Clear water, everything else wrong?

I'm a super-newbie at pool maintenance, having inherited a pool at a house I recently purchased. The water is crystal-clear, but the test done at Leslie's states that:

My alkalinity is zero
My PH is 6.0
My copper is "3+"

Earlier this year, maybe 4 weeks ago, alkalinity was 100, PH was 7.0, and copper was .5 -- what on earth happened? What can I do to fix this? I do have a heater, so is that it? Again, the water is clear, no staining, etc. I'd really like to not drain the pool, unset the liner, and have to have someone out to fix it.

Please help me...

You are probably dissolving the metals in your heater with that low pH. You need to get your pH above ASAP like yesterday!! I don't know if your heater is shot or not. I'll let someone else address that part with you. What is the volume of this pool? What all have you added to this pool meaning actual ingredients and not just product names.

19000 gallons. I use 3" chlorinating tabs, super shock and swim weekly, and after the copper thing reared it's head, 5lb of Metal Free or whatever it's called. Same results 3 days later. Nothing else...

I've asked Ben to look in on this thread. He will better be able to assist you with this problem.

OK.

You have three issues:

#1 - Your pH is WAY too low, and is corroding your heater. There's no way to tell right now how bad the damage is.
#2 - Your copper levels are WAY too high, and are likely to stain your pool.
#3 - Your chlorine is probably too low, but raising it will increase the chance of stains.

This makes it difficult. If you don't fix the pH quickly, you may loose the heater, and indeed, it may already be too late. But, in fixing it quickly, you run the risk of staining your pool, possibly severely and permanently. And, yet again, as the copper is removed, if you don't add chlorine quickly enough (but not too quickly), you run the risk of the pool becoming algae infested!

There is not simply and easy fix, and no matter what you do, things may not all turn out well. I'll try to help you plot a course as likely to succeed as possible.

So, do this:

#1 - Buy 6 boxes of borax and a cheap OTO / phenol red testkit (Walmart, or where ever.)
#2 - Turn your pump on, and leave it on 24/7.
#3 - Remove all chlorine from your pool -- tabs, feeder cartridges, every thing.
#4 - Stop swimming in the pool, till things are under better control. Swimming adds algae food.
#5 - Add 1/2 box of borax, slowly through your skimmer, every 4 hours. Test your pH before each addition. If the phenol red shows any sign of changing from yellow (which it presumably is, given your reported pH) and moving toward orange, stop your borax additions for 12 hours.
#6 - Find and purchase some polyquat algaecide (see www.poolsolutions.com/gd/polyquat.html ). But do not get the HTH brand; they are playing label games and it will be hard to get the right stuff. You'll probably need to go to a pool store. Once you've compared chemical names with the PoolSolutions page, begin dosing the pool per label instructions.
#7 - If you can find it, purchase a bottle of Jacks Magic Pink Stuff or Proteam Metal Magic. These are made of HEDP, a stronger metal sequestrant than the EDTA in Metal Free. But, do not use it yet.
#8 - Do not clean your filter excessively, but do clean it when it needs it. Hopefully, the backwash will be bluish green, indicating some of the copper is coming out on the filter.
#9 - Once you've added the polyquat, resume raising the pH until you reach a level of 7.4 - 7.6. At that point, your heater will no longer be 'under atttack'.
#10 - When you go to the pool store, get a complete water test -- chlorine, pH, alkalinity, calcium hardness and stabilizer -- and report those results here as soon as possible.

That's enough for the next few days. The copper will prevent algae till it's removed; the polyquat will help filter any debris, and prevent algae as the copper dissipates. I'm not sure how effective the EDTA will be at holding on to the copper. So, I can't predict how long this will take.

If you encounter any unexpected result, or especially water discoloration when adding borax, please report that here along with the test results. Don't worry about a copper test; it's not necessarily going to be accurate after adding all the EDTA.

Good luck!

Ok Ben... I didn't wait for your reply before going to work on the pool last night. So I have not followed your instructions exactly.

Last night I added ~6lb of washing soda for pH and got it to about 7.4 (according to the sticks I have, which is the only thing I have right now). It was reading "off the chart" low before that.

I then added 4lb of baking soda for alk and it now reads about 40 on the cheap sticks, where before it was also not registering.

Free chlorine is showing around 6, which is weird (maybe you will tell me it isn't weird), because it was around 3 before adding the sodas.

So anyway, what I have as of this morning, at least what I can tell from the not-very-specific testing strips, is:

FC: 6
pH: 7.5
TA: 40

The water clouded up pretty badly from the baking soda, but that was almost gone when I opened the pool this morning (automatic cover). This is the first time I've ever seen my pH higher than 7.0, even after dumping loads of pH+ previously before I thought to seek out help on the internet. Since the previous owners left behind two giant containers of pH+, I'm assuming this was a big issue for them as well.

So my next step is the polyquat? Or should I get tested at a pool place to see what the copper looks like and to get a more accurate reading on the other numbers before I take next steps? I don't yet have a good testing kit.

Actually, if the washing soda (soda ash, pH +) and baking soda only clouded up your pool, without causing major staining . . . . you've done well. It was a big risk, but fortunate is often better than smart! There's a fair chance you've begun removing the copper as copper carbonate.

Check for stains, and if you don't have them, you may want to continue with the soda ash. If you add it in small doses to the skimmer, there's a good chance you'll load up the copper carbonate on the filter, rather than in your pool.

But, do go ahead with the polyquat. It will help remove the stuff in the water AND prevent algae.

The loose cannon here is the EDTA. It will break down, from UV and chlorine, and release the copper it has sequestered. Where that copper will go is not certain. However, if you go ahead and raise your pH to near 8.0 with the soda ash, you may be able to, again, take the copper out on the filter as copper carbonate. That would be my best guess -- but I *am* guessing.

What you have to keep in mind is that the EDTA may be controlling your copper, but that it's a strictly temporary solution: it will break down, and release the copper. It may be better to try to control that, rather than letting it happen who-knows-when.

Higher pH with chlorine has been used to decompose EDTA. And though the pH levels used industrially are higher than you can use, we can hope that by raising the pH, and then *slowly* adding chlorine you may well be able to pull off the trick of breaking the EDTA and removing the copper without staining.

So, add the polyquat, and then slowly use the soda ash to push your pH to the 8.0 range.

Once there, begin slowly chlorinating (over several days) with small doses of calcium hypochlorite -- possibly available as shock -- added DIRECTLY to the skimmers. VERY IMPORTANT: Do NOT do this unless you have completely followed my earlier recommendation to remove ALL chlorine tabs, feeders and cartridges from your system. You must NOT allow cal hypo to come into direct contact with trichlor!

What you are trying to do is:
+ Add polyquat to prevent algae while you are monkeying around (and it helps with filtration).
+ Raise the pH using carbonates to help precipitate the copper onto the filter as copper carbonate.
+ Maintain the high pH with carbonates, and begin adding chlorine with a high pH chlorine source that also adds carbonates, with the goal of breaking the EDTA down, and taking the remaining copper out on the filter.

Awesome stuff, Ben. THANKS!!

Is it correct to assume that, once I get balanced and start using BBB, that I will forego using chlorine tabs and only use bleach? Or are tabs still recommended?

So much to learn...

You can do it either way.

It's sometimes easier to do both; that way you maintain your stabilizer levels without having them go too high. If you already have tabs, that would use them up. But, if not, you can go all bleach.

An update: pH is 7.5 and holding pretty steady... however, I can't get TA up to save my life, even after buying my local market out of baking soda. Still hovering under 40. Any suggestions? Any reasons spring to mind?

If your pH starts swinging, then you can worry about TA but as long as it is holding steady at 7.5, don't worry about it.

FC: 5
pH: 6.8
TA: 60
CYA: 100

So... my guess is add washing soda which will raise pH and also slightly raise TA?

You can do that, but if your TA rises faster than your pH, you may end up needing to switch to Borax after awhile. Kind of depends on how low your pH actually is. Since the pH tester only goes to 6.8, it could really be much lower than that.

#9 - Once you've added the polyquat, resume raising the pH until you reach a level of 7.4 - 7.6. At that point, your heater will no longer be 'under atttack'.

=> Use borax, till you've sustained a reasonable pH for a couple of days.

Opened filter for first time in a week. It is covered in aqua "stuff". Consistency of wet paint, completely covered. Linking pictures because I'm not sure you'd believe me otherwise.

(pics removed by moderator)
Ummm... help?

Laguna,
please email the pics to poolforum AT gmail DOT com and include a link to this thread so that we can add the pics.

Thanks

Sent, thank you!

Here are your pictures. They are almost certainly showing some form of copper, possibly copper carbonate -- but I've never seen filters look like that before. I did a little checking, and am wondering if it's copper borate -- the color is awfully blue for copper carbonate,but seems right for copper borate:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOIeJQwkH (couldn't find any stills)

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-y.../bluecart1.jpg

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-J.../bluecart2.jpg