New pool new problems -- algae and iron!

[rebber4]

This will be kinda long. Hello and thanks for taking the time to help us in need. I live in central MS and have a 20x40 vinyl liner rectangle pool with a 350lb sand filter, single skimmer, diving board and a fake wood deck all the way around. The pump is a Hayward 1 hp with a basket at the pump and an in-line chlorinator. Also have a Polaris unit that works.

I replaced both pumps 2 months ago. The liner is about 8 years old and needs to replaced soon. I have 3 teenagers that rarely use the pool and 2 labs that i have a hard time keeping out. This is a new pool to me but I have maintained a 28x36 for 7 years before this one with good results. I do have a Taylor test kit with the bigger bottles that is new this year and a few test strips. The filter pump is on a timer but i have removed the start/stop tabs for now.

We moved in at the end of the summer last year and the water was fine and remained stable and clear with minimal input from me until January this year. I don't have a cover and maintained the water all winter. I noticed the liner and all jets, stairs, and skimmer turning brown. Everything below the water level turned and i have been fighting that and algae ever since.

We had a lot of family problems this spring so i let the pool go because of no time to deal with it. I really started trying to clean it up about 5 weeks ago. Since that time I have battled with High ph and low alkalinity, persistent green algae on the bottom and have gone through 25 lbs of tabs, over 50 lbs of calcium hypo(68% and 78%) and 15 gallons of bleach, 25 lbs of baking soda, 4 gallons of muratic acid . I put in the natural stain remover 2 times with little success. and vacuumed to waste 2 or 3 times which was about half my water volume.

I went to my local pool store for help and what they suggested and sold me did work( for about 5 days). They suggested a floc and so i did. had to vacuum to waste 4 more times because of all the junk that fell and therefore another 20k gallons of water gone. I used the stored branded stain remover and metal control and that made my pool look as good as it ever has. Ph and alk were in line. It was blue and clear and all was great for 5 days. I took a picture this past Sunday 6/29 because it looked so good. Tuesday morning 7/1 complete reversal.

Now it looks exactly like it did before i spent over $300 at the pool store. I had to vacuum to waste again last night because of the layer of green on the liner and everything below the water level is stained again. Its an even stain like i dyed the liner a brown green color. Right now my fc and tc read at 4. ph is 7.6 and alk is 110. cya is 50 calcium is 200. I am out of shock and bleach. I have some acid, baking soda, 3" tablets, clarifier. I have some copper based algaecide but i am scared to use it because of the staining problem. I'm at my breaking point with this pool. Please help.

[Watermom]

Sorry you haven't yet gotten a reply. Brown stains sound like iron. Do you fill from a well or from city water? Take a look at the inside of your toilet tank. Is it the same color of stains there?

Since your readings that you posted are now several days old, post some new ones.

[rebber4]

I fill from city water and do not have any stains in toilets. My tap water has a high ph and cya if that helps. Since I had no reply I had to go back to pool store. I used more stain remover and the some special floc that starts with an R. It has helped. my liner is not brown but water is very cloudy. A whole lot of junk fell to the bottom and I vacuumed it to waste.

[rebber4]

As of 7-8-14 at 730 am
Chlorine is 0
Ph is 7.1 or 7.2
Alk is 120-130 hard to say exactly
Calcium is 200
Cya is 80

[Watermom]

Tap water has no CYA in it.

Which Taylor kit do you have, the K2005 or the K2006?

You need to get some chlorine in there ASAP! Since your chlorine has dropped down to 0 and your pool is cloudy, you need to shock your pool. Shock levels and needed maintenance chlorine levels are dependent on your CYA reading. With a CYA of 80, you need to shock the pool up to 20ppm. Your CYA is already kinda high at 80 so you don't want to use anymore stabilized forms of chlorine such as dichlor powder or triclor pucks. Take your chlorine up to around 20ppm and keep your pump running 24/7 while you are working to clear the pool.

Keep your chlorine high until you meet three criteria:
1. You lose no more than 1ppm of chlorine from sundown one evening to within one hour of sunrise the next morning. AND
2. You have no greater than 0.5ppm of CC AND
3. Your water is clear.

Add a little Borax and bump your pH up some. It's getting kind of low. You never want it to drop below 7.0.

By the way, read the chart at this link. It explains the relationship between CYA and chlorine. http://pool9.net/cl-cya/

(Until you registration is completed, you won't be able to see the rest of the forum while you are logged in. So, copy that link and then paste it into a browser window after you log out.)

[rebber4]

I have a k2005 kit. Where do I get borax? And what ratio or quantity do I use? I have 78% sodium hypo and 6 containers of 8% bleach 121oz. I have always used pool store for everything except baking soda.

[Watermom]

Your K2005 kit cannot measure high enough chlorine levels. It will only measure to 5ppm and with a CYA of 80, you'll have to run chlorine levels higher than that to keep algae out of your pool. (Did you get a chance to look at the chart I linked above?)

However, if you will pick up the add on kit called the Taylor K1515, it will give you the one test that your K2005 is missing that will allow you to test chlorine levels higher than 5ppm. You can get it through this link:> http://pool9.net/tk/

I don't think you have 78% sodium hypochlorite. Check the label again. Sodium hypo is usually either 10 or 12.5%. Bleach is the same stuff but just at a lower concentration.

You can buy 20 Mule Team Borax in the laundry aisle at Walmart. Add a half a box at a time slowly to the skimmer and break up any clumps. Do this while the pump is running. After 2 or 3 hours, you can retest and redose as needed. One caution. If you test your pH when the chlorine is over 10ppm with a Taylor kit, you'll get falsely high pH readings. So, if it is over 10ppm when you test, dilute your sample first so that the chlorine is diluted. To do so, you can mix 1/4 cup of pool water with 1/4 cup of distilled water and then test the pH with that mixture as normal.

What is the volume of your pool, by the way?

(Until you registration is completed, you won't be able to see the rest of the forum while you are logged in. So, copy that link and then paste it into a browser window after you log out.)

[rebber4]

You are right. I meant to say calcium hypo. I will order the add-on tester tonight. Thanks so much for your responses and help. My pool is 20x40 so around 35k gallons. Im sure ill be asking more questions. Im tired of being so dependent on the store.

[Watermom]

We'll be here! ;)

[rebber4]

Ok so I got home and added 3 lbs of 78% calc hypo and before my eyes the water is turning green. How can that happen? I retested every thing first. Chlorine 0 , ph 7.2 , alk 120, calc 210, cya tested below 30.

[Watermom]

Water turning green when chlorine is added usually means there are metals in the water. Did you ever add that copper algaecide that you said you had earlier in the thread? (If not, don't!)

[rebber4]

Well dang. Thats what I've spent soooo much money trying to get rid of. I didnt add the copper stuff. I did add some poly stuff( from pool store) no copper Sunday night and some mustard algae stuff Saturday. The water turned back bluish a few minutes after It had turned.

[Watermom]

What was the mustard algae stuff?

[rebber4]

Im not sure because I threw the bottle away. It was store branded mustard algae treatment. I put in 3 lbs of calcium hypo last nght. waited 1 hr and put in 242oz of 8% bleach and added 11 pucks to chlorinator and skimmer. This morning my pool it very green. Test results 7 am today FC=1, tc=1.5, cc=.5, ph 7.2, alk=120, calc 220, cya <30. also i can tell that the liner is turning brown again, presumably the same staining that i have been fighting for 5 weeks, and it wont brush off. If it will help I can walk thru everystep, procedure, and chemical i have used along with what i was told st the pool store and post the test results from pool store throughout this grueling process.

[rebber4]

Every night this week i have put in 5 pounds of calc hypo 78% and 2 gallons of bleach 8% and have 0 chlorine in the morning. This morning at 8 am i put in 2 more gallons of bleach waited 30 minutes and tested and had fc of 1.5. at 10:30 am chlorine is 0 again. I have put in box after box of borax this week and ph will not rise above 7.2 and is usually back down to 7.0 every morning. The water is mostly clear just a little cloudy. Do i keep doing this until something changes or do i need to do something different?
.

[Watermom]

Are you still using the K2005 kit to test the chlorine? The chlorine test in that kit is a DPD test and it bleaches out at high levels. So, it can appear that you have no chlorine when in fact you have extremely high chlorine! That is why I suggested that you get the K1515 add on kit so you can use a FAS-DPD test instead which will measure high chlorine levels. Did you get it yet? If not, then you are better off for now using an OTO kit instead of your K2005, along with this chart:> http://pool9.net/oto-chart/

Also, pH tests are invalid when the chlorine is higher than 10ppm with a Taylor kit (and higher than 5 with other kits).

[BigDave]

...I threw the bottle away. It was store branded mustard algae treatment...It's also possible that the mustard algae treatment is causing the chlorine demand. Watermom's right, an OTO test will give definitive result for high or no chlorine.

[PoolDoc]

Man, you've got a mess!

OK. You've got iron in the water. No idea how it got there, but it's there. Stain remover would have done NOTHING to algae; the fact that it make a positive -- if temporary -- difference pretty much is proof positive. But if it weren't, the clear to green transition on shocking is also a strong indicator of iron.

But, it sounds like you've got algae, too.

And, thanks to the pool store, you've got a giant witch's brew of unknown chemicals with unknown effects floating around in there.

=> Don't use any more stain remover for now. Stain remover TEMPORARILY re-dissolves the metal, but it doesn't permanently do anything, and it certainly doesn't remove the metals from your pool; it just MOVES them from the surfaces back into the water.

=> But stain removers ALSO consume chlorine, to the point that, if stain remover is present, chlorine is not. And, once you restore chlorine levels, all the stain remover is destroyed!

=> This creates a nasty see-saw for someone in your situation: killing algae tends to make the iron in the water come out as stains. But 'removing' the stains destroys the chlorine . . . and you lose any progress you've made against the algae!

I don't know what options you have, at this point. But here's what I'd recommend:

1. Maintain your pH to just barely below 7.0, to minimize staining.

2. If you have remaining algae, pull out your cover, and get your pool partially covered, to slow down algae growth.

3. Go to the pool store and find out EXACTLY what was in that mustard treatment. They are either ammonia based or bromine based. If they don't know, get them to open a bottle, and smell it. If it smells of ammonia, the question is answered. If not, you don't know since the ammonia products will NOT always have an odor. If necessary, buy another bottle, so we can test it and find out what's in it.

4. See if you can get some polyquat: http://pool9.net/polyquat/ Using it will help you control algae without making the stains worse. Do NOT use copper, which will just add MORE stains.

5. See if you can get any idea why you have iron in the pool. You need to find out if this was a one time problem, or recurrent one. Possible sources (in order of likelihood) are:
+ well water (especially if you have a water softener)
+ old iron city pipes (can intermittently release iron)
+ tanker truck pool fill.
+ low grade salt used with a salt water chlorine system.
+ low grade stabilizer (cyanuric acid)
+ ??

Good luck -- membership upgraded.