CrazyPoolMom

Whenever my pool turns back green, it means that I do not have enough sesquesterant in the water. I am using the walmart brand htp Metal Control and it works great as long as I keep enough of it in there, and twice it has turned green on me again, but I didn't have to have the asorbic acid, I just used the metal control and it cleared it all back to blue. I thought I had staining again the second time even, kind of a yellow film on everything, the filters were orange, but that went away too.

I do not think it is true that you cannot use chlorine with well water ever. You just have to make sure and get a good metal sesquesterant into the water. I use the hth brand Metal Control from Walmart, and it works fine unless I forget the maintenance dose about once a week, then it turns a green color, and I get a line on the water line too. But all I have to do is add the Metal Control, and all is pretty and blue again. Upon filling I had a green tint to the water, shocked the water and got tea colored water. I am not on well water, but I do have a lot of iron in the water. There are people who are on well water here who do not have metals in the water at all.

I went through this same process more or less, so I feel for you. It is my understanding that the asorbic acid causes a chlorine demand, so without enough FC, the cloudy water is probably from algae starting. I would start adding more chlorine 1ppm at a time, if the water starts to turn green, add more sesquesterant. You didn't say what your CYA level is, but that matters a great deal, the higher the CYA level is, the more FC you have to keep in the pool to prevent algae. You can do a search for Bens Best Guess Chart, and Pool Calculator to find how much chlorine you need for you level, and find out how much of each thing to put to get your levels in check based on your number of gallons. Also, I would think that you need to raise that PH to atleast 7.0 again.

The best thing to do is get your own test kit so you can keep a closer eye on what your levels are, and not have to depend on the pool store. http://www.troublefreepool.com/viewtopic.php?t=259 they have the best test kit here I think, I picked up one at a pool store, paid more and didn't get as good of a deal My test for PH doesn't go that low, probably theirs didn't either, so he was just starting at 6. It's possible that you got old chemicals from the pool store also. How many gallons do you have in your pool? To Increase PH you can just use 20 mule team Borax, to increase TA and it will Increase PH at the same time, you can use Baking Soda. If you look around on that link above, they have a lot of information about this, and even calculators etc. it's called the BBB method, and it will save you loads of money. BBB is for Bleach, Baking Soda, Borax. If you ever need to decrease PH which isn't looking likely at this point lol you can use Muratic acid from the hardware store for that, and it's cheaper than the PH Down products.

I am really unclear on what you should do. You got good advise from Chem Geek, Richard on your other latest thread, you do need higher chlorine levels with that CYA level, but you didn't give him all of the INFO lol. He thinks your CYA has been too high for the FC level you were running and that it has caused you algae because he doesn't know that you have Iron and used Iron Out and have orange/Rustfilters along with your green water. I think if you follow his advise that he gave without knowing, you are going to end up probably with orange/brown water and maybe liner staining. The Orange/Rust filters and green water are from your metal sesquesterant not working properly, that Metal Free has been brought up in a lot of threads, and people have continued having problems after using it. Waterbear says to use a HEDP based sesquesterant like Jacks Magic, I couldn't find that and used the HTH brand from Walmart and it works fine as long as I keep enough of it in the water. Both times that this green water, rusty filter thing has happened, I have just added more and within a couple of hours had pretty blue water. I also drop the PH to 7.0 as advised, and I only add bleach 1ppm at a time and keep a close eye on it, and I am not having problems. If it starts to turn green, add more sesquesterant. BUT you still have this problem with the Iron Out that you have used, and I think that you have shocked enough that you should have 0 CC. and yet you have 1.3 CC. Usually Shocking gets rid of CC, So I think you still need to call the company and find out if this Iron Out is going to continue consuming your FC or not. If it is not going to wear off, you might just need to drain and then start over with the HEDP based sesquesterant. Also, since you added so much stablilzed chlorine so quickly, like all within the week, and took the CYA from 0 to 81, I think there is a chance it may go higher than 81 because sometimes it can take up to a week for it to all dissolve..... Definately get the test kit and look up Bens Best Guess Chart, and more about the BBB method for pool maintenance.

I have looked and looked, and I cannot find an answer to your question. I guess you could call the company, maybe the stuff wears out after awhile, of course with no FC by then you might have algae. There are non chlorine shock methods, but I do not know a thing about those. I hope you will follow up on this and let everyone know what the outcome is with the Iron Out in the Pool water incase it ever happens to someone else. If you do refill, do not use the Metal Free again, here is a post about that: http://www.poolspaforum.com/forum/index.ph...rt=0#entry28585 I have seen other people in forums say that the Metal Free does not work as well as the other sesquesterants also.

I think all that you need is chlorine too. Just watch that Bens Best Guess Chart and add enough to keep your FC in line with your CYA, until you can hold the chlorine levels all night without losing FC. When the sun isn't shining like at night, and you lose FC it means you are fighting something like algae. You are right to be cautious about that CYA level. Sometimes that stuff takes up to a week to dissolve, but I think a lot depends on the brand. I put the right amount of the hth walmart brand into a sock and was dissolving, expecting it to take a week, and I had the level that I wanted in 1 day and most of the sock was still full of CYA, so I would have really over done it had I not checked that first day I am thinking. Others have reported some brands never raising the level at all. It's odd that after shocking you had CC left, usually it is 0 after shocking, so you may not have gotten your levels quite high enough for a complete shock. Sometimes chemicals lose their potency, so you think you are getting enough in there for a shock but really are not. There is a calculator over at troublefreepool.com that shows you exactly how much of each chemical you need to raise levels of FC, PH, etc, based on the number of gallons in your pool. It's called Jasons Calculator. It would be a really good idea to check out that site and find that link. And they are selling a really good test kit over there too. That way you do not have to depend on the pool stores. I do not know anything about calcium:(.

Well the thing is, you really need to know what your levels are, because the more stabilizer you have in your pool, the more free chlorine it takes to keep the pool sanitary and the more it takes also to shock the pool to get rid of combined or used up chlorine. Someone named Ben from another forum made a chart showing these numbes: Stabilizer . . . . . . Min. FC . . . . Max FC . . . 'Shock' FC => 0 ppm . . . . . . . 1 ppm . . . . . 3 ppm . . . . 10 ppm => 10 - 20 ppm . . . . 2 ppm . . . . . 5 ppm . . . . 12 ppm => 30 - 50 ppm . . . . 3 ppm . . . . . 6 ppm . . . . 15 ppm => 60 - 90 ppm . . . . 5 ppm . . . . . 10 ppm . . .. 20 ppm => 100 - 200 ppm . . . 8 ppm . . . . . 15 ppm . . .. 25 ppm So if you are having algae problems, it is likely you might actually have too much stabilizer in the pool. Like if your Stabilizer level is over 100, and you are only using enough chlorine to get the total level to 3ppm, then you end up with algae sometimes because there is not enough free chlorine in the water. It does sound like something is wrong with the chlorinator, but you really need to give a set of numbers still.

You need to give all of your tests results or no one is really going to know what the deal is. FC CC PH TA TH CYA If you do not already have a test kit for all of this, other than strips, it would be a good idea to take a sample to a pool store until you can get a kit.

I started out with brown Iron water also, but was able to get it under control by taking advise on this forum. I filled, shocked, and the water turned brown and the liner was left stained. Since then I have also cleared up Moms pool water, same problem. I was unable to get the asorbic acid, vitamin C for my pool, but I had it for hers, and it worked very well. http://www.poolspaforum.com/forum/index.ph...rt=0#entry28401 http://www.poolspaforum.com/forum/index.ph...amp;#entry29030 Both of these threads helped me a great deal. First you get a decent test kit so that you can measure all of the levels that you need to measure properly, not test strips. It doesn't take special brand name products that are difficult for some to find and expensive, all it takes is just reading about what to do and doing it. There is a lot of good advise on this forum.

My understanding is that Total Chlorine is all of the Chlorine in the pool, Free Chlorine is the portion of that that is available to fight off bad stuff. Combined Chlorine is the amount that has already been used up fighting something bad. Besides yucky stuff being in the pool, the thing that takes the most of the Free Chlorine away is sunlight. You need CYA to like shade the Chlorine in the pool from the sunlight. This way you do not end up with no free chlorine everytime you have a sunny day. There isn't a household thing to replace this with. Since the Dichlor has the stabilizer you will be all set with a CYA level of 30ppm once all that he has said to dissolve gets dissolved.

Gosh I wish I knew if this test kit is still good. Someone will be along that knows that. If you have to get another one, I noticed on another website troublefreepools.com they are selling a test kit that looks like a very good deal. Did you buy the test kit last year, or in 2005? They have a whole question and answer section there, so you might check it out and just read the forums to see if anyone there has had your same situation, or a similar one. I just bought a Taylor 2005 new, so I am wondering now if my test kit is still good, I hope the pool store did not sell me a 2 year old test kit that is out of date. I don't see any expiration dates anywhere on anything... I suppose you could test it yourself, and then run a sample in to a pool store and see if theirs matches.... If you don't already know, you will have to determine your gallons: http://www.pentairpool.com/includes/answerpool/poolcalc.htm here is a good website for that. And you should research the BBB method, where you can use household bleach, baking soda, and 20 mule team borax in place of some of the more expensive pool products:) You can use just bleach to shock your pool, and here is a calculator that will help with doing that: http://www.minbar.com/pool_calc.html How much chlorine that you need depends on what your CYA level is, and there is a chart for that also, it's called Bens Best Guest Chart Use the info in this chart to help you figure out what levels of chlorine you need to maintain in your pool based on the amount of CYA (cyanuric acid, also called stabilizer) that you have in your pool. (FC = free chlorine) Stabilizer . . . . . . Min. FC . . . . Max FC . . . 'Shock' FC => 0 ppm . . . . . . . 1 ppm . . . . . 3 ppm . . . . 10 ppm => 10 - 20 ppm . . . . 2 ppm . . . . . 5 ppm . . . . 12 ppm => 30 - 50 ppm . . . . 3 ppm . . . . . 6 ppm . . . . 15 ppm => 60 - 90 ppm . . . . 5 ppm . . . . . 10 ppm . . .. 20 ppm => 100 - 200 ppm . . . 8 ppm . . . . . 15 ppm . . .. 25 ppm I can't tell you what to do first, but I can tell you that with a little reading and some help from the forum experts, you should have no trouble maintaining your own pool.

I think the PH will rise on it's own as long as you aerate.

The best thing that you can do first off is to get your own test kit that measures Free Chlorine, Total Chlorine, and Combined Chlorine, along with TA, PH and TH and CYA. They are more expensive, but remember that your kids will most likely be drinking some of this pool water. CYA is stabilizer, and you have likely picked it up from either the shock, or from using the pucks to chlorinate. With a CYA of 10, your FC level needs to be between 2-5 PPM in order for it to be safe for your kids to swim. The higher your CYA level goes, the more ppm you need to maintain for the water to be safe. The only way to get rid of CYA is to drain some water out of the pool. You can look up Ben's Best Guess Chart and find out what the safe levels of chlorine are for each CYA level in the water. Using the commercial shock treatments you will pick up CYA, and also by using the chlorine pucks. I did this for years, just measuring Total Chlorine and thinking that I was putting my kids into safe water. Luckily no one became ill, but I shudder to think of it now. To shock the pool you can use just plain chlorox bleach, and not raise your CYA level, look up the BBB Method for pools, it explains how you can use household bleach, baking soda, and 20 mule team borax to help maintain your pool. You can also look up Jasons Pool Calculator and it will tell you, based on your gallons how much of each thing you need to put into the pool. Here are a couple of threads dealing with Iron problems in pool water: http://www.poolspaforum.com/forum/index.ph...rt=0#entry29649 http://www.poolspaforum.com/forum/index.ph...rt=0#entry28401 If you shocked the water like the pool store said, then you should have gotten rid of the green water and all, and ended up with orange water. You have to filter like crazy to get that iron/rust out of the pool of course. I was able to do this with a paper filter. In the first thread above, someone else mentioned using the Metal Free, and not getting good results. What worked for me was just the plain old hth brand Metal Control from Walmart, a double dose of it. I hope this helps some.

I have never had much luck with a waterhose vac, I seem to get more stuff in the pool off of the water hose than I get out. I have just used the inflow from the pool pump and a different hose to vacuum with. This 800GPH filter/pump isn't much but go ahead and test it with a hose to see what it will pick up. Get a hose, not a water hose, a vacuum hose, rob a shop vac or a hoover if you have to, pool stores have loads of extra hose though, and it's already clean. Have someone hold one end of the hose to the inflow hole on the side of the pool and see what you can pick up with the other end. If it does fairly well, you can start looking at pool vacs to vacuum from the pump directly into the filter. Or you might even be able to get creative and rig something up yourself. Be on the lookout for a larger pump, you can buy them directly from Intex, or from online auction sites, or even locally from garage sales and such. I have used these pools for many years, I started with a 3x12 and have moved up, pools used to come with much better filter/pumps, and most people only use them a year, getting a pool cleaned and drained and dried is a process that many do not follow through with well, and mice in storage take out lots of liners, so there are lots of larger filter/pumps out there in the world:)