Dealing with Iron

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theexternvoid

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My water has 2ppm soluable iron. Yes, that's 2, not 0.2. Was wondering if there's anyway to deal with that? Ideally I'd love to know if there is a was to make it turn into insoluable iron and sink to the bottom of the tank, then I could siphon off the top of the water.

Thanks!
 
I gave up on using my well water because of the iron. I just grin and bear it and buy RO water from the grocery store.
 
The only way to deal with it is eliminate it or find another water source. Iron is great for steel making but should be zero or close to it for brewing.
 
Yes it can be oxidized from its soluble form to an insoluble form that will precipitate. In municipal water treatment, the raw water is often pumped through a cascade aerator to get oxygen into the water and create the oxidation reaction. You can also inject a strong oxidizing solution into the water.

A homebrewer can perform a similar aeration by spraying the water into the pot through a fine sprayer. It may take several recirculations through the sprayer to get enough oxygen in there, so a pump system might be needed.

Another option is to run the water through a 'greensand' filter that oxidizes the iron.

In all cases, the water needs to be filtered or allowed to sediment all the precipitate before the water can be used.
 
I bought a tank, a Fleck recycle/backwash valve and substrate (can't remember what it was called) to remove iron from my water and installed it myself. also had a separate tank/valve for raising the ph.....pretty easy to do and was extremely successful. I bought this stuff over the Internet from a company (that may no longer exist...but surely there are others) called Abundant Water Systems. oh ya..the substrate was called Pyrolox or Filox....I think one is newer than the other. if all you have is a lot of iron in your water, you may not have ph problems too like I did...dang...it was literally eating the copper pipes...
 
Now I'm leaning towards reverse osmosis. One issue for me is that space is very limited. A compact "portable" RO system would be ideal for me. Then I could dilute my crummy well water with RO water. Anyone have recomendations for a compact RO device?
 
Is there any way to remove it besides RO? Distilling the water perhaps?

Distillation works. RO works. Aeration so that the hydroxide precipitate is deposited on a sand (or other filter) works. Filters especially for iron removal (greensand) work. Keeping this in mind be aware that a pre-filter in an RO system or the membranes themselves might get gummed up with Fe2(OH)3 making removal before the RO unit a good idea. A conventional water softener will remove a good part of iron and are often put in the line before an RO sytem for this reason as well as removal of calcium which can deposit chalk or gypsum on the RO system components.
 
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