As with my soil, the dam water is also extremely high in undesirable minerals that make gardening difficult to say the least!
The general outcome of the May'18 water tests are that the iron, manganese, sulphur & coliforms are extremely high & that was a good bit of water from the fresh run off, not the end of summer water that is really horrible.
There are many ways to get those minerals out of the water, none of them very easy & all rather expensive unless the quantities of treated water are very small.
Oxidation is generally accepted as the friendliest way to do it but when treating a whole dam, the machine is big & expensive.
Injection of chlorine, hydrogen peroxide, Condy'd crystals (potassium permanganate) or water softeners all work depending on what state the minerals are present in (how the molecules are arranged).
There are also experimental methods such as magnetism to break the molecules apart or ozone to hyper oxygenate & sterilize the water.
AndrewB provided some links found when he investigated this water issue.
http://www.purewaterproducts.com/articles/treating-manganese-in-well-water
My daily usage during the dry season for the whole of my orchard, garden & stock water needs can be over 5000lt daily which means I need a fairly big household or small farm system but nowhere near as big as one for a small town. So I fall inbetween a small house well system say for a swimming pool & a big system for a small town. So I have struggled to find a professional who wants to work with such requirements. Either they don't want to upsize a small system or downsize a large system.
If I wanted to expand to growing small crops, I need to get the garden water working properly first.
I have 2x 5000lt tanks (1x settling/treatment tank & 1x clean water storage tank) plumbed to 2 electric pumps & also with a high volume bilge pump in the settling tank I can transfer the cleaned water to the storage tank in under an hour. That bilge pump can also be used to circulate the dirty water in the settling/treatment tank, then suck out the cleared precipitated water from the settling tank into the clean water storage tank. Then it can suck out the dirty water from the bottom of the settling tank & send it down the paddock.
I was hoping the agronomist would be able to work through the process of developing the recipe & correct method to clean my dam water. But he was just interested to sell me an experimental method that was very expensive.
So I am left with no alternative but to use trial & error to work it out for myself.
So far I have found that without extra oxygenation, the use of Condy's crystals doesn't work.
Today I hope to buy some chlorine from the pool shop & try that. I really didn't want to use chemicals but at this stage with winter & the dry season now firmly upon my property, it is imperative that I find some way to clean this water before the soil dries out too much.
I also have plans for a floating oxygenator but it will be a bit expensive & take a few months to build & also I cant install it on the dam until summer due to how cold the water is at this time of year. Last thing I want to do is swim for hours in freezing water!
It is built with aluminium, solar panels, blue plastic drums for floatation & rusty corrugated iron that has 100's of sharp holes punched into it to create disturbance to the cascading water flowing from the pipe running across the top of the iron sheets.. The pump is a high volume 12v marine bilge pump that runs directly off the solar panels during daylight. It will be anchored in the middle of the dam.
Here are my water test results for those who want to know the technicalities:-
The test company also provided a 34page PDF on water treatment but I cant turn it into a link from their website. I'll keep trying because it does contain useful info.
The general outcome of the May'18 water tests are that the iron, manganese, sulphur & coliforms are extremely high & that was a good bit of water from the fresh run off, not the end of summer water that is really horrible.
There are many ways to get those minerals out of the water, none of them very easy & all rather expensive unless the quantities of treated water are very small.
Oxidation is generally accepted as the friendliest way to do it but when treating a whole dam, the machine is big & expensive.
Injection of chlorine, hydrogen peroxide, Condy'd crystals (potassium permanganate) or water softeners all work depending on what state the minerals are present in (how the molecules are arranged).
There are also experimental methods such as magnetism to break the molecules apart or ozone to hyper oxygenate & sterilize the water.
AndrewB provided some links found when he investigated this water issue.
http://www.purewaterproducts.com/articles/treating-manganese-in-well-water
My daily usage during the dry season for the whole of my orchard, garden & stock water needs can be over 5000lt daily which means I need a fairly big household or small farm system but nowhere near as big as one for a small town. So I fall inbetween a small house well system say for a swimming pool & a big system for a small town. So I have struggled to find a professional who wants to work with such requirements. Either they don't want to upsize a small system or downsize a large system.
If I wanted to expand to growing small crops, I need to get the garden water working properly first.
I have 2x 5000lt tanks (1x settling/treatment tank & 1x clean water storage tank) plumbed to 2 electric pumps & also with a high volume bilge pump in the settling tank I can transfer the cleaned water to the storage tank in under an hour. That bilge pump can also be used to circulate the dirty water in the settling/treatment tank, then suck out the cleared precipitated water from the settling tank into the clean water storage tank. Then it can suck out the dirty water from the bottom of the settling tank & send it down the paddock.
I was hoping the agronomist would be able to work through the process of developing the recipe & correct method to clean my dam water. But he was just interested to sell me an experimental method that was very expensive.
So I am left with no alternative but to use trial & error to work it out for myself.
So far I have found that without extra oxygenation, the use of Condy's crystals doesn't work.
Today I hope to buy some chlorine from the pool shop & try that. I really didn't want to use chemicals but at this stage with winter & the dry season now firmly upon my property, it is imperative that I find some way to clean this water before the soil dries out too much.
I also have plans for a floating oxygenator but it will be a bit expensive & take a few months to build & also I cant install it on the dam until summer due to how cold the water is at this time of year. Last thing I want to do is swim for hours in freezing water!
It is built with aluminium, solar panels, blue plastic drums for floatation & rusty corrugated iron that has 100's of sharp holes punched into it to create disturbance to the cascading water flowing from the pipe running across the top of the iron sheets.. The pump is a high volume 12v marine bilge pump that runs directly off the solar panels during daylight. It will be anchored in the middle of the dam.

Here are my water test results for those who want to know the technicalities:-



The test company also provided a 34page PDF on water treatment but I cant turn it into a link from their website. I'll keep trying because it does contain useful info.
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