brand new pool owner with brown water and cranky kids !! :(

I have purchased and set up a starter pool to see if we are interested in investing in a large, permanet pool for our family. I filled it from our well in an attempt to save money (it is free). Before treating it in any way it had a greenish, cloudy appearance. After shocking it it turned very brown. We have been cleaning the filter every few hours for several days. It is not as brown as before, but is still brownish and murky. No odor. Chlorine, pH, Alk and Br levels are acceptable... its just the color. Is there any help for this???

Hi jennifert,

Well water is notorious for having large amounts of metals, mostly copper and iron. When you introduce iron-laden water to high chlorine levels, it precipitates the iron out and that's where you get the brown water. You can get this straightened out, and it's not that hard, but is going to require some diligence. You are going to need a test kit that uses drops instead of strips. If you will keep your pH at 7.0-7.3, your chlorine at 2-4ppm, and add a metal sequestrant, it should start clearing up the water with some filtering (lots of filtering!). The metal sequestrant won't actually remove the metals; instead, it will just dissolve them back into the water so that you're not seeing the brownish appearance. However, those sequestrants are broken down by chlorine, so you either will need to add another dose when you start seeing discolored water, or actually remove the metals by introducing them to a high chlorine source right before they hit the filter, causing them to drop out onto the filter.

Take a look at this thread (might have to log out and read it until your registration is upgraded). It was posted by someone who was in almost the same position as you. It is a long thread, but it details her journey from brown/black water to clear and blue. http://www.poolforum.com/pf2/showthr...me-says-it-all!

While you're at it, could you please fill out this chart with your pool info--it will only take a minute but will help us give you better information based on your pool...

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Welcome to the forum!!

Thanks for the info to get me started... Now, where can I get a metal sequestering agent??

Pool store--I don't know if there are any that are better than others, I'm sure one of the others will chime in, but Metal Magic, Metal Out, etc are what you're looking for. Contrary to the label, they do NOT remove the metals from the water, just be aware of that!