Dose of muriatic acid caused brown debris on pool floor?

hi Watermom, its been a while but the reason i've not poste anything is i've been wating for my CYA to get to 40-50ppm. i had to add doses two different times gradually increasing it. my latest readings are: FC-4-6ppm, CYA-45ppm(it's in between 40 and 50ppm), TA-100ppm and PH-8.0(Real Red and this is as high as my Taylor kit will Read). i thought the PH should be brought down so i added about 32-40 oz. of muratic acid. the water looked fine yesterday but today when i got home there was some debris on the pool floor. it was sort of brown like dirt but was lighter or fluffier. i vacuumed it today and backwashed my sand filter which btw it really needed since the return pressure had decreased in force considerably over the past few weeks and i notice my guage was reading less pressure about 10psi all the time that's when i concluded the gauge is faulty. i need a new gauge not sure where to get one yet. any way i vacuumed the debris and 45 minutes later i was finished and i checked the return pressure with my hand and it was little to non existent. i back flushed twice until water coming out was clear. i then switched back to filter and turned my pump on and what do you know my pressure was back to normal somewhat since im using a calibrated hand right now until i can get another gauge. is it normal to see debris on the pool floor after adding muriatic acid? oh btw we had 7-8 people in the pool saturday and most of them were kids from boy scouts and their siblings. not sure if the people count had anything to do with it but the kids got in and out several times tracking grass into the pool. the good new is that i've been checking FC levels before and after the pool party and the next day. never got below 4ppm and before the kids got in the pool i added some extra cl to the pool to compensate for usage guessing about 6-8 ppm. i have one more question for you before i go to bed. when should any member start a new thread?

Hi ericorlisa. Glad things have been going well for you.

I have not heard of muriatic acid causing brown stuff to accumulate on the pool floor. I would suggest however, smaller doses of acid at a time when you need to lower pH. What is the pH now?

You definitely need to buy a new gauge, Pool stores carry them of course and maybe Home Depot of Lowe's? Not sure about that.

Regarding when to start a new thread, there is no hard and fast rule, but usually just whenever the problem or question is something different. Actually, I think I will move this post into a new thread and retitle it as "Dose of Muriatic Acid Caused Brown Debris on pool floor?" It will be in the "Pool Water Problems" section of the forum. Look for it there. So, we'll let the discussion be continued there for anybody that would like to reply.

the PH is at 7.4. yesterday evening and i will check again this evening. i live in the country so we have cotton crops beside us and across the street. my wife told me they sprayed the crops around 11am yesterday and again today at eleven. could this have conrtributed to the debris in the pool? i dont know. thanks for your help.

The brown debris you describe sounds exactly like what has shown up in our pool the last couple of weeks. Being a newbie, I obviously have no idea what it is, but fyi I have not added muriatic acid to my pool. Correct me if I am wrong, but it looks like sand from above the water, but it almost dissolves or disintegrates when you touch it?

The vaccum that came with my Intex pool is too low quality to actually catch the fine particles so I have had no way of getting it out of the pool, as of yet. I just "stir it up" and then it simply settles back to the bottom a couple hours after vacuuming. It sounds as if you may vacuum directly to the filter so this isn't a problem for you.

I have another thread on here about this too so hopefully between the two threads somebody will be able to tell us what it is and how to keep it from coming back.

Sounds like just everyday dirt, pollen, dust, etc that settles in all pools. If it feels slimy, or is growing on the walls. then you need to look at possible algae growth, but if it's just settling on the bottom, usually in the same places, then it's more likely just airborne "stuff" that lands in the pool. I have a couple of handfuls of the same brownish stuff that settles in the same places in my pool floor, too--nothing you can really do except keep it stirred up so hopefully the filter will get it, or vacuum it to waste.