Had to move and refill the pool...80ppm+ iron, success at getting water clear

I know you guys are working on coming up with a solution for those of us with super bad well water so I thought I'd post what I did this time around. I have horrible well water from an extremely shallow well (we can't wait to be able to afford to dig a deeper one), in December we had a water guy come out and test our water and he had it at 80ppm iron. He said that he rarely encounters water as bad as ours. We've had a horribly wet spring and everything is flooded so I assume our iron is up even higher. We have an 18'x48" Easy Set Intex pool, 5500 gallons, and a G.A.M.E. 3/4hp Sand Filter. We had set the pool up a couple weeks back and our water was just nasty brownish orange, long story short within 48 hours of filling it and lots of scrubbing we were able to get it clear and have been enjoying it.

Yesterday we decided to move the pool so we drained it, moved it last night and started filling up. Before putting the hose in the pool we took an old gym sock stuffed it full with 6 or 7 wash cloths then duct taped it onto the hose and put it in the pool. The pool filled up about 3/4 was last night and the water was crystal clear. I took the wash cloths out and washed them and repeated the hose process this morning. By the time the pool was full our water was a very weak tea flavor or what a half full iced coffee leftover in a glass after the ice has melted looks like. You couldn't see the bottom of the pool but you could see about 3/4 way down. I added polyquat last night, turned our filter on last night as the water was high enough, early this afternoon I back washed the filter, I shocked the pool, and put our floater for chlorine in the pool. About 5pm tonight our pool was finally full. I back washed the sand filter again and now roughly 3 hours later our pool is almost all the way clear. Our sand filter circulates 1/2 the pool water every hour, I bought a sand filter solely because I read on numerous websites that the sand does a great job at removing iron and other metals. My pH is good, my chlorine level is slowly climbing, and I'm thinking by tomorrow morning we will have our crystal clear water back.

I've ordered my testing kit and am looking forward to doing the BBB method as soon as possible. I thought I would write here to give you guys some more ideas on what to suggest. If I can get clear water with the awful water I have, those who have iron in their water can do the same :) A little investment goes a long away. We are looking forward to getting a much better, more permanent above the ground pool in the nearish future, until then we will learn the ropes with our cheapy hehe. Good luck everyone!

Yeah, a big part of the problem on the Intex pools is the lack of an adequate filter. It sounds like yours made the problem much easier to resolve.

Very, very smart! Well done! (Pun intended :) )

Try adding a little bit of DE powder to your sand filter, through the skimmer or the drain if it doesn't have a skimmer. Do it just after you back-wash. Since it's a smaller pump and filter, start with 1/4 cup, wait 1/2 hour and see if the pressure goes up. Repeat until it goes up 1lb of PSI. This will add to the filter's ability to get even finer stuff. 10# of DE usually can be had for about $8-$10, and will last a sand filter owner several years, at a minimum. Every time you back wash, add the amount you determined raised PSI by 1#. And, if you have a skimmer, get some skimmer socks, which are now (as of last Thursday) about $5 for 4 of them. You can rinse and reuse them until the elastic goes.

All this may help.

Carl

Thanks Carl for the tip on DE powder and skimmer sock, I'll have to order some. The only stores I have within a 30 minute drive are Kmart, Lewis Drug, and Walmart and none of them sell the correct pool stuff so Amazon and other websites it is!

PoolDoc - yeah we knew the crappy filter that comes with the pool wasn't going to be enough circulation so we upgraded right away. We have an 18 month old who spends a lot of time in the pool so we didn't want her urine just sitting stagnant in the pool. Bro-inlaw has a smaller version of our pool and is using the filter that came with it and boy does he have problems up the wazoo! Our sand filter was more than the pool itself but we should be able to use the same filter for the next pool we get, as we won't be getting one much bigger than the current one.

I am fully stocked up on supplies for the BBB method, just waiting for my test kit to get here :) Have a great holiday weekend everyone!