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Old 10-07-2005, 06:23 AM
M Osborne
 
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Default Help - Rust stains from watering garden with hard (well) water

I've been using a sprinkler to keep my plantings watered, and the rock
around the plantings and the nearby concrete is turning rust colored.

Is there anything I can buy and put in-line to prevent this from
happening? Ie. some kind of filter or whatever to remove the iron/rust
before it puddles on the rock and concrete?

I see the variety of soaker hoses from Fiskars and Orbit, but I'm afraid
those might not provide enough water since I have so much rock-based mulch.

Any advice would be appreciated!

Thanks
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Old 10-07-2005, 07:23 AM
 
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Try lemon juice on the rust.

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Old 10-07-2005, 08:05 AM
M Osborne
 
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Default

Is there anything that can be done to treat the water in-line before it
goes to the sprinkler and creates the rust stains by oxidizing on the
surfaces?

Thanks

wrote:

Try lemon juice on the rust.

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Old 10-07-2005, 02:54 PM
 
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Perhaps if you have more money than god you could pretreat the water to
remove the iron. Might be better to not water the cconcrete.

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Old 10-07-2005, 05:42 PM
Kay Lancaster
 
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Default

On Sun, 10 Jul 2005 04:23:27 GMT, M Osborne wrote:

Is there anything I can buy and put in-line to prevent this from
happening? Ie. some kind of filter or whatever to remove the iron/rust
before it puddles on the rock and concrete?


http://www.ext.nodak.edu/extpubs/h2o...ys/ae1030w.htm

But it would be a whole lot easier and cheaper to go to drip irrigation
and water the plantings instead of the sidewalk.

I see the variety of soaker hoses from Fiskars and Orbit, but I'm afraid
those might not provide enough water since I have so much rock-based mulch.


Rock based mulch has nothing to do with using drip irrigation. I'd use
pressure-compensating drippers and/or the laser-drilled 1/4" tubing rather
than the foamy-looking hoses that sort of "sweat". Examples:
http://www.unce.unr.edu/publications/FS93/FS9382.pdf
http://www.lowes.com/lowes/lkn?actio...rrigation.html
or click on "micro watering handbook" in the left column he
http://www.raindrip.com/contact/catalogrequest.asp

Put the drippers in the root zone, under the mulch.

If you've got a sprinkler system in place, the sprinkler heads can be converted
to a drip watering manifold fairly simply -- raindrip is one such manufacturer
of these.

Don't forget a backflow prevention device if you're hooking drip irrigation
to a standard hosebibb.

Raindrip is a product line that I'm most familiar with and have found
satisfactory for smallish scale home use; I'm sure there are other good
manufacturers of similar supplies.

kay




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Old 11-07-2005, 02:10 AM
Walter R.
 
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Default

Oxalic acid removes rust stains. I have used it to remove rust stains from
my pool plaster. You can buy it in most pool supply stores.

--
Walter
www.rationality.net
-
"M Osborne" wrote in message
news:3p1Ae.153066$nG6.66010@attbi_s22...
I've been using a sprinkler to keep my plantings watered, and the rock
around the plantings and the nearby concrete is turning rust colored.

Is there anything I can buy and put in-line to prevent this from
happening? Ie. some kind of filter or whatever to remove the iron/rust
before it puddles on the rock and concrete?

I see the variety of soaker hoses from Fiskars and Orbit, but I'm afraid
those might not provide enough water since I have so much rock-based
mulch.

Any advice would be appreciated!

Thanks



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Old 14-07-2005, 02:41 AM
 
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I have the same problem, as many other do. It is a tough one. It can
get to be so bad that, if sprinklers are used frequenly on plants with
low rate of green growth, the leaves turn redish. For example a Saint
Agustin lawn is no problem because gets cut and grows a lot, but I had
fescue and it did turn red in the summer because of the water, not brown
because of the heat...

I have tried the drippers for some areas, but they tend to clogh from
the well water sediments that go with the iron. From my experience, if
drippers are used, look for the higher flow ones, install them in pairs
on a T instead of single drops, so if one fails the other probably still
works and you dont have to be watching the thing continuosly. Be ready
to replace them periodically. DO NOT BURY THE DRIPPERS as suggested by
the previous post. With the high chance of clogging, you want to be
able to see the drippers dripping.

To try to avoid the red coloring of plants and the problem with
drippers, I have started to experiment with simple high volume dripping,
where I have a multi-port manifold with 1/4 tubing that splits with a T
into two other segments of tubing with just a splicing connector (if
anything at all) as a terminator to provide some limitation to the flow.
A few feet lenght tubes and the T help to reduce the flow per drop to
a manageable level. They put out a significant amount of water, but not
too much, it is just a matter of shorter cycle times. You have to play
with the tube lenghs and relative drop levels to have equivalent flow...
I am experimenting with a bed of 12 or so trailing lantanas, with a drop
per plant. A single zone with a 12 GPM pump can handle a lot of this
open drops. I am sure that over time the tubes will build internal
sediment and eventually will have to be replaced, but I hope it may may
last a couple of years or more.

It is not a matter of dripping savings, but of preventing wetting the
leaves with the thin spray that tends to sediment over the plant. I am
sure it will save water, which is great, but that is not the main
reason...

By the way, I also use some bubblers but in general they are hard to
adjust and for low flows they are also affected by the deposits.

Kay Lancaster wrote:
On Sun, 10 Jul 2005 04:23:27 GMT, M Osborne wrote:

Is there anything I can buy and put in-line to prevent this from
happening? Ie. some kind of filter or whatever to remove the iron/rust
before it puddles on the rock and concrete?



http://www.ext.nodak.edu/extpubs/h2o...ys/ae1030w.htm

But it would be a whole lot easier and cheaper to go to drip irrigation
and water the plantings instead of the sidewalk.


I see the variety of soaker hoses from Fiskars and Orbit, but I'm afraid
those might not provide enough water since I have so much rock-based mulch.



Rock based mulch has nothing to do with using drip irrigation. I'd use
pressure-compensating drippers and/or the laser-drilled 1/4" tubing rather
than the foamy-looking hoses that sort of "sweat". Examples:
http://www.unce.unr.edu/publications/FS93/FS9382.pdf
http://www.lowes.com/lowes/lkn?actio...rrigation.html
or click on "micro watering handbook" in the left column he
http://www.raindrip.com/contact/catalogrequest.asp

Put the drippers in the root zone, under the mulch.

If you've got a sprinkler system in place, the sprinkler heads can be converted
to a drip watering manifold fairly simply -- raindrip is one such manufacturer
of these.

Don't forget a backflow prevention device if you're hooking drip irrigation
to a standard hosebibb.

Raindrip is a product line that I'm most familiar with and have found
satisfactory for smallish scale home use; I'm sure there are other good
manufacturers of similar supplies.

kay


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