Here is the full story sorry for the length but I would rather put it all on the table then have to repost the info.

New home, new well. About 1 year old this month. I live in NE Connecticut it's a "bedrock" well.

- 400' Deep
- 75' Casing
- 35' Static water height
- 2.5 GPM
- Pump WAS set @ 380'

No problems all winter but it's only myself and my wife so not exactly a lot of water use. This spring I plant a lawn and of course have to water it. Based on the 2.5GPM and my sprinkler that uses 3.5 GPM and a 6" casing I drop the water level about 50-100' when I water the lawn. This should not be an issue.

If I water the lawn or put any kind of draw on the well I get Colloidal clay from hell coming up. (See links below for more detail). It's micron and below and goes right past my filter (Of course because it's a 5 micron nominal). The stuff is nasty and will clog that filter in no time along with making a complete mess of showers, dishwasher, fridge, etc......... It forms agglomerates and settles out while showering leaving behind a mini beach!!!

So I did what a normal home owner would do and call the well company to take a look. We find the pump BURIED in silt and fight 3 hours to get it out. The pump was destroyed and replaced and reset @ 330'. Same as before any draw past the 2.5gpm the well puts out will result in Colloidal clay being pulled up for DAYS. Any draw less then 2.5 and I can pump all day long.

We have tried flushing the well as directed by running the water out the valve on the pressure tank wide open for 30 minutes then let it recover 2 hours then repeat all day long for days on end. Clay won't go away. Then we tried REALLY dropping the water level basically attempting the run the sucker dry but at 330' I'm on the wrong side of the pump curve and the well wins. But still the clay comes back.

Then I call the culligan clowns to see what they suggest, of course they want to install a full flocculation system which I want to avoid due to constant maint involved. (I really don't want to manage a mini water treatment plant in my basement).

SO I have been thinking about trying a bag filter in a commercial SS housing. Seeing they have bags down to .35 abs micron I'm thinking this should work.

I am open to any and all suggestions on solving this problem. Again, I'm going to try the bag filter because it has MEGA capacity and the housing used standard bag filters of which there are MANY options.

http://www.bigbrandwater.com/flowline.html

Below are a couple links to a particle size analysis I did at work as well a SEM picture of the particles showing the classic plate structure of clay. Also note I did an EDS and all that peeked was Si and Al which is basically clay so no surprises there at least.

Any ideas on dealing with colloidal clay in well water? Am I on the right track.

THANKS,
-Chris