Too much iron my plants are drooping.

So i have come to conclude that the water from our well has way too much iron. I have been warned by the home owner when i moved in. I think it is about 200ppm iron in my water and we have no holding tank. We use a water softner but when the salt gets low it causes my plants to droop and stiffen heavily especially when night time comes. Last time this happened i refilled the salt and they came back but were slightly shocked and were hesitant to get back to their good growth momentum. This time the softner was only half full and i saw signs of drooping. I refilled the softner to the top immediately about 3 days ago but i think the damage has been done because they are starting to droop again heavilly and the growth has been retarted.

I have been using green sand to reduce the iron and gypsum to boost calcium and reduce the salts in my water, so far i have seen good results until that last few days.

What can i do asside from giving my plants expensive bottled water? I have heard a reverse osmosis system would be best but they are a few hundred at the least i have heard, and i am pretty hard up for cash right now.

I have even been leaving my 5 gallon water jugs full of water in the sun to treat the water. I heard it helps naturally distill the water or something, and lately i have even been throwing a hand full of green sand at the bottom of the bottles to help treat it by make some of the soluble iron in-soluble.

Is there anything else i can do to please my girls?

when using you water for feeding, do you leave the water out with the cap off for at least 24 hours?

yes I am using the basic 5 gallon clear plastic drinking water bottles and the cap is off and 24 hours is pretty much a minimum.

I am reading a little about it now and i think that by oxygenating that water with a air stone or something it might help bring the levels of iron down. But i can't mix the water up i need to pump or syphen then water out being careful not to disturb the bottom layer of water where the iron precipitates to. This might be a problem with my sun distillation technique as well. I normally just grab the jug and then water my plants.

I am also reading that the better water softners will only handle up to 10 ppm iron and some only handle 1ppm! I need to call my land lord up and ask him again if 200ppm was right, that sounds pretty high to me. I am also reading that even with a reverse osmosis system the water must be pre-treated otherwise i will be buying filters every month. This is going to suck because i don't have a holding tank.

I was also reading that the softeners need to be rejuvenated with acid because they build up iron in the system. I think this might need to be done. I need to see if the softener is capable of rejuvenation first.

I am also thinking about getting some air stones and filling a kiddy pool. They say oxygenation is one of the best ways to pull iron out. But once again i think i need to beware not to pump directly from the botton and not to desturb the two layers of water while pumping or syphening out.

eventually i need a holding tank for next year.

Its a long shot but maybe adding duckweed to the pool may help reduce the iron content while its sitting there.
Duckweed absorbs heavy metals and is used extensively in sewerage plants...its fast growing and free
It would reduce other nutes in the water too but thats no bad thing anyway if you`re going to be adding your own.

Interesting. I had a lot of duckweed growing in a large pond at my last place. I used the water then and had no problems. However i hear that duckweed naturally occurs when the ducks shit in the water adding nitrogen to it making it rich in nutrients. I never thought the duckweed was there to restore the balance but it makes sense. I might give it a try.

So far the growth tips on the top looks shitty and droopy with small leaves slowly growing out the growth shoots on the top of my plants, but the lower branches seem to be coming back and looking more healthy. I sure hope they come back soon. Is there anything i can do or add to my water to flush the iron out?

OK so plants are back to normal almost i have been letting the water settle for about 24 hours and then pumping the top 4 gallons out of a 5 gallon container.

WEll i was looking at a softner estimate from my neighbor he just had done and they tested our water at 6.9PH and they marked 3.8 for iron and I think (but not sure) the hardness was rated at 10, what ever that means. I think that is a good PH but i am not sure what 3.8 means does anyone know?

I just got a nice big swimming pool and i will be pulling my water off the top from now and letting the iron settle to the bottom.

I was wondering if i pumped from the bottom and discarded the waste water then maybe i could possible reduce the iron in the water by periodically getting rid of the the high iron layer, theoretically.

Also the pump has a filter that recirculates the top water, I was wondering how often i should run this filter? Will it lengthen the time it takes for my water to settle properly? Or will it reduce it possibly?

EDIT:>
OK so running re-examining the filter level it pumps at about 12" from the bottom. I don't think it should stir up the iron settling on the bottom too much being the pump doesn't seem to really be pushing that much water in the first place.

I was also thinking about using a small amount of chlorine in the water to help oxidize the iron and make it insoluble and also fall faster. I have heard that chlorine can be used in iron treatment and i know the water i used last year to grow had small amounts of chlorine in it and i had no problems.


I still don't know how long i should be running the filter if at all. Can anyone help?