9ppm for tapwater....is that good?

[mfp4073]

hehe, yeah, I think I just spoiled myself. My new house is on a well with bad sulfer and hardness. I am at 700+ for ppm coming in and currently 9ppm for the whole house. It will probably improve a little as the pipes have not been fully flushed and there may have been some residule salt from the first media flushing we did.

:smokin:

 

[jimwat]

I'm not sure that I am following. Are you measuring something in particular, or did you mean TDS instead of ppm?

 

[mfp4073]

I may have it wrong, but I thought that tds is rated in ppm?

 

[jimwat]

Now that you mention it, I'm not sure if TDS is the total as ppm

Anyway, a TDS of 9 is about what I get out of my RO filter (before DI). So I would say that is excellent for tap water! What type of filtration are you using for your well?

 

[ct_vol]

Yeah, 9 ppm is awesome for tap water... I would just dump that into my FOWLR tank... Not my Reefs, but still... My tap is at about 112 ppm...

 

[rstark33]

I would say it depends on what the 9 ppm is. If it is alkalinity great! if it something else (phosphates, silica or who knows), not so great.

When I lived in Utah, we described out tap water as liquid rocks. Many people chose to run tap water and it worked quite well. No calcium supplements were needed.
If it is city water (I am not sure by your first post) they have an analysis on file of what is in the water.
If it is well water, you can send it to places like Spectrapure to get it tested.
I would not use it until I knew what was in it.

And to clarify, TDS is total dissolved solids. It is normally measured in PPM and your meter should say that. When I first hooked up my new RO lines and plumbing my meter was reading PPT as there ws a lot of crap in my lines! It slowly came down to PPM and then to O ppm tds.

 

[mfp4073]

I may have read my meter wrong or been off with my understanding, so anything is possible. But the meter is pretty dummy proof so the number is probably right. How would a measure in something different than parts per million? A gallon jug and a dixie cup would read the same amount on the meter.

It is a shallow well out in the country (ish) area of orlando. No city water out there at all. The system has a clorinator/declorinator for the sulfer and biological. Then a carbon, then a water softener. Most of these tanks are as tall as me and 1 foot across, the declorinator/desulfernator is like 3 feet around and taller than I am. The setup cost $2400 at a bargin price. The guy cut me a deal AND let me help him install it so I would know what everything did and how it works. Should cost almost nothing to operate.....like $10 a month at the most for salt and bleach.

 

[electroblake]

I think the idea was the meter could read in PPM (parts per million) or PPT (parts per thousand) where the transfer equation would be something like 1 PPT = 1000 PPM, so if the water you are measuring is especially dirty and your meter is especially smart it might decide to give you a reading in PPT instead of PPM.

 

[Amazing RO]

I am interested. You say your wellwater has high iron and sulfur content and is reading 700 tds measured in ppm and your filter and softner system is knocking it down to 9 ppm tds?
Do you have an RO filter on this system?
By the way, great price for the wellwater system. Most water companies wont touch problematic water like yours for less than 4,900.00

 

[mfp4073]

Yeah, not a lot of iron, but some. Mostly sulfur. And yes, was reading 700 and then down to 9. No RO or anything else. The company I got to do it, and specifically the guy has been doing this for 25 years. He stood in my front yard and told me what almost every setup for every house he could see. He could tell me the layers of sediment too (helped me choose the right depth for my well). I think he was also impressed that I decided to drill my own well and replace the pump and impressed with someone who wanted to make an effort. Even though he would have been the person to do it. Guy knows what he is doing.....and is very nice, down to earth and honestly was fun to work with for the morning while installing it! They have really good prices to begin with, but I think he cut me a deal both because he liked me and because I was willing to help out. My dad always said that it cost an extra 10% to watch work being done, and an extra 20% to help. Guess this guy is a little backward!

 

[AZDesertRat]

You must not have a regular ion exchange water softener. Most water softeners just exchange sodium or potassium for calcium and things and do nothing to really reduce TDS. I would like to hear more about your system.

 

[msman825]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9259821#post9259821 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by rstark33
I would say it depends on what the 9 ppm is. If it is alkalinity great! if it something else (phosphates, silica or who knows), not so great.

When I lived in Utah, we described out tap water as liquid rocks. Many people chose to run tap water and it worked quite well. No calcium supplements were needed.
If it is city water (I am not sure by your first post) they have an analysis on file of what is in the water.
If it is well water, you can send it to places like Spectrapure to get it tested.
I would not use it until I knew what was in it.

And to clarify, TDS is total dissolved solids. It is normally measured in PPM and your meter should say that. When I first hooked up my new RO lines and plumbing my meter was reading PPT as there ws a lot of crap in my lines! It slowly came down to PPM and then to O ppm tds.

I agree

 

[mfp4073]

I am going to describe it as best as I can. The water comes in and is chlorinated then into the first and largest "vat". This vat draws water off the top. The chlorine bonds with the sulfer and settles to the bottom. This happens almost immediately. You must drain off the bottom via a drain to get the "crappy" water out. It then goes to a carbon filter. From there it goes to the softener. The softener media bonds to the junk in the water. The salt is then used to "flush" the media. Basically it causes a reverse chemical reaction to have the media let go of the junk it took out.

Make sense?

 

[AZDesertRat]

Your description tells me you are oxidizing and precipitating the sulphur with chlorine which is pretty straightforward. Next you are dechlorinating the effluent with carbon. Then you are running it through a normal water softener which is an ion exchange unit which uses sodium or salt to replace calcium and iron. No where do I see filtration like Reverse Osmosis, Nano Filtration, Micro Filtration or Deionization which would reduce the TDS. I question you readings. They should be comparable to your raw water or slightly less since you are removing the sulphur and using carbon but not significantly lower.
What are you using to test with, what are you testing in (the actual container) and how are you doing the tests?
If its a handheld TDS meter use a squeaky clean drinking water glass with no water spots or detergent residue and rinse everything with DI or distilled water between tests. If its an inline type meter try reversing the probes and see if the readings remain the same. Something just does not make sense to me. There is either a piece of the process you are not describing or your readings are in error or.....?

 

[mfp4073]

using a hand held meter purchased off ebay made by hanna instruments. The last time I tried it after the install I actually used a coffee cup because I didnt have anything else right there available. I would think that that would give a worse number instead of a better number. All I do know is that I can take water going in and water going out and get 2 completely different numbers. As well as the house I am in now (have not moved yet), as well as different water sources and the numbers I have been getting make sense based on thier sources (ie, water out of "spring" water bottle is better than water out of the tap in my current house, is better than the raw water out of the well.

 

[Misled]

Agree with desertrat, something is missing. Take TDS readings between each section. Only thing that comes to mind would be DI section somewhere in the mix but haven't seen one done like that before. Plus if there is it may run out fairly quick since it's being used for the whole house.