Well water disaster

[zipsman03]

Well, first off My name is John, I live in Pierre SD. I have never owned a pool other than the blow up small deals for the kids. I am married with 3 & 5 yo daughters. My wife and kids have very sensitive skin. So I ordered a pool from amazon 12ftx30 inches so I have 3200 gallons of WELL water in it. So like most of the well water people here I am not doing well in the pool department. ok what I did thus far. 1 I spent 200 bucks on a salt water machine to avoid the chlorine. 2. I bought 80 lbs of salt, which I dumped into the pool.. I bought 32ozs of a product called EZ clear for the manganese; dumped into the pool right away. 3. Shocked the pool, ouch bad idea I know. 4. Went back to the pool store and was told to drain the pool and start over. 5. drained half the water out. 6. Stopped there because I feel I am literally pouring money down the drain. As I type, every thing is off, pool is half empty and really want this to work out due to the coming flood and the parks and pool will be closed all summer. I am sure the YMCA will be full all the time, and besides that I like having my own. Glad to be here.

[Watermom]

Hi, John. Glad to have you here. When I modded in your post, I deleted your phone number and email address. Not usually a good idea to put those on a forum. Well water is difficult to deal with when you put it in a pool. Don't add anything else at this point. I don't know anything about a product called EZ clear or how to handle a situation involving manganese. I'm going to ask Ben to specifically take a look at your post. If anyone can help with manganese, he would be the one. Sit tight for now.

[PoolDoc]

Hi John;

There's nothing good about your current pool situation, is there? Dealing with manganese is hard, at best. It is VERY difficult to filter. Doing it with an Intex-type pool with their weak circulation and filtration . . . I'm not sure I could do it myself.

Honestly, I think I'd recommend checking out the YMCA, floods notwithstanding.

(Had to Google news for your floods. Hope you're out of the flood zone. Too bad you can't send some of that water our way; we'd be glad to have it -- we've got crispy grass in June! If I was a farmer, I might be panicking about now.)

But seriously, I'd suggest you either get another pool with a DE filter (NOT a safe option on an Intex) OR you see if you can have filtered water trucked in.

Ben

[zipsman03]

Not what I had expected to hear. I am about 600 in at this point with no return possible, maybe I should try intech to see if they have a solution for. Not that I think about it, the Y has the same water and they made it work maybe I will give those guys a call. Thanks and if something clicks let me know and will act on it.

[PoolDoc]

Just be careful that you don't throw good money away, chasing an "Intex" solution. You need to keep in mind that usually the MARKETING department determines what the CUSTOMER SUPPORT department can and cannot say. And sales types go into stuttering fits when they have to say, "Our product doesn't work in that situation". So usually, they dodge, obfuscate and prevaricate. If you aren't wary, you can end up spending a lot of money discovering that for yourself.

On the other hand, if they can fix you up with a DE filter for your pool, THEN you can deal with the problem.

Regarding the Y -- there's no comparison. By state code they MUST have filtration system that is far, far more effective than yours. Again, if you had an effective filter, I would have given you a different answer. I've personally run two pools with manganese contamination, one 180,000 gallons and the other about 320,000 gallons. The smaller one with a sand filter was a nightmare, but we worked it out. The larger one had a huge vacuum DE filter, and it wasn't too hard.

Ben

[zipsman03]

Well update,
I went back to the pool people and I was told I should not have drained the pool but just waited for the metal to settle, sinceI did they will give me salt when I refill due to the bad info from there employee, so thanks for that. So I ended up draining the pool cleaning it really good. I then went to the drinking water folks here in town, and they rented me this large filtering tank, in which they told me it should remove most of my problems, add the metal clearing solution as before; then 1 cup of bleach which I did. woke up to finish filling this morning and everything is very clear so far. I haven't added the salt, nor have I shocked it for obvious reason, I don't want the previous problem. so now what do I do? I ordered a sand filter hope that was a good Idea. I was told the paper filter would not keep me happy. Or should I cancel it Again what now test the water? and if so what am I looking for?

[St-John-swim-mom]

I ran an Intex pool for 2 summers with 'well' water and I bought the salt chlorinator from Intex too. Here's what I used to do (and NO, I am no expert by any means, this is just what worked for me): I filled the pool, added the salt, ran the filter for 24 hours. My water then turned 'mud' brown when I began chlorinating, so then I added 'Metal Magic' and continued to run the filter for 24 hours. Eventually -- and with a lot of filtration -- the iron and metal matter would settle onto the bottom of the pool. Eventually, I would disconnect the outlet hose and I would vacuum the bottom of the pool letting the water being sucked up to go right into the yard because if I left it connected to the filter canister, I would see the brown settled matter being spewed right back into the pool ( a vicious circle/cycle). The Intex filtration is weak, the filter does not filter out finely enough, but it can work adequately. We have since 'graduated' to an above ground pool this year (tired of getting the pool water in our Intex crystal clear just in time for the end of the swim season and then draining it all out into the yard....). We have yet to have our new pool installed since it is too wet. Again, we got plenty of enjoyment from our Intex pool and it's a good starting place. I wish you luck and plenty of summer fun.

[Bree1978]

I ran an Intex pool for 2 summers with 'well' water and I bought the salt chlorinator from Intex too. Here's what I used to do (and NO, I am no expert by any means, this is just what worked for me): I filled the pool, added the salt, ran the filter for 24 hours. My water then turned 'mud' brown when I began chlorinating, so then I added 'Metal Magic' and continued to run the filter for 24 hours. Eventually -- and with a lot of filtration -- the iron and metal matter would settle onto the bottom of the pool. Eventually, I would disconnect the outlet hose and I would vacuum the bottom of the pool letting the water being sucked up to go right into the yard because if I left it connected to the filter canister, I would see the brown settled matter being spewed right back into the pool ( a vicious circle/cycle). The Intex filtration is weak, the filter does not filter out finely enough, but it can work adequately. We have since 'graduated' to an above ground pool this year (tired of getting the pool water in our Intex crystal clear just in time for the end of the swim season and then draining it all out into the yard....). We have yet to have our new pool installed since it is too wet. Again, we got plenty of enjoyment from our Intex pool and it's a good starting place. I wish you luck and plenty of summer fun.

He is not using chlorine.......

[Bree1978]

mods please edit (if you think it has any relevance) last post: add

maybe the method would work if he had a high ph? this makes the metals oxidize....

[aylad]

I'll let Pooldoc come back and continue with his advice, since he's the one with the manganese experience...but if the cup of chlorine didn't really mess with your water, then at least you know you can keep very low levels of chlorine in the pool now to keep algae from making the situation worse. Until you add stabilizer to the water (and you're not at the point to do that yet, I don't think), the sun will rapidly consume the chlorine you've added, so you may need to add bleach 2-3 times a day just to keep "some" chlorine in the water. The sand filter will be much easier to deal with than the cartridge, I think, so I think that ws probably an ok move..

Janet

[aylad]

He is not using chlorine.......

Bleach is chlorine, and I don't think raising the pH at this point is helpful. It's already obviously high enough to precipitate the metals...

Janet