Green Then Brown, Where Is Clear Blue?

[Kari]

I too have brown water, and I filled my pool with municipal water. We have had this pool 4 years and have never had this problem. When we opened it up it had a small amount of debris and was green but you could see the bottom. We super shocked with bleach and it immediately turned brown. Went to a pool store and they sold us Iron Rid w/polytone, whatever that is. Some binder for the sand filter. We ended up backwashing every 40 minutes because the flo would slow to almost non-existent. This also meant that we were putting more WATER in the pool to compensate for what was being backwashed out.

Water lightened slightly but you cannot see the bottom maybe just a foot down and the water is a lovely yellowey brown. there is no debris or anything in the pool. Ph, FC, Alk levels all fine, we just let the girls swim in it anyway. Ordered 2 bottles of metal reagents. Will hit it with some muriatic acid and then the metal reagents. We run our sand filter 24/7 while the pool is open-about 4 months here in No. Iowa. We switched from Baquacil because it didn't perform well enough versus the high cost-it worked initally and then like any other pool chem-the cost to maintain/correct became exhorbant ($150-$200 per month). So this year we finally got smart and are using ultra-bleach, borax and baking soda. I'll check back and let you know how the rest of this week went.

[Kari]

Well, actually when we opened the pool , my DH put a brand new bag of zeobrite in the filter, there is nothing in the pump basket and the amount of psi the pump operated at was great prior to putting the Iron Rid. It runs fine now, once it is backwashed and rinsed. It just hasn't eliminated all the iron. thsi is day 4 after putting in the Iron Rid, which by the way was in the form of Powdered sugar-extremely fine powder. It probably acted as some form of flocc metal reagent.

We'll try the muriatic and then check levels and use the metal reagent which should put the iron in a ferrous state-making it clear again.

Cross your fingers

[Kari]

Okay, well it is now 4 days later and after we used muriatic acid it knocked everything to the bottom of the pool-top water was clear and light yellow. As soon as I dropped in the vacuum a cloud burst up and 5 minutes after vacuuming started the pool was the same cloudy mess. So then I put in 40 oz of a metal out product and two days later after continuous filtering and backwashing ........the pool looks the same, cloudy light green/yellow.

I'm thinking maybe I need to dump 6 gals of bleach in for 3-4 days straight, maybe that will knock the #$%& out of it and that will be it. I have been checking the levels and chlorine is 3ppm, ph 6.8 and alk 80ppm-girls have been swimming in it, doesn't bother them, it's wet.

Any input would be helpful.

Kari