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Well Water Problems


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Probably not.

Take a sample of your pool water AND your well water to your nearest pool store and have them test it for everything, including metals. Let us know what they say - and what they think you should do.

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That's exactly what I did pool-newb. I was trying to avoid that because I read in a post on here that they are all "trying to sell you something". And another link that took me to Pool School offered no remedy for it either. It says to consider having enough water trucked in to fill it. It was absolutely no help at all.

We put the pool up last Friday. I treated it just as I did our other pool before we moved and had to use well water. I shocked it and added sanitizer tablets. I didn't realize there was that big of a difference in well water and county water. I found out quickly when I added the shock treatment that the difference is huge!

By Monday I was fed up. We had a brand new pool that looked old, stained, and worn out. I wasn't getting any replies to my questions, so I finally called a local pool supply service. I am so glad I did. I took in a water sample from the pool. She checked it and found that there were very high concentrates of copper and iron in the water. The pH was also extremely low. The chlorine wasn't right either. Here is what she told me to do:

Monday evening, I added 17 oz of Metal Magic and used a new filter.

By Tuesday, the water was crystal clear again. I did have to agitate the water a bit so the rust could float around and it was filtered out rather quickly.

I changed the filter again Tuesday morning.

Tuesday evening, I added two sanitizer tablets. The water stayed clear.

Approximately 3 hours later, I added a one pound shock treatment and a four pound box of Alkelinity Plus. The water was still clear.

The kids were swimming in it today. The water is clear. All the rust stains are gone. I'm glad I finally made the call.

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The Pool School article Metals in the Water and Metal Stains does say the following:

There is no practical way to remove metals from the water short of replacing the water with new water that doesn't have any metals in it. If you have metals in the water you will need to use regular doses of a sequestrant to prevent the metals from forming stains. Sequestrants bind to the metals and prevent them from depositing as stains. Sequestrants slowly break down in the pool, so you need to add more regularly to maintain the correct level.

ProTeam's Metal Magic and Jack's Magic the Pink Stuff (regular), the Blue Stuff (fresh plaster), and the Purple Stuff (SWG) are some of the top sequestrants. You can also find many other brands with similar products, some of which are noticeably less expensive. Sequestrants based on HEDP, phosphonic acid, or phosphonic acid derivatives are the most effective.

So I am not sure why you say that a link to the Pool School didn't help you. As you can see above, ProTeam's Metal Magic is one of the recommended sequestrants. Did you not find the above article when you looked? The article does say to "consider" having water trucked in because in the long-run it will be less maintenance. This is because you'll have to continue to add maintenance doses of metal sequestrant since it slowly breaks down from chlorine thereby releasing the metal. However, the article then says what I quoted above which is exactly what you ended up doing.

Richard

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One other thing that may be helpful with well water. I have well water and a conditioner. If you have a conditioner (removes metals) I only use water that has been treated. Our conditioner has a gage that tells how much treated water remains in the system. When filling the pool, I stop before the treated water gage gets to 0. It may take a couple days (the water is treated over-nite by the conditioner), but this way I don't add water with metals in it to the pool.

Of course, with a new pool you have to fill it right away but from now on....

Just an idea FWIW.

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