatch the eggs in the basement at least the first year until I have my outside fish tanks going.

Last edited by Cecil Baird1; 02/15/16 09:38 AM.

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Makes sense. FWIW our system for the house has a hydrogen peroxide pump right before the filter that is there to help with the oxidation. It quit working a couple months after it was installed. The water in the house is still clear and smells fine without it so just leaving it "broken" for now. The peroxide is like $25+ per gallon so if we can get along without it....... smile

I'm thinking hydrogen peroxide wouldn't work for you anyway as it kills all bacteria and that might make your biofilters a little unhappy!.

Last edited by Bill D.; 02/15/16 09:40 AM. Reason: After thought

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Sounds like you have enough oxidation going on without it.

I want to steer clear of any system that requires an oxidizer chemical be added periodically for the reason you mentioned. PP is even more expensive.

Some media such as manganese dioxide doesn't require that, and doesn't need to be replaced for a long long time.

I notice some media also looses it's coating, such as greensand, and needs to be replaced. Steering clear of that too!

Last edited by Cecil Baird1; 02/15/16 10:32 AM.

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You might take a look at the macrolite media. It supposedly never requires replacement.


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Originally Posted By: Bill D.
You might take a look at the macrolite media. It supposedly never requires replacement.


Yes that's an option. I've also noticed that at least some of the commercial media is a mixture of plain sand and an oxidation compound or sand and a sand coated oxidation compound. Apparently one does not need a 100 percent oxidation compound for at least moderate levels of iron. That can be a good thing as the pure compounds are typically quite heavy and require higher backwash flow. Not cheap either!

If one can at least get oxidation started with plain aeration according to my reading, you can get by with less compound.

Last edited by Cecil Baird1; 02/15/16 10:43 AM.

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BTW here is a bucket of well water that has just been sprayed into the bucket and has not had time to precipitate the ferrous iron to ferric iron.



Here it is sometime later with precipitation to ferric iron. Although the particles are very small in diameter they are bad news for eggs and small fine gilled fish.



You're looking at about 2.5 mg/l of iron. (Above picture) ( a well north of me has 10 X that much!) Higher suspended amounts have a more red/orange color in the water.

A typical iron hydroxide coating in a toilet tank that does not receive iron free water.




Last edited by Cecil Baird1; 02/15/16 11:57 AM.

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Cecil,
One thing to watch out for is low pH. Iron oxidation is very slow at low pH, especially less than 6.0. I helped out some buddies who have well water at their camp with high iron and low pH (~5.5). We added a pressure tank filled with calcite prior to the oxidation step - worked out well. The added alkalinity and hardness should be good for fish I think. The calcite (or limestone chips) go away over time and need to be replaced.
Dale


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Very true hobbyman. However I'm fortunate in that respect here as groundwater is 7.5 and even rises into the 8 range as carbon dioxide is liberated. Alkalinity and hardness is also quite high here.

But yes there is an optimum ph range for oxidation.

Last edited by Cecil Baird1; 02/15/16 11:46 AM.

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Cecil,

I don't have iron. The subsurface of southern MO is predominately limestone. The groundwater here would likely be better for trout than where you are. When you said iron particles I wondered if you meant suspended iron solids or dissolved iron compounds. From reading the thread, it sounds like it starts out one way and ends up the other.

I once rented in Boise, ID, and the hot tap water was geothermal and stained everything black.

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Originally Posted By: Turtlemtn
Cecil,

I don't have iron. The subsurface of southern MO is predominately limestone. The groundwater here would likely be better for trout than where you are. When you said iron particles I wondered if you meant suspended iron solids or dissolved iron compounds. From reading the thread, it sounds like it starts out one way and ends up the other.

I once rented in Boise, ID, and the hot tap water was geothermal and stained everything black.


Good for you! And I know there is some significant trout culture in Missouri.

East of here in a small part of Ohio where there is a limestone layer that confines the aquifer underneath under pressure. If you punch through with a borehole you get an artesian well. I know a guy that got 3000 gpm that way for his trout farm. Only probem was it collasped in on itself one day and he had to drop in $10,000 of limestone to stabilize it.

Any idea what caused the black staining? Manganese?

Last edited by Cecil Baird1; 02/15/16 05:23 PM.

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I've heard that Iris plants take up iron. Might be worth a look if someone has that issue.


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The staining is probably iron and manganese plus other things but apparently nothing toxic or commercially valuable, except for the heat. Starting with hot water cuts the cost of producing steam considerably.

So there was a small cavern under your friends property? Is that common around where he is? With 3,000 gpm it seems that he could do a whole lot of fish farming, starting with trout and then running the water to warmer water species, and maybe ending up with crawfish.

There was and is considerable fish farming, both cold and warm water species, around Boise due to an abundance of both cold and hot artesian flow there. A fish farmer is also raising alligators near Boise, and the Bureau of Reclamation raises alligators in southern CO. In the early '80s, there were a number of exploration wells on the Wind River Reservation in WY that were producing a large volume of artesian flow that was just going down the river. Looked like a great place for some fish farms to me.

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Originally Posted By: anthropic
I've heard that Iris plants take up iron. Might be worth a look if someone has that issue.


Actually all plants utilize iron. Perhaps an Iris plant even more so? If there isn't enough in an aquaponics system the operators add it.

Last edited by Cecil Baird1; 02/17/16 03:43 PM.

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Originally Posted By: Turtlemtn
The staining is probably iron and manganese plus other things but apparently nothing toxic or commercially valuable, except for the heat. Starting with hot water cuts the cost of producing steam considerably.

So there was a small cavern under your friends property? Is that common around where he is? With 3,000 gpm it seems that he could do a whole lot of fish farming, starting with trout and then running the water to warmer water species, and maybe ending up with crawfish.


Not a cavern but not terribly unusual for wells to collapse and create what are known as blueholes. They end up being ponds that go down to the collapsed layer and can be up to 60 feet deep I've been told. Very cold water as you would expect and can support trout.

Originally Posted By: Turtlemtn
There was and is considerable fish farming, both cold and warm water species, around Boise due to an abundance of both cold and hot artesian flow there. A fish farmer is also raising alligators near Boise, and the Bureau of Reclamation raises alligators in southern CO. In the early '80s, there were a number of exploration wells on the Wind River Reservation in WY that were producing a large volume of artesian flow that was just going down the river. Looked like a great place for some fish farms to me.


As you probably know Idaho is the top trout producer in the United States. Supposed to be an aquifer in the area the volume of Lake Erie. Yeah isn't amazing they use heated water too?

Last edited by Cecil Baird1; 02/15/16 09:11 PM.

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Cecil,
Another equipment thought might be useful to someone. We use off-the-shelf swimming pool sand filters in small treatment systems to remove iron and other precipitates. Cost effective and easily backwashed.
Dale


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Originally Posted By: hobbyman
Cecil,
Another equipment thought might be useful to someone. We use off-the-shelf swimming pool sand filters in small treatment systems to remove iron and other precipitates. Cost effective and easily backwashed.
Dale


Absolutely! The ultimate would be to aerate via gravity from the well (have already done it via a packed column) with the minimum of 20 minutes retention time in some type of containment vessel before going into a swimming pool sand filter with mixed media. (Or mineral tank) Then no special expensive heavy media needed. Probably 2 filters to switch to the other when one is backwashing.

The trick is to have a vessel large enough to allow the 20 minutes before the ferric laden water reaches the filter. Or use an oxidzing media in the filter or a mix of oxidzing media and sand in the filter to speed things up to prevent an interruption in flow.

If I can cover my outdoor aquaculture well and system I already have an 8 X 8 X 3 feet deep EPDM lined pit where my packed column dropped into. I could probably double the length to reduce the number of times the well has to kick on and off.

It would be a simple matter of calculating retention time based on volume and flow rate to determine minimum pit size. And contrary to popular belief when flowing into a vessel you don't get 100 percent in and out of the old water. So there would be some lag of the ferric laden water which would be to my advantage. May add bunched up netting to the pit for iron to collect on to increase precipitation due to the the iron hydroxide promoting oxidation. But then may not have to.

I can squeeze down the flow of my 45 gpm well pump without doing any harm according to my well driller, but would still be using the same amount of energy which would be inefficient. The solution seems to be to set up a float valve to cut off power to the well when it reaches a certain level and turn it back on when it drops to a certain level. Have a friend that does this at his trout farm and he's a retired electrian so...

Last edited by Cecil Baird1; 02/16/16 11:31 AM.

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The only thing I'm struggling with is gravity flow through the filter. It will work, but it will slow down quickly as it plugs. But, no way to use the well pump to drive through the filter as the iron is not precipitated. Maybe a float controlled sump pump in the "oxidation pond"? A float switch in the pond to control the well pump would work - might need a contactor (relay or motor starter) to turn the pump on and off. All sounds doable.


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