Iron Filter to new water softener I put in.

As the title describes, I just installed a new water softener. The old one was about 15 years old and I was taking it apart 2-3 times a year to clean out the fittings from Iron. The Whirlpool 30 unit finally caved in to the last time i wanted to fix it.

I looked all over for recommendations and could not find the Softener I wanted quick enough, so I went with a Rheem 48k unit. It seems to be working just fine, but when I took apart the pipes to install it, i noticed a ridiculous amount of Iron chips in the pipes and in a big blue, which did not have a filter in it due to it clogging up too quickly in the past. (thus the failure to the softener)

I've asked many people and they all just say do the big blues, and change the filter every month... this is a crappy option to me. I ran across a few people that did say that there are Iron filters that could regenerate by themselves and pump into a crock that I have.

​

My question is, what is a good brand and what is probably overkill? My water is not discolored, it doesn't really taste like iron, but the toilet tanks do have rust in the tanks and if the softener isn't working right, i get rust stains. I know i need to do a test on the water for Iron, I have in the past and nothing came back with concerning levels of any sort.

​

I'm just looking for ideas and any help/input would be appreciated.