A newly installed piece of equipment should be disinfected before use. This can be done with ordinary laundry bleach (liquid), such as Clorox, Linco, Bo Peep, etc. using about 1/2 cup for a 30,000 grain softener and one cup for larger softeners. Direct salting softeners may be disinfected by dumping the bleach into the tank opening, closing the unit and rinsing. Brine tank softeners may be treated by adding the bleach to the brine tank. For sanitary reasons it would be desirable to disinfect direct salting softeners each time the salt is added to the brine tank. With dry salt storage brine tanks, the bleach should be added to the open tube containing the float and the ejector, during the brine draw. When septic tanks follow the softener, bleach will have no damaging effect on the septic tank action.