New Pool ... green water

I put up an 18' x 52" Intex pool last week. Filled it from the hose (public well water), roughly 7,600 gallons. Until it was about half-full, it appeared clear and clean, but after it got about 3 feet of depth to it, it began to appear green. Once full, the water was light green, but clear (not cloudy). First thing, I did a strip-test. As suspected from past experience, our alkalinity was off the chart high. In the past, we had alkalinity problems, and after trying several different methods over the course of an entire summer, I finally learned that I needed to treat the water with a gallon of muriatic acid to bring it down and keep it down. So, 1 1/2 gallons of muriatic acid, ran the filter overnight and 24 hours later, the alkalinity was 100. I shocked it and 24 hours later, I tested again and got:
TC 5
FC 3
Alk 120
PH 7
hardness 100

Water was still green and clear. I changed the cartridge, added algaecide, and ran the filter for 6 hours, let it sit for 8, vacuumed, still no change. I changed the cartridge filters every 6 hours and ran the filter 12 hours a day for a few days and with no change, I took a sample to the nearest pool store to test yesterday.

FC .16 ppm
TC .16 ppm
pH 6.6
Hardness 102 ppm
alkalinity 100 ppm
cyanuric acid 8 ppm
copper .1 ppm
Iron is 0 ppm

She did a separate test and found that our phos level was 1,000.

She gave me a degreaser to clean the cartridges with, and had me start with a clean cartridge last night, added 32 oz. of Metal Klear, put a chlorine tab in a floater and another tab in the skimmer basket and ran the filter for 6 hours, then let it rest overnight. Changed the cartridge this morning, and vacuumed the pool floor. I disassembled the skimmer and thoroughly cleaned it (it had an odd film that had built up on it (not slimy, but almost powdery, cleaned off very easily with a paper towel). Changed the cartridge AGAIN, and let it run for 8 more hours. I'm a few hours into that wait and still see absolutely no difference in my water at all.

Does anyone have ANY CLUE what this could be caused by or have any ideas? Please help?

HI, and welcome to the forum!

When you have metals in the water, particularly iron or copper, introducing them to high chlorine, high TA and/or high pH will cause the metals to fall out of suspension, creating green, clear water.

Pooldoc, the owner of this site, is working on a sticky created for exactly your situation, which he plans to have posted by tonight. So I'll ask you to check back this evening for a guide for Intex owners with well water that should cover all the bases. In the meantime, I notice your pH is very, very low and needs to come up above 7.0 immediately because you risk damage to your liner with water that is acidic. I would get that pH up using Borax, from the laundry aisle at WalMart. While you're at WalMart I would advise you to pick up the hth 6-way drop kit and use that to test your water. I don't have any confidence in the numbers that you got from the pool store, and even less than that in strip testing. Also, take a few seconds and fill out this form about your pool's information, so we don't waste a lot of time posting back and forth asking basic questions...

Pool Chart Entry Form
Pool Chart Results

Here is the sticky that Jan referred to. It is not in its final form yet, but should still be useful to you.

http://www.poolforum.com/pf2/showthr...ith-well-water!

Until your registration is complete, you'll have to log out to be able to read it. Actually, that probably means that you won't be able to follow that link. So, instead, log out and then look for the sticky at the top of the "Pool Chemistry for Intex-type pools" section of the forum. The thread you'll want to read is the top one.

Hope this helps!

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Originally Posted by btokash

Does anyone have ANY CLUE what this could be caused by or have any ideas? Please help?

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Not at all sure what your "this" refers to -- water color, filter build-up, ?

Regardless, get your pH up. A reading of 6.6 probably means 6.6 or LESS, not 6.6! Low pH damages all types of pools. If you want to get a handle on what's in your pool water, a metal bucket test (see sticking in metal section) will allow you to rule metal contamination in, or out.

"Metal Klear" is mystery goo -- SeaKlear has carefully obscured data in the MSDS sheet, to the point that it's almost useless as a safety document -- so I have no idea what effect it has had on your pool water.