Clear water but algae growing

[mortimay]

My pool has been up and running with clear water and all levels right where they should be. For the last week or so we have been having major storms. The solar cover was on and the water was up around 85*. I didn't pay much attention to the pool but when I uncovered it on Saturday I had a layer of ick on the bottom of the pool. Checked the numbers and everything looked ok except for the chlorine was at about .5. I vacuumed and added chlorine. On Sunday it rained all day and I didn't do anything to the pool. Yesterday I realized I should've vacuumed to waste (I know...DUH!) so I did that, added water (from well) and checked my numbers. Chlorine was at 3. This morning I was vacuuming the leaves and realized that there was still a very light layer on the bottom of the pool (you could only see it when the sun went behind a cloud). We're getting more rain but I did have my numbers checked at the local pool place:

TC 3 (I did this one because the girl (she was new) didn't??)
pH 7.7
Alk 116
CYA 31
Copper .17
Iron .36
Phosphate 500

Should I just vacuum to waste again and keep my chlorine up or do I need to do something else?

It's hard to keep up when you have days of thunderstorms. I'm wondering if I should pull the solar cover off on those days so that I can keep up with the chemicals and then put it back on when the sun comes back out??

[aylad]

Keeping your chlorine at shock levels is almost impossible to do when you have multiple days of thunderstorms. I would just maintain 4-6 ppm chlorine in the pool until you're going to get a few days of sunshine, then take advantage of that time to remove the cover, shock the pool up to 15 ppm and hold it there by testing/adding more bleach as many times a day as possible until the algae is dead. When you can test after sundown and again before the sun is on the pool and not lose any chlorine, then you can let your levels drift back down to the 3-6 range--but you're going to have to keep it above 3 ppm at all times to keep the algae away.

Janet

Edit: Just reread your post again and saw the well water/metals issue. If you have orange/brown staining in your toilet tank, then you may need to add a metal sequestrant to your water before shocking, to keep the iron in suspension and keep it from staining your pool. Might want to read some of the threads in the metals forum before shocking, so you'll know what to look for.