New Pool/new House Well Water

[li34436]

Hello, I just moved into a home and purchased a new AG 33' pool. I filled the pool with Well water. I put a gallon of liquid chlorine . The pool took 3 days to fill. The water is brown looks like a lake. Can anyone help me?

Test:

Free Chlorine (ppm) <10 high
ph 7.8
TA 180
CA 100

Any help would be GREATLY appreciated.

Thank you,

Lisa

[PoolDoc]

Ugh! Well water and AG pool filters are NOT a good mix, unfortunately.

It sounds like you may have iron in your water. If the water turned brownish orange almost immediately after adding chlorine . . . then you definitely have iron. If -- on the other hand -- it turned a murky dark brown, with no orange tints, you may have manganese, which is much worse.

Iron, once oxidized with chlorine, can be filtered out by most filters . . . EXCEPT overdriven & undersized AG pool sand filters. If you've got anything else, running the pump 24/7 and vacuuming a lot should clear things up. But, if you've got a sand filter, consider replacing it with an oversized DE filter. With metal contaminated well water, removing metals is going to be a recurring need, and it's easier with DE, especially if you get a big one.

If you've got manganese . . . well, let's confirm that, before I try to go into all that. Call your local well driller and ask him what's in the wells in your area.

Best wishes,

Ben

PS: Do lakes in your area really have 'orangey-brown' or 'dark chocolate brown' water in them?

[Poconos]

Lisa,
Ben questioned if it turned brown after adding bleach. If it was brown from the fill, before bleach, like mine was originally when I filled from a well, it could be just silt and/or mud you stirred up by drawing so much from the well. Which was it?
Al

[li34436]

Well, The pool was crystal clear except for iron on the bootom of the pool. My husband added TOO much chlorine by accident. He put in 5g of liquid chlorine. He thought they were 1g containers. I went to the pool store and got boric acid put in 1/2g. I just did that yesterday. It still same color.Lime Green. I have vac the pool x2. It also rained all day yesturday.

Do you think I should add more boric acid? You can see some clear spots but not many.

Thank you,

Lisa

[gwrace1]

I just completed a new 26K gallon pool install and filled it with iron rich well water. However I took the following steps to remove/prevent metal contamination.

1. I put a whole house 2 micron filter ahead of the water softener.
2. Used the water softener to fill the pool. It took many pounds of salt and regeneration cycles to complete. I used softener salt that contained an Iron Out additive (Citric Acid)
3. During the 5 days that the pool was filling I added metal out and Polyquat 60%
4. I used a Pentair 26" sand filter loaded with Zeolite media and let the pump circulate several days before switching on the SWG, I did not shock the pool.
5. I switched on the SWG and let it bring the FC levels up to 3.5PPM with 40PPM stabilizer
6. Now that I have the salt levels where I want them all fill water comes straight from the well, but I run it though the same 2 micron whole house filter cartridge before it gets to the pool.
The water has been crystal clear since startup with no staining.

As a side note...we have so much iron in the water that I have to change out the filter cartridge monthly. When it is removed it is orange/red in color and about 3 times it's original weight. Well water can be used if you take precautions before filling.