Our well has iron bacteria. We had the well shocked a couple of years ago when the pump was replace but that really didn't help (no surprise there).

I've used a small in-line particulate filter to keep the crud out of the pipes. This worked a reasonably well up to the point the o-ring died and I couldn't find a replacement.
I then installed a larger Whirlpool filter particulate filter (one that uses sand and does automatic back flushes) and that worked much better.
Recently my water pressure dropped a ton. Turns out there's a basket filter in the inlet portion of the Whirlpool filter that was totally occluded with bacterial slime. Rinsed it out and pressure is back up.
Even with this filter, some of the crud gets through the lines and blocks up other filters in the system (inlet filters on the washing machine, kitchen/bath fixtures, on-demand hot water heater, etc). Some of these are easy to remove and clean (washing machine), other's not so much (faucets). I've tried various soaks like vinegar and 'iron out' with limited success.

Is there anything I can use as a soak that will dissolve this crud and not hurt the fixtures?

Thanks for your thoughts and advice.

quote: ' some of the crud gets through the lines and blocks up other filters in the system (inlet filters on the washing machine, kitchen/bath fixtures, on-demand hot water heater, etc).'

I had one of those little Whirlpool filter units. It is like any other tank/gravel/sand/berm/charcoal system. Over time, the filter media gets saturated with crap and it will need to be cleaned and re-bedded. Just more often.
Finally went with a larger system (vertical tank, control head) with gravel/sand/berm/ and calcite bedding (as per local water treatment co.) Also installed a sediment trap before the filter to catch the big stuff. Works good, but still needs periodic cleaning and re-bedding.



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