Having used PP for many years it can if used correctly help fish and sterilize plants but if not used correctly can kill fish easily. PP is an extreme oxidizer and as such will try to oxidize anything organic. Used correctly it will oxidize dead organics and small organisms first. This is debri in the pond, parasites, and the slime coat on the fish. It starts off purple in the water and as the PP gets used up it will turn pink and than brown when used up. It does very little to living plants so usually doesn't do much to string algae but might work on green water. The farmers would not have used it for the algae in stock tanks but they would have used it to kill all the bacteria and parasites in the stock tank and as long as the water was no longer purple or pink the water would be safe for cattle to drink. The brown in the water will disappear after a few days on it's own or can be cleared by adding H2O2. It can also be cleared by running the water thru enough lava rock but that fact you will not find any where else. If you get it on your skin it will turn your skin brown for a few days and can blind you if you get in your eyes. I don't know where the 24 hour minimum for treating plants comes from but it may or may not be true. If the plants are bare root in a solution that is 10X the amount used for fish will kill everything except the plants in a 15 to 20 minutes. Plants in clay could easily sit in it for 24 hours and not kill things in the clay. Mike

Cool! Thanks for sharing that. "Pottasium Permanganate: Water purification, first aid and fire starter" (I read somewhere the Army stopped using it for water purification because it turned the soldier's teeth pink-go figure) :-) Here is a link that might be useful: Pottasium Permanganate: Water purification, first aid and fire starter

A clean BBB slate is not an indication that a business does it's job right only that it's customers think it does. Based on your experience with your current water people are they resolving your water treatment problems? Would you recommend them? Get a water test from an independent lab. An independent lab has no agenda and won't be trying to sell you water treatment equipment. This is a MUST DO because without it everything is a guess. A quickie water test from Sears or a water softener company won't be as accurate (and possibly not as competent) as from a certified independent lab. Hit the Yellow Pages and call at least three local water treatment pros. Make sure you call at least one of the big dogs like Kinetico for comparison and at least a couple independent pros. DON'T TELL THEM YOU HAD YOUR WATER TESTED. Give each an opportunity to offer suggestions and provide you with a quote to meet your water treatment needs. IGNORE ANY THAT DON'T TEST YOUR WATER THEMSELVES as they can't speak intelligently to water treatment without knowing what needs to be treated. Don't offer your lab test results and don't suggest anything to them. Ask lots of questions. Warranty, parts & labor or just parts, how long and on exactly what? Install, permits required, licensed plumber? Routine maintenance and costs? Do they stock parts? Response time for emergency (water leak) calls? If they don't explain things to your satisfaction that is a good indicator of how you'll be treated after the sale. Make them be specific regarding hardware. size, components, maintenance? After they've gone use your water test to compare with theirs. Are all your treatment needs being addressed? Ask your neighbors if they have any water treatment experience. They might tell you who's good or who to avoid. Come back here and post the specific recommendations and hardware components with the costs and we'll give you our opinions.

Potassium Permanganate (PP) is normally used to re-oxygenate a greensand filter, which is used to oxidize sulfur gas and iron. PP will permanently stain your brine tank and the innards of your resin tank (the softener itself). I would expect that the stain coating it places on the resin will negatively affect the resin's ability to take on sodium ions during your softener's regeneration process. No sodium ions on resin = No softening ability. I would advise you to NOT place PP in your softener's brine tank. If you wish to clean your softener's bed, you can use a small amount of Iron Out (laundry additive that dissolves ferric iron that can accumulate within the resin tank) to clean it up. I think 1/4 cup dumped down the brine well 1 hour prior to regeneration will clean it up nicely (provided the resin bed is not already blocked by iron, a condition that occurs in softeners in which the salt level in the brine tank has not been religiously kept filled). Hope this helps.