Brown Sludge Well Water - White Socks and Vitamin C is the answer!

Like so many others on this forum, I bought an Intex 16'x48" Above Ground Pool, filled it with well water, applied the standard Shock chemicals and watched my lovely water turn into dark brown Gumbo right before my eyes! I searched the internet and found the PoolForum.

I found the PoolForum Friday night with a pool full of brown sludge. I spent all day Saturday alternately reading 4 years worth of posts and going outside to stare at the brown water in my pool checking to see that nothing had changed and the filter and chemicals were not helping at all (actually, the Forum told me the chemicals had started this ugly brown ball rolling down hill). I started implementing selected Forum advice early Sunday morning. When I went to bed Sunday night, my pool was full of lovely, clear water! I spent all day Monday, happily splashing around in my wonderful new pool full of lovely clear water!

Here's what I did:

1) Applied Shock, Chlorine Tabs and a chemical to make metals clump and "show" themselves. Results: Sludge.

2) FIRST, looking down into a pool full of this water can make it look much worse than it actually is. Stirred up the water with the Skimmer pole and scooped out a large clear bowl of the water to see how bad the water actually is without the volume of the entire pool distorting/magnifying the volume of sludge. This let me know how bad it was and allowed me to gauge my progress. I used a stack of disposable ZipLoc clear plastic bowls.


3) Stole a pair of very tight weave, thick white socks from my husband.

a) Turned off the filter.
b) Inserted the Intex filter inside one of the socks.
c) Pull the top of the sock over the bottom edge of the filter, being sure to leave the opening at the bottom of the filter exposed for water flow.
d) Tucked the toe of the sock down into the top hole of the filter
e) Inserted the filter into the Filter canister on the side of the pool.
f) Covered the fountain attachment to the Filter Outflow with the second sock with a heavy duty rubberband.
g) Turn Filter back on.

4) Every one to two hours:

a) With the Filter running, removed the filter from the Filter canister. Then turned the Filter off. This keeps the water flowing out of the pool, into the Filter canister and keeps the sludge you disturb from the sock and filter from flowing back into the pool.
c) Removed the sock from the filter and using a strong spray nozzle, rinsed the pounds of sludge from the filter and the sock
d) Put the filter back inside the sock back into the Filter canister.
e) With the Filter still turned off, slipped a large ZipLoc bag in the water over the sock on the fountain attachment inside the pool.
f) Gently slipped the rubberband off the fountain being careful not to bump the sock any more than necessary so the sludge didn't release into the into the water.
g) Scooped the sock out of the pool with the ZipLoc bag, trapping the sludge in the bag and keeping it from getting out into the pool.
h) Rinsed sock and reattached.
i) Turn the Filter back on.

5) Periodically scooped out a new bowl of water and compared it to the last bowl. Stirring each bowl to redistribute any settled contents for a good comparison. This let me gauge my progress.


6) Repeated the sock procedures in Step 4 from early am Sunday morning until 8:30 Sunday night at which point the bowl of water was a weak tea/yellow color. Pool still looked very dark but again, that is distorted by the pool and the volume. Very surprised by how much clearer the water in the bowl looked compared to the water in the pool. Sprinkled about 1/2 teaspoon of powdered Ascorbic Acid (Vitamin C) from my baking pantry into the bowl and swirled the water. The water turned crystal clear right before my eyes like a magic trick!!!!!


8) Immediately dumped the entire contents directly into the pool and stirred with skimmer pole to distribute. Again, the water began to clear right before my eyes like a magic trick. The bottle of Vitamin C powder was 8oz.


9) Raced to WalMart to purchase a giant bottle of Vitamin C tablets. Had to check the water with a flashlight when I returned home because it was now quite dark (night, not the water!).


10) Cleaned and reattached both socks.


11) Dropped 24 Vitamin C tablets into the top of the Filter Canister and went to bed exhausted.


12) 8:30 Monday morning – jumped out of bed at 8:30 to run outside and make sure I wasn’t dreaming! Nope!!! Water in pool still beautifully clear and almost warm enough to actually get into. Oh yeah, second problem with well water – cold as ice!


13) 2 – 8pm Monday – happily floating in my pool, enjoying the view, thanking God for the PoolForum!

WOW! No wonder you were tired. Glad to hear that you got it cleared up. Thanks for sharing your experience. This is why the Pool Forum works. Lots of sharing.

Welcome to the Pool Forum, by the way!

Here it is! After sock filtering and Vitamin C.
http://faithheartblog.files.wordpres.../05/pool11.jpg
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-v...800/pool11.jpg

In my original post, I forgot to explain what I learned from the forum about Iron, Chlorine and Vitamin C.

When we added the Chlorine to our Well Water, it caused the iron in our water to "rust" and the clumping chemicals turned it into a thick "rusty" brown sludge. The socks in combination with the Intex filter, filtered out the clumps. The remaining rusty tinge in the water after removal of clumps was eliminated by the addition of the Vitamin C to the water.

Here is an excerpt from the post where I first learned about using Vitamin C, I'll let him explain it to you:

"My wheels started turning back to General Chemistry. The shock obviously oxidized the iron, resulting in rust that turns the water brown. Oxidation reactions can be reversed by reducing the product formed using an acid. I went back to Wal-Mart to the vitamin aisle and bought Vitamin C (ascorbic acid) I sprinkled them around the pool and put about 10-15 tabs in the skimmer basket. In a matter of minutes the pool was clear!! I'm sure the next shock will re-oxidize the iron in the water, but I have plenty of vitamin C handy for a quick fix. I was so proud of myself for remembering something from Chemistry class. Though I'm sure that the sock method is the most effective by removing the rust and iron, it just takes so long. Also, the iron will be replaced in the pool when topping it off throughout the summer and more time will be wasted. The Vitamin C was relatively cheap compared to most of the chemical that the pool places will try to sell you. I think I paid $4.00 for a small bottle and used about 3/4 of the bottle."

I am so grateful to this poster.
http://faithheartblog.files.wordpres.../05/pool22.jpg
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-A...800/pool22.jpg
http://faithheartblog.files.wordpres.../vitaminc1.jpg
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-3.../vitaminc1.jpg

can you use the vitamin c tabs in a pool using the saltwater system?

Hi eagles. I don't know anything about saltwater systems. What happened to me as explained in a post I read,

"The shock obviously oxidized the iron, resulting in rust that turns the water brown. Oxidation reactions can be reversed by reducing the product formed using an acid . . . Vitamin C (ascorbic acid)."

If a saltwater system utilizes Chlorine or Shock, or a product that oxidizes the iron in your water, it would seem to me that the Vitamin C would reverse the oxidation for you as it did for me. I don't know if the Vitamin C would cause a problem with the salt process.

My recommendation would be to scoop out a clear container of your pool water and experiment with it rather than adding the Vitamin C to your entire pool. I wish you success. Our water continues to be beautifully clear and we have not added any additional Vitamin C. I'm sure as we add additional water, small doses of Vitamin C will keep the rust color away.

thanks for the reply. i did add a bunch of "C" tablets yesterday, and i seemed to think it helped. i went ahead and added a bunch more this morning. i know it is working. that green tint doesn't seem to be there anymore. it looks crystal clear now, or at least close enough for me. LOL

thanks again.

Wonderful! I'm so glad to hear it. We are loving our pool. Enjoy your summer.

same to you also! i just got out of the pool. so far i am enjoying it. the next thing i am getting is the sock. well 2 socks.

We will be ordering these Slime Bags to replace my husband's white socks - funny, he didn't want them back.

The Slime Bag Pool Fill Water Filter Bag
The X-Tra Polishing Pool Vacuuming Filter Bag

You mentioned that you used a chemical to make the metal clump...what chemical did you use? I have well water and now it's so brown it's almost black. I also bought a salt water filter from Intex this year hoping it would help. It didn't. I use the saltwater filter to "shock" it...using their "boost" button. That is what turned my water so brown. I'm seeing little brown particles clinging to the walls of my pool....not sure if that's the iron or not. Maybe the chemical you used would make them clump together.

Hi Tina. Yes, I know what you mean by "so brown it's almost black", but looking at the pool full of water can be deceiving; it looked so much worse than it was. Yes, it was bad, but not as bad as it looked. A stack of those disposable ZipLoc bowls lets you periodically scoop and compare for progress checks. Just keep them and line them up side by side to see your progress. I stirred the water well with the skimmer pole before I filled my test bowls.

We added AquaChem's Super Water Clarifier. The label reads, "Combines small particles for easy filter removal." We added it twice, as directed, "1 fl oz per 5000 gallons". The Chlorine/Shock reacts with the iron, causing it to "rust" and turn the water brown. The Clarifier clumped the iron so the filter could catch it easier. I inserted the filter into the sock to catch more and rinsed the filters often. It was amazing how much was caught by the sock/filter. In addition, sock attached to the filter outflow fountain to catch what the filter missed.
http://faithheartblog.files.wordpres...rclarifier.jpg
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-f...rclarifier.jpg

It just looks better every day! This time las Sunday, I too was looking at a pool full of brown sludge. I thought it was wonderful Monday when I posted my first pictures. Look how much better it is today! I took the photo on the right this morning!!! We are thrilled. We have added no additional chemicals or clarifier. No additional Shock. No additional Vitamin C. We just floated a Chlorine Tab in the filter and I only rinse the filter once a day. I still see "rust particles" when I rinse but they are not visible in the pool.
http://faithheartblog.files.wordpres...6dayslater.jpg
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-Z...6dayslater.jpg

Darn! I just got back from the store and saw that product...didn't get it though. We are pretty remote here in Paw Paw. It takes an hour to drive to nearest shopping area which is Winchester VA. I will definitely go back into town tomorrow and get this and give it a try. I thought it was to use after the brown was gone and the water looked cloudy. Thank you very much for the name...and the picture is very helpful too.

Sorry it took so long to mod this in -- we're very careful about letting people recommend specific products, and this was one I hadn't heard of. After checking out their product website:
http://www.cleanerpools.net/slimebag.php
I think it sounds interesting.

If you purchase one of these, I'd really, really like to hear how it works out. You may want to read the website, to make sure you understand the differences between the two. I wouldn't use the X-tra unit, till 100% of the algae is dead.

Please, no apologies needed. I'm just grateful that you all are here and are responding. I'm getting more info from this site than I've gotten during the last 3 years searching other sites and talking with sales people at the pool stores. I should also say the information here is quite helpful too. If I use this product I will be sure to share my results. I also got some great products to try from my first post I made yesterday about metal products.

I have used a pre-filter before. It's called EcoOne Pre-filter and it claims to dissolve heavy Metals, Lime, Scale, Organic Contaminants among other things. The filter itself should have been good for two pool fills. I had a smaller pool last year ...less than 4000 gallons and it was supposed to be good for up to 8000. You attach it to the end of the garden hose. Big waste of money for me. First time chlorine hit my pool water got the green then the brown.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by tina411

It's called EcoOne Pre-filter and it claims to dissolve heavy Metals, Lime, Scale, Organic Contaminants among other things. . . . . Big waste of money for me.

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I've pretty well concluded that ANY swimming pool product with the letters "Eco" in the name is a rip-off! There might be a few exceptions, but they aren't coming to mind at the moment. ;)

Hi All, I found a bulk, powdered, Vitamin C (Vitamin C Ascorbic Acid Powder). I will be switching to this from the tablets when the tablets are all gone. The bulk powder won't have the additives they use to make the tablets. Also, I can measure the amount I want to add easier.

This is a 5 pound container on Amazon for $27.91 on 6/4/2012. Shipping to me in North Carolina was only $2.49. Less than the cost of gas round trip to town.

NOW Foods Citric Acid Powder Bulk, 5 Pound Tub

Hi SMC;

The only problem with your "Ascorbic Acid" (vitamin C) is that it's "Citric Acid" (lemon juice acid)!

You can use citric acid for metal clean up; some pool chemical companies sell it for that purpose. But, it's not as effective as ascorbic acid. However, with the larger dose it may well work very well for you. Keep in mind that neither citric or ascorbic acid are chlorine compatible -- chlorine rapidly destroys both. Also, the by-products formed when chlorine breaks down citric acid are better not breathed -- so don't swim once you begin re-chlorinating, till you've held a chlorine residual for a few hours.

And . . . if you'll use polyquat while your are using the citric, you won't have to worry about the pool getting algae. Polyquat is compatible with BOTH chlorine and citric acid, so you can begin adding it while you are letting your chlorine levels drop.

Thanks so much for clarifying the difference between Ascorbic Acid and Citric Acid. This has all been so confusing and stressful. I really appreciate your tips and cautions about combining Citric or Ascorbic Acid with Chlorine. I did additional research after your reply and found this Ascorbic Acid, Vitamin C Powder - 11 pounds for $59.99 with shipping to me in North Carolina of just $1.89. That's just $5.63/pound.
Ascorbic Acid Vitamin C Powder USP Pharma Grade 11 Lbs

Ascorbic Acid, Vitamin C is what got me the beautiful pool water we now enjoy. Thanks also for the tip about Polyquat!