To follow up with this thread, I recieved an email and phone response to my inquiry. Here is the email version which reflects about the same information as I got with the phone conversation:
Thank you for contacting Morton Salt. We are sorry to hear you were dissatisfied with the Morton® Clean and Protect™ Water Softener Pellets product you purchased.
Our products are produced across many of our manufacturing locations and processes. Each of our processes are slightly different in how they manufacture our products, which causes a slight variation in color and size of the pellets. However, all products are tested to ensure that they meet our specifications prior to shipment. These visual differences will not impact the functionality of the pellets or negatively impact the water conditioning systems.
Will you please be so kind as to provide us with the following information so we may continue to log your feedback:
• the LOT number (near or on the seam on the bottom of the bag that will start with the number 5 and contain 8 digits)
• a picture of the salt
Should you have additional questions or comments, feel free to contact us via our toll-free number (800) 725-8847, Monday through Friday 8:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. CST, or via our website at www.mortonsalt.com. Again, thank you for contacting Morton Salt.
At this point, I'm uncertain as to what to do. After clearing the small amount of scum off the top of the brine tank, the water seems to be pretty clear. I'll keep my eye on it and see how it acts over time.
Mep, I'm sure your comment works for you on filling the brine tank to the top with salt. But for me, it doesn't work. In the beginning, I kept the salt filled to the top and since I use a little amount of salt, the salt turned to mush and kept it from working correctly. It took me a while to figure out what was wrong with it. Plus you can never see directly how much water is in the brine tank after it refills. The water supplied to my wash is already softened to 5 grains and I soften to zero grains. So my softener only regins ever 9-10,000 gallons. Sometimes only 1-2 times a month. So the salt can sit in the brine tank for a long period of time. I can see if you have really hard water and your usage dictates multiple regins a day, then filling the brine tank to the top makes sense. So a blanket statement to keep the tank full of salt might not work for everyone. In my case, it doesn't work or make sense. I keep the salt higher on one side so the salt is out of the water and I can still see how much water is in the tank. The pellets disolve properly given my usage. It works better like this for me....
