They all look the same. Is it an FOB, FOC, FOK? Again, they look the same. What's the difference? I'm going to explain it to you right now.

The difference is the media that's inside, and that's actually what the last letter stands for. The B in an FOB stands for Birm or Birm media. FOC, C stands for carbon, actually catalytic or Centaur carbon. K stands for Katalox, so Katalox is the media that's in the FOK.

So which one is the right one for your family? Well, it all starts with a water test. We need to know how much iron you have, how much sulfur you have, and manganese if that's a concern or not. If you don't have a lab that can test your water for you, you can always mail us a sample. I'll put an address in the description down below where you can mail us a sample. We can test it for you, and from there, make the right recommendations.

But first I'd like to explain how these works just very briefly. I have other videos on each one specifically on how they work. But basically what happens is they create a big air bubble at the top, an air cap inside the unit. So how they work is they actually oxidize the iron and the sulfur out of the water.

So when you run your water on an everyday basis, your water is sprayed through that air cap. What that does is it oxidize or brings out the iron and the sulfur out of the water. As the water passes down through the tank and over the media, that oxidized iron sulfur gets trapped in the media. It continues down to a screen at the bottom of the tank and a tube that goes up through the middle, and then it goes onto your whole house, cottage, or cabin. Every three days it backwashes, so it reverses the flow. Then it pushes out that air cap, flushes the media, and then rebuilds the air cap, and puts it back into service.

So all that's fine and good, but which one is the right one for your family? Okay. So depending on your water test results, if you've got relatively high amounts like four parts per million or less of iron, FOB is the way to go. If you have a trace amount of sulfur, it's okay. But if you have higher amounts of sulfur, this is not the right choice for you.

If you have almost no iron, like less than one part per million of iron, but you have higher amounts of sulfur in your water, the FOC is definitely the best way to go. If you have up to seven parts per million of iron, up to two parts per million of sulfur, and up to a couple of parts per million of manganese, the FOK is the way to go.

Now, you have to also consider pH in all this. So the pH for the FOB has to be 6.8 or higher. The pH for the FOC has to be 6.5 or higher. The FOK has the widest band. It'll work anywhere from 6.0 to 9.0 pH. But if you're trying to get rid of manganese from the water at the same time, as removing iron and sulfur with the FOK, your pH has to be 8.0 or higher, which is actually quite high.

So the bottom line is you need to know the water test results to determine which is the right one for your family. To learn more about these systems, how to maintain them, how to winterize, etc., click up here. That'll take you to my next video on the topic, and I'll see you there.