GoobyGirl Posted July 17, 2007 Report Share Posted July 17, 2007 I am new to this pool stuff - so I bought an Intex 18 x 48. I have worked at getting my levels correct, as I live in the country with well water. As of Sunday, my levels were: Saturation Index: 0.36 Balanced Total dissolved solids: 0 balanced Total chlorine 5.0 Free chlorine 5.0 Combined chlorine 0.0 pH 7.6 Adjusted Alkalinity 165 Total Alk 200 Calcuim Hardness 224 Cyanuric acid 0 Iron .03 Coper 0 Total dissolved solids 0 Draining the pool is NOT an option, as the iron in the water is close to leaving due to Metal Free working it - its already removed the copper. HOWEVER, I read somewhere on this site that using Iron Out by Summit was okay to use as it gives one instantly clear water - so I did just that, and VIOLA!! The water cleared wonderfully! However, seconds later I had a feeling to test the water via the drop kit I have - I had NO chlorine whatsoever and my PH seemed to have dropped as well! So, I used a test strip - nothing. Both of these worked prior to getting my water tested an hour before. I then found out that Iron Out has a chlorine neutralizer. So, I decided to try to shock it back to a chlorine level I can read. I've added 4 lbs of shock to no avail and getting ready to switch over to bleach in the AM (I've ran out of granulated chlorine). Can someone tell me that this will help bring back chlorine to my water? I'm so disappointed. I've worked very hard to get chlorine to read in my water only to screw it up by adding Iron Out. Ug... I don't use Dichlor as a chlorinator anymore, BTW - I learned early on that it raises the CYA... correct? I'm almost obsessed with this pool! Okay- I have to admit - I AM obsessed with this pool! GoobyGirl Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GoobyGirl Posted July 17, 2007 Author Report Share Posted July 17, 2007 I am new to this pool stuff - so I bought an Intex 18 x 48. I have worked at getting my levels correct, as I live in the country with well water. As of Sunday, my levels were: Saturation Index: 0.36 Balanced Total dissolved solids: 0 balanced Total chlorine 5.0 Free chlorine 5.0 Combined chlorine 0.0 pH 7.6 Adjusted Alkalinity 165 Total Alk 200 Calcuim Hardness 224 Cyanuric acid 0 Iron .03 Coper 0 Total dissolved solids 0 Draining the pool is NOT an option, as the iron in the water is close to leaving due to Metal Free working it - its already removed the copper. HOWEVER, I read somewhere on this site that using Iron Out by Summit was okay to use as it gives one instantly clear water - so I did just that, and VIOLA!! The water cleared wonderfully! However, seconds later I had a feeling to test the water via the drop kit I have - I had NO chlorine whatsoever and my PH seemed to have dropped as well! So, I used a test strip - nothing. Both of these worked prior to getting my water tested an hour before. I then found out that Iron Out has a chlorine neutralizer. So, I decided to try to shock it back to a chlorine level I can read. I've added 4 lbs of shock to no avail and getting ready to switch over to bleach in the AM (I've ran out of granulated chlorine). Can someone tell me that this will help bring back chlorine to my water? I'm so disappointed. I've worked very hard to get chlorine to read in my water only to screw it up by adding Iron Out. Ug... I don't use Dichlor as a chlorinator anymore, BTW - I learned early on that it raises the CYA... correct? I'm almost obsessed with this pool! Okay- I have to admit - I AM obsessed with this pool! GoobyGirl HELLO anyone out there?? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CrazyPoolMom Posted July 19, 2007 Report Share Posted July 19, 2007 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. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GoobyGirl Posted July 19, 2007 Author Report Share Posted July 19, 2007 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. ... Thanks CrazyPoolmom! I found out that Iron Out by Summit has a chlorine neutralizer in it... duh on me!! Sooooooooo, I simply started shocking my pool until I got a reading for chlorine. We've had LOTS of rain here after I shocked, and of COURSE cool weather - so I've not even been able to enjoy the pool if I wanted to! However, when I got my water tested today I was very surprised at the difference!! Look at the difference in the results: July 15th (prior to my adding Iron Out) Saturation Index: 0.36 Balanced Total dissolved solids: 0 balanced Total chlorine 5.0 Free chlorine 5.0 Combined chlorine 0.0 pH 7.6 Adjusted Alkalinity 165 Total Alk 200 Calcuim Hardness 224 Cyanuric acid 0 Iron .03 Coper 0 Total dissolved solids 0 so, with these results and wanting clear water... I added the Iron Out... and my chlorine dropped out. NOW, here are the results for today (18th) after shocking it with liquid bleach until I got a chlorine reading: Saturation Index: -0.37 Corrosive (Is this going to hurt my vinyl liner?) Total dissolved solids: 0 balanced Total chlorine 5.0 Free chlorine 3.7 Combined chlorine 1.3 pH 7.0 Adjusted Alkalinity 133 Total Alk 151 Calcuim Hardness 233 Cyanuric acid 81 Iron 0 Vial turned soft pink, but they said it must be so small of an amount that it turned the water but not enough to register. Coper 0 The water is a pale green and hazy - but I can see the bottom. You KNOW I won't be adding any Iron Out!! LOL The pool story folks said to do nothing right now - we have rain up through tomorrow... they said I could swim - riiiiiiiiight - my water is in the low 70's now. They said to bring water in next week for testing. Your thoughts on these results? Is it safe to swim (besides hyperthermia)? Goobygirl Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prawny Posted July 20, 2007 Report Share Posted July 20, 2007 Hi, Use a little 12% bleach to bring your free cl2 levels and ph up a bit. Your combined Cl is a bit high considering you haven't even been using it and the ph is a touch low for most people. Otherwise it looked pretty good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CrazyPoolMom Posted July 21, 2007 Report Share Posted July 21, 2007 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. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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