dog,
iron in my well water runs about 2 milligrams per liter (mg/l) equivalent to 2 ppm. our standard water softener does a good job on it reducing it to below analytical detection limits. it also takes out all other major elements (Mg, Ca, P, etc.) and replaces those ions with Na (sodium). as such, small word of caution though (my recommendation is) that it is healthier for you to drink the hard water, and leave the soft water to yer appliances and whatnot. for drinking, we run our hardwater through a (replaceable) charcoal filter. if i wuz made of money, i'd install a reverse osmosis system, but the charcoal works fine removing any taste and odor issues........so far anyway. if yer gonna drink the soft water, another option is to run potassium chloride (sylvite - KCl) salt instead of sodium chloride (halite - NaCl) salt in the softener, but the KCl salt is more expensive if you can find it.
