The iron content in my well water is high at 0.77 mg/l, and noticeably whiffy. After reading all that I could find on the topic at thaivisa.com and the internet, my plumber and I came up with the following solution.

- Submersible pump delivers well water to aerator on roof. The aeration helps to convert ferrous iron (soluble) to ferric iron (precipitate). The aerator is home made from sheet aluminium and consists of a series of trays drilled with small holes (see photo). Not very pretty, so we have located it between gables and it's almost unnoticeable.

- Aerated water flows down into 2000 litre settlement tank at ground level. I have replaced the lid with insect screen to allow continued aeration, and put a drainage valve at the base of the tank to tap off iron precipitate from time to time.

- The primary-treated water from the settlement tank is then pumped through a green manganese sand filter and from there to storage tanks in the roof cavity.

This system works beautifully. The treated water is sweet, potable, odourless and colourless. In six months normal use, I have only needed to backwash the filter once and the primary treatment seems to have reduced the load on the green manganese sand - no need (yet) to replace the filter medium.

Aunty Edna

Interesting

How much sludge are you collecting in your settlement tank (a measure of the effectiveness of your aeration system)?

Would an air bubble system in a tank be equally as effective at getting air into the water as your tower, and slightly less visible?

Interesting

How much sludge are you collecting in your settlement tank (a measure of the effectiveness of your aeration system)?

Would an air bubble system in a tank be equally as effective at getting air into the water as your tower, and slightly less visible?

Sludge - rather difficult to see. The drainage valve is plumbed into the sewage outlet (invisible) so I can only get an idea by peering into the top of the tank. I drain it an inch or so periodically.

The air bubble system may well work, whether more or less effective I don't know, but it's one more pump and one more thing to go wrong.

The air bubbler would use less energy than the pump up to the roof; another option would be to just use a paddle aerator. If you used a bubbler, you would still need a screen of sorts to help diffuse the bubbles and maximize aeration.

Good solution though! Nice to avoid all the chemicals when you can.