glentre

Waterbear, Thanks, we will start using the Metal Out as a preventative. I can't thank you enough for your interest and help. Even though we have maintained our pool for more than 20 years without any water problems and thought we knew what we were doing, this problem made us realize we had little real knowledge about water chemistry. I have printed all of your responses to have a reference to refer to if a problem like this hits us in the future. Also, the discovery of this forum gives us comfort in knowing we have a place to get answers and to hopefully contribute whenever we can. Thanks to you, this has been a rewarding experience. Glen

Waterbear, Now that our Memorial Day weekend family has departed, I can get back to thanking you for your time and knowledge in helping us resolve our pool water problem. After all our worry about the water, it rained all day Saturday and Sunday and only got into the high 50's on Monday so only a few of the brave kids got into it briefly. Like all pools, it was nice to look at though. At this point, the water has cleared up significantly, helped by the 2" or so rain over the weekend. The CYA is still low but we are slowly getting it up to the recommended level. Over the last several days, our well water has cleared up somewhat, indicating the water table is finally dropping after a winter and spring of abnormally high levels which caused our brown iron-rich problem. We have a well contractor coming in next Monday to review what needs to be done to prevent further leaking of ground water into the well. I understand the iron is still in the water and will even increase so long as we continue to top off with well water or at least until our well is fixed. However, if the water stays clear and there is no staining without adding any iron treatment, would you recommend we start using the Metal Out product anyway? Glen

Sorry, I used the wrong term. What we have is Regal Care Systems "Metal Out" that our pool store gave us. They don't show any ingredients on the bottle but do caution use as it contains etridonic acid. Our reunion family starts arriving this evening and with the pool skimmer starting to suck air because of no rain for weeks and low water level we had to top it off with about an inch of water this morning. Because of the added well water, the pool has now changed from almost clear to a bit cloudy but we can still easily see the bottom in the deep end. At this point, we are reluctant to add anything that will result in the pool turning more cloudy such as clarifier which tends to reduce clarity before turning it clear in two days or so. If needed, I don't know what the Metal Out will do if added now. BTW, we also have some Ferra-tabs to treat iron that have been around for about 5 years when we used to have a sand filter. Rain is expected both tomorrow and Saturday so hopefully, we won't have to top off again for awhile. Glen

Waterbear, Wow! That's a lot of good info in your last post. Our Taylor K-2006 test kit arrived today and these are the results. The first number is from the Taylor kit and the second after the comma is from our pool store using a disk type machine, just for comparison. The store numbers are about 3 hours after pulling the sample from the pool so that may affect some of the readings. My Taylor tests were done about 36 hrs after the store test and with the filter running 24/7 and the SWG running at 70%. That likely accounts for the high chlorine numbers but I have turned it back to 40% until the number comes down a little. Not too worried about it as we have a family reunion this weekend with a lot of teenagers and two big dogs who love the water. Ph = 7.6, 7.6 Free Chlorine = 6.0, 3.04 Combined Chlorine = 0.5, .36 Total alkalinity = 70, 68 Calcium hardness = 240, 222 CYA = below the lowest Taylor range of 30, 2 Saturation index = 0.05, 0.1 Additional store results are: zero for copper, iron, nitrates and dissolved solids, 917 for phosphates, 3027 for salt vs 3200 on Hayward control box readout Because of the low CYA, we started adding Poolife stabilizer and conditioner yesterday afternoon. That product is 98.5 % cyanuric acid. We have also been adding a clarifier which has done wonders for the water. It is now quite clear with only a slight amount of cloudiness which appears to be improving day by day. We are cleaning our filter daily and getting orange deposits off of the pleated surfaces. Now that we can see the bottom, there are only a few small areas where we can see orangish powder. We vacuumed two days ago and the powder did not come back into the pool. Yea! Our brown iron rich water now appears to be coming from leakage around the seams of the 3 ft dia concrete well pipe which will be addressed as soon as we can get a well contractor here. Heavy rains since last fall in eastern Virginia caused the water table to rise above normal and we are getting ground water leaking into the well. Today, the water table is only 12 ft down. Our dilemma is just as the water is getting clear, hot weather is making us add makeup water which will be brown. Any suggestions on that as we don't want to start this disaster again? We bought a bottle of Iron-Out in case it's needed but are reluctant to add any to the pool without your input whether this is a good idea or not. Regarding pool stores trying to sell you as much chemicals they can, you are correct as we have also experienced. The store we finally settled on gives us a test readout that tells what and how much of a chemical should be added but the owner often tells us to disregard certain items on the printout as not really needed. Thanks again for your time in helping me out with this problem. I hope the thread will be available into the future as your explanations might benefit others who have experienced the same or similar problem Glen

Thanks again for your response and so quickly. 1. I will order the Taylor K-2006 test kit as soon as I post this reply. We have been using the AquaChek -7 strips for years which have given us readings that have always kept our water crystal clear. That is, until we get into a problem that we have now where the strips are not accurate enough to guide us properly. 2. Our SWGC is a Hayward Turbo Cell T-Cell-9 with a Hayward Gold Line Aqua Rite controller. It gives us a salt number which was 2700 at startup but now up to 3200 after adding salt. Is this accurate enough or are the salt test strips better? 3. Good point on controlling the ph. We will switch to muriatic acid. 4. Our total alkalinity is 80 per the test strips 5. We shocked the pool just before removing the winter cover when the pool basically had no chlorine. With the water temperature at 56 degrees, we could not use the salt generator. As you suggest, we will use liquid chlorine or bleach in the future to shock when needed like when the generator fails or when not being at the house for extended periods of time as you do. I very much appreciate your input and will post again mid next week with the results after we can get the water tested during a trip back home. Glen

Waterbear Thanks very much for commenting. Our pool is located at a summer place about 75 miles from home. It is a rural area with the nearest store a 20 mile round trip. The nearest pool store capable of doing a water analysis is more like a 40 mile trip so we buy our chemicals and get water testing when we get back home. We had a sample done at home after we topped off the pool with well water and shocked it when we opened it. Free chlorine was 18.44 ppm, total at 20, combined at 1.56, ph at 8.4, cya at 1, and zero for copper and iron. The iron number may have been zero because it all had precipitated out with the heavy shock treatment or the machine was not set up to test for iron. The shock we used was calcium hypochlorite. Per our pool store instructions, we added ph Minus to bring down the ph. We have not made the 40 mile trip to test current condition of the water but the strips indicate the ph to be in the ideal range, understanding this is not accurate. We have a salt pool with a chlorine generator which is now running but the pool needed four bags of salt which we added yesterday and this morning. As mentioned in my previous post, we went two days with no change in water clarity so we added a clarifier and within 12 hrs, the water cleared up enough to see the bottom of the 3 ft shallow area. Although still yellow cloudy, today we can just see the crab emblem we have at the bottom of the 8 ft deep end. There are patches of precipitated iron in the shallow part but not covering the entire bottom as it did after we shocked the pool and before vacuuming. The precipitate is orange powder which has not stained (yet) the bottom. We added a filter aid powder to the cartridge filter and are watching the pressure carefully to make sure it does not exceed the recommended max pressure of the filter. This morning, we vacuumed the pool again, concentrating on the orange precipitate patches. Again, it came back into the pool but in no where near the amount it did the first time we vacuumed. I guess the filter aid on the cartridge helped somewhat. The water clarity has improved considerably over the last two days and we are planning to give it another shot with clarifier this afternoon after a two day wait. I do understand your point that a clarifier won't resolve our iron problem and that some of the iron may have precipitated out and that some of it may have gone back into solution or is in solution from the beginning. Our brown well water pool topping off is a problem we encountered only this year but, even with clear well water last year and in years past, we likely had iron in the pool all along but it was in solution. For years, we have had a water softener using salt for iron conditions but it has not been able to handle the unusual amount of iron in the water this year ( 1.5 ppm per the softener tech ) and our house water and pool makeup water is brown. We are working with our water treatment folks to install an iron filtration system but that is weeks away. Your last paragraph is a little confusing with regard to what product we should use at this time to handle the current pool iron condition and what to use once we get the water clear. With regard to a professional water test, we will be back home early next week and will get a water sample to our pool store for analysis. If we haven't heard from you by then I will post the results for your review when we get them. Again, we appreciate you taking your time to explain things and giving some guidance on how to address this problem Regards, Glen

As a follow-up to my first post, the pool water vase after sitting over night had about a one inch accumulation of semi-transparent mucous-like material at the bottom. When disturbed, it would break into flakes but remain suspended in the water. Some rising to the top surface. I have no idea what this is and how the cloud of orange iron precipitate that returned into the pool while vacuuming turned into that material. Also, this morning there was nothing that had settled out on the pool bottom but the water was still cloudy and light green. When pulling out a white 5 gal bucket of water from the pool, it looks perfectly clear. So, perhaps the water color is being influenced by the blue fiberglass pool and the water is really not as green as it appears. On inspection this morning, the filter did trap a bit of orange material which must be the oxidized iron. However, the color and clarity of the pool is basically unchanged from two days ago. We filled another vase with pool water and added a small amount of pool clarifier and immediately began to see flakes of colorless material precipitating out. So, if there are no suggestions from other forum readers, we are incline to try to clear up the water with clarifiers instead of using iron removing products because the iron that was in the water has already been precipitated out by the heavy shock treatment of two days ago. Again, any knowledgeable input from the chemical guys would be appreciated. Glen

We have an approximate 20,000 gal inground speckled blue fiberglass pool in Virginia which had the water level lowered for the winter and covered with a solid top. The water was very clear all winter under the cover. Leaving the cover on because of the spring pollen and tree debris, we topped it off with about 2 to 3k gal of well water. This year, we are having problems with brown well water that has been ongoing after heavy rains throughout the fall, winter and into spring. After topping off the pool, the water turned brown because of the added well water. At that point, we super shocked it and set the Hayward cartridge filter to run 24/7. The next day our pool store tested the water and found 18.4 ppm free chlorine, 20 of total chlorine and 1.56 of combined. After several days circulating with the cover still on, we checked the filter and found it loaded with an orange precipitate. The filter was then cleaned and reassembled. Meanwhile, we brought in our water softener tech to give us options on resolving the house brown water problem. He tested the water, finding undissolved iron at 1.5 ppm which our standard house cartridge filter would not catch. He recommended an iron filtration system which has not yet been installed. Yesterday, we removed the cover and discovered the pool water almost clear but with the bottom completely covered with an orange colored powder which we assume was iron that the heavy dose of chlorine precipitated out of the well water that had been added to the pool. We then proceeded to vacuum the pool but were surprised to find all of the precipitate went through the filter and back into the pool. Thinking the filter was bad, we replaced it with a fresh one but the problem continued. Considering the pool filter would be more capable of removing the particles suspended in the water rather than in a heavy concentration through vacuuming the bottom, we continued to vacuum. This morning, we found the pool a light green color and could not see the bottom on the 3 ft shallow end let alone the 8 ft end. It looked like an algae bloom. However, there was no powder or precipitate on the bottom or walls. What happed to all the cloud of orange that went through the filter and back into the pool the day before? Did the iron go back into solution? If so, how? Is the green color still iron or something else? The chlorine level is still higher than the test strips will measure so it should have precipitated out some more iron if it was back in solution but it didn't. The filter showed a slight amount of orange deposit on it but nothing significant. Also, there was no deposit on the skimmer sock we had installed either. Confused, we took two clear glass 1.5 qt vases and filled one with the brownish house well water and one with the pool water and put 2/3 of a cup of bleach in each. Strangely, the one with pool water looked perfectly clear and not green before adding the bleach. Within about two hours, we started to see orange powder forming in the bottom of the vase with house water. The pool water vase also started to show only a very slight covering of orange powder in the bottom but not really anything significant. Also, the pool water vase had a strange looking thin layer of milky cloud-like material around the middle depth of the water. So, it would appear the iron did not go back into solution because the heavy dose of bleach in the pool water vase had little effect in precipitating out any more iron. The question is what should we do now? After reading more about getting rid of iron in pool water, we are inclined to use a commercial product designed to remove iron but find mixed reviews on them. Some appear to be better than others but we don't know which to choose. Any specific suggestions? Also, we apparently need to wait until the chlorine level gets to zero before using any product like that. If so, how do we get the chlorine level down quickly? Some input from knowledgeable forum members would be greatly appreciated regarding what actions we should take at this time. Thanks in advance, Glen