Intelligently discussing well water treatment begins with the results of a comprehensive water test from a certified lab.

Well water that isn't hard and high iron content are hardly test results or accurate measurements.

Need to know the hardness, iron (ferrous and ferric), manganese, magnesium, TDS, and PH of the raw well water. Would be good for you to know nitrates and bacteria.

Softeners can treat iron content of a certain type successfully up to a point.

In certain circumstances a stand alone iron filter may be required and that introduces additional cost and maintenance.

I have had it tested a couple of times which is why I can state it isn't hard. I think you helped me by saying there are iron removal systems. Thanks.

sofaspud - NOBODY can help you if you don't provide the actual test result numbers, with units. Yes, there are iron removal systems out there, but if you iron is low enough a softener could be your best option. Without numbers, however, we are all just guessing, which is useless to everyone.

Hi, folks. I'm not trying to be difficult intentionally, just thought I'd shortcut the process. Below are the numbers.

na 8.1 mg/l
k 0.62 mg/l
cu 0.07 mg/l
fe 2.05 mg/l
mn 0.21 mg/l
mg 2.2 mg/l
ca 10.0 mg/l
pH 6.92
turbidity 18.0
conductivity 110
TDS 66.0 mg/l
alkalinity 37.5
hardness 34.0 mg/l
sulfate 8.6 mg/l

Being difficult intentionally or by accident is just as frustrating to people who are willing to offer their time and knowledge and experience to help...

Based on those water conditions a softener is the most cost effective and easiest to live with solution if you have the right kind of iron. A new softener that meets your needs is a more cost effective solution than rebedding your old, and most likely inefficient, softener which is probably undersized.

Without knowing the water usage, house occupancy, and SFR requirements there's no way to know if your present softener is correctly sized or set up. At 10 years old your softeenr is most likely timer based and not demand initiated regeneration so its efficiency is poor. If you haven't been doing any routine resin cleaning then the bed is most likely fouled and dead.

Based on the incomplete information you provide you should look at a new, correctly sized and properly set up for efficiency DIR softener and dump the GAC filter. If you institute a routine resin cleaning routine you should be just fine.

Any nitrates or bacteria in your well water?

I didn't know you wanted more than the water test results. It is a single family home with 2.5 baths and 4 adults. The current, tank-style softener uses salt regeneration and is usage-based. It's set at 15000 gallons and regens at 2:00 AM. Over the years, I have treated it with ResUp, but I recall the installer telling me the resin bed would last about 10 years, so that's why I've asked if there's a way that's less expensive to install/operate and only treats the iron. Qualitatively, the water seems to be fine--no abnormal coloration. So if the resin bed is gone, perhaps I don't need the softener anymore?

No, on the nitrates and bacteria.

BTW, I believe the softener is a Fleck 5600.

15 THOUSAND gallons between regeneration or 15 HUNDRED gallons?

Since we're doing this bass-ackwards let's keep going backwards...

What is the resin volume of the softener or what size is the resin tank... height and diameter? Is there a model # on the softener or resin tank like 8x35 or 948 or something like that?

When you can answer that question remove the back cover of the control valve and look at the LH side for the salt dose setting. What is the pointer pointing to?

Are you currently experiencing water quality problems or are you just anticipating problems in the future cause the softener is 10 years old?

Over the years you've treated with Res-UP... weekly, monthly, annually?

It's a lot easier to help you if you give us the details and we don't have to read your mind.

Seems we've been down this road before http://ths.gardenweb.com/forums/load/plumbing/msg0315265119954.html . Since you didn't value my advice the first time there's no reason to try to help you a second time... good luck.

Not sure what I have done to earn the hostility. I can't read your mind to know what information to give you, either. The prior posting was unrelated to this one as it dealt ONLY with whether I would get an advantage by using the green salt bags vs. yellow. That's quite different from the subject of this discussion.