re: Anyone have experience with well water tanks?

I see to separate and unrelated issues occurring simultaneously.

PRESSURE: You lack a proper air gap in your tank or bladder is hardened, or tank is waterlogged. (I'm betting on hardened)

SEDIMENT: The sand screen at the bottom of the well pipe has given out.


1) Pressure Issue:
Liquids (water) do not compress. Air does compress. The compressed air at the top of your pressure tank is what gives you water pressure, regardless of the size of the tank. If you had a plain galvanized tank, then the obvious culprit would be that your air pocket in the tank is gone and you need to get some air in there. However, you have a bladder tank.

I'm going to recommend you check the air pressure in the top of the tank. If you check it and water comes out, then there is your problem…a waterlogged tank. Change out the tank. If no water comes out, then adjust the air pressure as needed (add air if the pressure is more than 2 psi below the pump cut-in pressure / release air if the pressure is 2 psi above the pump cut-in pressure)

But if I had to bet money, I'm going to suspect is that since you have a documented high manganese level, that the manganese has coated the interior surface of the bladder, hardening the bladder leaving it inflexible. This will give the very symptom you're describing. Only course of action in this situation is, again, to replace the tank. I'd go with a larger tank.

A larger tank won't necessarily give you more pressure, but the increased surface area of a larger bladder stay flexible for more years in the presence of elevate manganese.


2) Sediment Issue:
The well screen is partly compromised, plain and simple. You can try the filtration route, but you will be changing filters on a very regular basis. Two alternate approaches.
A) Pull the well case and install a new screen ($$), or
B) rig-up a sediment trap.

Sediment Trap:
This is a piece of Aggie-engineering that I helped a guy develop. He had the same problem you do. We installed an old water heater tank in the water line (I don't recall if we put it before or after the pressure tank). Most of the sand from the well would settle in the "sediment" tank before moving on. He then had a filter in his house that captured any remaining sand.

A couple times a month, he would open the drain valve at the bottom of his "sediment tank" and blow out the accumulated sand. Worked like a charm, however, that was fairly coarse sand.

You probably ought to just install a filter for starters to see just how much sediment is coming through, and only do a sediment trap if the filter is having to be changed more often than you want to frick with.

Hope this isn't TMI. Keep us posted on how this develops.