Water storage treatment/filtration questions

[Scott65]

Hello all! I bought 10 acres in Texas 5 or so months ago. It had an existing well on it. The well is of unknown depth, quantity, quality, pump hp, age, etc. There was a black 1100 gallon storage tank on site, not hooked up. I decided to replumb the system to have the well maintain the storage tank, and use a jet pump/irrigation pump to pressure the rest of the system. Its very hot in my region and I don't necessarily have or want to spend the money at the moment to pull the well pump to investigate and find out its too small for my needs, about to crap out, too shallow, whatever. My concern was with the recent ongoing drought, the well may have some trouble keeping up during peak demand hours, or goign dry altogether. So having 1100 gallons of extra supply when the pipe starts burping air will at least be a little bit of relief. So hopefully I've made the right decision on this setup.

Anyhow, thats already done. No going back now. The system is working very well, great pressure, the well is capable of maintaining the tank just fine. I've not had the water tested yet, but its very clear, no odors. But I'm the type "its better safe than sorry". So I've been trying to treat it with chlorine. I'm not sure, this may be wrong, or it may gross some people out. I'm used to the odors I suppose because my previous local municipality used it rather heavily in the public water supply on a semi-monthly basis to keep pipes clean. Googleing this information has been very difficult, nearly all of the results seem to be for "shocking" the water supply or pipes, then requiring to completely flush out the shock treatment until the odor is gone. I don't want to have to flush 1100 gallons. I want to fill my tank and "treat" the water to kill any bacteria that may try to grow, but just leave it in there as I'm using the water. I once found a chart for doing this, but can't find it again. I don't need the table, I was just going to link to it here for reference. I tried the dosage but it doesn't work because apparently chlorine has changed. It used to be sold as 5.25(ish)% chlorine. Now all that I can find is Concentrated HE 8.??% chlorine. Using an estimated reduced dosage results in a very potent smelling water, especially during showers when the water is steamed.


Long story short, does anyone employ a water storage method like this? If so, how do you treat your water, and what dosage?

Second part of the question: If you use chlorine, and if you've ever over-chlorinated like what I seem to have done, is there a safe way to reduce this without dumping all my water and starting over? I've just refilled and dosed the tank, I don't like being wasteful.

BTW, I don't have any need to drink or cook with the water. Taste doesn't matter, however I would like for it to be SAFE enough, I have dogs that are like children.

Thanks for any info!

 

[byronlj]

I have a system similar to yours. I don't treat my water at all. Between the domestic water for the house and irrigation for a large lawn, my water stays fresh. And, I do drink mine. I found a bottle of bromine shock in my well house when I bought the place. I don't use it, I just put a couple hundred gallons in on the first fill and dump that for irrigation before I use it in the house.
I would suggest you test yours since you have so many unknowns.
Dave

 

[forgeblast]

I have a uv light system. The water runs through the uv light killing any biological's.

 

[crash325]

A friend of mine owns a small water company. He pours in a gallon of plain old bleach about once a month. Since he is a water company the county tests his water about once a month. Has not had a problem. No smell, no odor & drinkable.

2 tanks about the same size as yours, one tank feeds the other & it feeds a 1,000 gallon pressure tank. 3 Horse pump & it feeds 35 to 40 house holds.

 

[Jimbrown]

My system is all solar and pumps into two storage tanks. One 1.100 and one 1,500 gallon I use no chlorination. If the tanks are black or dark green with the tops on where no light can get into them algae and the like will not grow. You will probably yourself more harm by adding chemicals than if you leave the water clean.

 

[Scott65]

Wow crash, that sounds like quite a setup having to feet 40 households. Glad I only have 1 to serve. Is he pouring 1 gallon in the tanks, or in the well? I'm using plain bleach as you say, but I can't find the same stuff the used to sell. It seems the "plain ole clorox" you've always gotten at walmart is now concentrated HE. High Efficiency, I guess because of the HE washing machines. From the limited knowledge and research that I have/did, the ingredient that is needed for disinfecting the water is the sodium hypochloride (sp?), which was bumped up from 5.?? to 8.?? percent when they changed to this concentrated product. It threw off the dosages so the only chart I was ever able to find is now void. Hence my problem now. The tank of water that I am using now, I added about a cup of concentrated HE clorox and the chlorine smell is very strong. My skin smells like chlorine most of the day.

The UV light is an interesting alternative. The only downside I suppose is that it only treats as the water travels through the pipes. I would like to keep bacteria and critters from living inside the tank as well. Its common for me to open the lid and find (rather large) spiders floating in the tank.

I have heard of people pouring it down into the well, but that seems like a guess at best. I have no idea how big this well is, and I'm not sure if anybody could know. Is that information really even obtainable? How would you ever know how much to add? Plus, I'm certainly no well expert but isn't the water under there usually moving and flowing? If I pour bleach in the hole, aren't I possibly just flushing it out for the neighbors to suck up my disinfected water down the line?

Sorry, be patient with me. I'm very very new to this. I'm a city boy if you couldn't tell. I'm certainly not arguing with anybody, these are just questions and (probably false) assumptions. Like I said above, I'm no well expert. Growing up I've had friends and family members that have lived "out in the sticks" and based on their descriptions I've developed a mental image of these flowing caverns of water underground that people tap into. In all reality, I know nothing about the systems... I'm kind of a germaphobe so it just grossed me out to pump water out of a hole in the ground and bathe in it without using some sort of chemical to kill the "icky" stuff that might be in it. lol It may be perfectly fine, who knows

 

[Scott65]

Thanks Jim, I didn't realize that. The tank is black. I didn't realize that algae couldn't grow in it. Dumb question, is algae and bacteria the same when it comes to water safety? I know people can get sick from bacteria in food so I assume water is the same risk. So I suppose thats what I'm affraid of and trying to kill. So does it grow in the black tank? Or die while sitting in it for a certain time frame?

 

[Gem99ultra]

I'm no expert on this either... BUT... I have a couple of 330 gallon totes with filled with water for emergency water supply when (not if) the power goes out and we're out of a well pump. The proper dosage for Clorox is 1 teaspoon per gallon of water. For my use that works out to about 1 pint of Clorox per tote.

We have two wells piped in tandem; one bored well and one drilled well. Not knowing the volume of either, two years ago when we discovered that we had some bacteria in one or both, I dumped in a gallon of Clorox in each. I can tell you - that was WAY too much It took a week of heavy water use to clear that strong smell up.

I now have another problem in that I'm smelling sulfur odor from the kitchen faucet only. Haven't figured out exactly why or how to fix it, but Clorox no doubt will come in to play.

Regardless of the smell, it'll be less than we often had when living in the city. The city used pure chlorine injection in the water system - and often.

 

[Scott65]

Gem, based on what you said, I would be very careful what you buy next time. Or maybe its me that needs to be careful, perhaps buy somewhere else. I poured half of what you did into 1100 gallons and the smell is awful.

As stated, the laundry aisle doesn't appear to carry the same stuff it used to though. Perhaps I need to order something online instead. The less potent stuff might be better. Or its beginning to look like I need to stop doing it anyway

 

[Gem99ultra]

Scott65, the water wells apparently were contaminated when we bought the place. We were living a thousand miles away near Galveston, Texas, and relied on a local realtor. Big mistake; Good Ole' Boy, scammer. But, trying to make the best of what we had, we're doing what has to be done, and that is fix what's broken. Yeah - we took the snake to court and got compensated...

We just ran a complete water test two weeks ago and the water came up completely safe. Still, I can't account for the kitchen water odor. Could it be the severe drought this year let the water tables go down to a level that had a sulfur stem?

But - Clorox is Clorox, i.e. bleach, no matter what label is on the bottle. And, Lesson Learned, a little bit goes a long way.