Brown water after brushing

I am new to pools, but I am helping a friend try to get an inground pool (~30,000 gallons) from dark muddy brown to clear.
I was doing pretty good too. Last week it was black; I cleared out all the leaves, added lots of chlorine, floc and did lots of vacuuming. This morning it was pretty darn clear water.

I tested the water and balanced the pH, alkalinity and brought the chlorine up to a suitable range.
This afternoon however, I noticed that the walls still had a grimy film on them that didn't come off with the vacuum. So, I brushed the walls, hoping to losen the junk. When I came back in a couple of hours, the entire pool was muddy brown again! What happened?! Will it go away? What should I do? Help!

Hi, and welcome to the forum!

We're going to need to know a LOT more about the pool before we can answer your questions. First, we need some equipment information--if you would take a few seconds and fill out this chart, it will help...
Pool Chart Entry Form
Pool Chart Results

Second, we need to know test results on your water, taken with a drop-based kit (no strips!). "Balanced the pH, alkalinity and brought the chlorine up to a suitable range" doesn't really tell us what we need to know.

Third, we need to know whether the fill water has metals in it, and we need a list of the chems that have been used in the pool so far (ingredients, please--not just product names like "shock").

If you'll supply that info, we'll be happy to try to help!

One BIG caution: in 15 years of doing this, I've rarely seen it work out well where someone is helping someone else 'do their pool'. If they aren't interested in learning to do it themselves, it will never work UNLESS you are planning to start up a pool service company with one non-paying customer.

So . . . encourage them to register, and get involved in taking care of their OWN pool.

@ PoolDoc- Yes, I agree with you. However in this situation I am helping a friend with his pool because he actually lives in another state. He is planning on renting the house with the pool and I told him I would do what I could to get it cleaned up as inexpensively as possible.

@ aylad- I am working on getting all those info forms filled out.

Here are my numbers from this morning:
FC-0.51ppm
TC-3.09ppm
CC-2.58ppm
pH-6.8
Hardness-46ppm
Alkalinity-42.2ppm
Cya.Acid-96ppm
Copper- 0.3ppm
Iron- 0ppm

I had the water tested my local pool store and they gave instructions on how to get it better. They said add stain&scale, alkalinity increaser, hardness increaser, shock, then tabs, in that order. (they included amounts and details instructions, which is great!) Sounds simple enough, but the money is the problem. Is there a way to do any of this with less expensive products? (lurking around the forum I have picked up on baking soda, borax, etc. would any of that help me?)

Unfortunately I don't have the chemical names of what I have added so far. I will try to get them and post them up here.

Thanks!!!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by aylad

Hi, and welcome to the forum!

We're going to need to know a LOT more about the pool before we can answer your questions. First, we need some equipment information--if you would take a few seconds and fill out this chart, it will help...
Pool Chart Entry Form
Pool Chart Results

Second, we need to know test results on your water, taken with a drop-based kit (no strips!). "Balanced the pH, alkalinity and brought the chlorine up to a suitable range" doesn't really tell us what we need to know.

Third, we need to know whether the fill water has metals in it, and we need a list of the chems that have been used in the pool so far (ingredients, please--not just product names like "shock").

If you'll supply that info, we'll be happy to try to help!

---

Unfortunately, pool store test results are designed to sell chemicals. Hope you didn't buy any of that stuff!! You don't need the stain and scale, so ignore that. What type of pool finish is this pool made from? If it's vinyl liner or fiberglass, you also don't need the calcium hardness. The alkalinity increaser is the same as baking soda, just with a higher price tag. You probably won't need much of it, either--because when you bring the pH up, the alk will also come up some. What they didn't tell you is that your pH is low--most of the tests only read 6.8 on the lowest end, so that means your pH is 6.8 or lower. You need to get that up to at least 7.0, by adding Borax (plain, 20-Mule team Borax from the laundry aisle at WalMart). I'd start with about 1/2 box, added slowly through the skimmer with the pump running, breaking up any clumps. Give it a couple of hours to circulate, then add more if you're not above pH of 7.0. I don't know what "shock" they tried to sell you--but your CYA is already high, and you don't want to add anymore, so I wouldn't use any pre-packaged shock, and certaily wouldn't use any tabs, since they all will increase your CYA further. As it is, your chlorine is already too low for your CYA level (check out the "best guess chlorine chart" linked in my sig for more explanation and the chart), and since your CC is so high, it looks like you still have a bit of mess to clear up. With a CYA of basically 100, you need to bring your chlorine up to 25 ppm and hold it there by testing and adding more bleach as necessary to get back up to 25 ppm. You need to hold it there until you can test chlorine at night and again in the morning, and not lose more than 1 ppm of chlorine in that time. So--in order to do that, you're going to need to be able to do your own testing, since the pool store isn't likely to be open at dawn! :) That's why we recommend that people get their own kit and do their own testing (well, that..and the propensity of the pool stores to try to sell you a bunch of stuff you don't need, like they did to you!). Once the pool clears up, and you're no longer losing chlorine overnight, then you can let the chlorine drift back down again--but with a CYA of 100, you can't let it get below 8 ppm or you'll be risking another algae bloom.

At that point, your friend will need to make a decision--run high CYA pool with high chlorine levels to compensate? or drain/refill part of the water to bring the CYA down, and don't use any more stabilized chlorine?

Janet

A key element of what Janet is telling you is to get OUT of that pool store, and do your OWN testing. Pool store testing is designed to do just one thing, and that thing is NOT "solve your pool problems" OR "provide very accurate results"! Most of the digits in those number they gave you are made up by the machine -- 'guess strips' cannot reliably tell the difference between a stabilizer level of 40 and one of 60 ppm!


+ Get a cheap OTO (yellow drops) / phenol test kit, or if available at YOUR Walmart (check availability), get the HTH 6-way DROPS test kit, which is compatible with the Taylor K2006. Test the pool as soon and you can, and post the results. If you get the 6-way kit, ALSO test the water you FILL the pool with, especially if it's a well, and post THOSE results as well. (The HTH is the best available kit you're likely to find locally, but it's not the K-2006. It can only provide rough measurements chlorine levels above 5 ppm, and it measures "TOTAL" hardness, rather than "CALCIUM" hardness, which is not ideal.)

+ Having a good test kit makes pool care easier for EVERYONE. A good test kit means a kit that can test chlorine from 0 - 25 ppm, pH, alkalinity, calcium hardness, and stabilizer with reasonable accuracy. Test strips (AKA 'guess-strips' ) do NOT meet this standard. Some pool store testing is accurate; most is not. The ONLY way you'll know whether your pool store is accurate or bogus, is by testing accurately your own self. On the other hand, pool store 'computer' dosing recommendations are NEVER trustworthy -- ignore them. They are designed to sell more chemicals than you need, and WILL cause many pool problems.

+ We recommend the Taylor K-2006 test kit, which meets the requirements above, for many reasons. The HTH 6-way drops kit is a great starter kit, and is compatible with the K2006 (it's made by Taylor). There are a few alternatives; for example Lamotte makes an FAS-DPD kit that's OK -- but it costs 3x as much. But, we're not aware of any test that is better, and since we are all familiar with the K-2006 (and can help you with it) we recommend it exclusively ( Test kit info page )

One caution for the 2012 season: Amazon does not stock the kits directly. So when buying at Amazon, Amato is our current preferred seller. However, they often don't list enough stock to last the whole day, so try order mid-morning. You should expect a delivered cost under $60 for the K2006A and under $95 for the K2006C. If you can't find that, wait a day.

+ Here are links to the kits we recommend:

HTH 6-Way Test Kit @ Walmart
Taylor K2006A (3/4 oz bottles) @ Amazon
Taylor K2006C (2 oz bottles) @ Amazon

Oh, one more thing. I looked at your chart info -- either your pool dimensions are way off, or your gallons are. It matters, because getting the dose reasonably correct makes it much easier to fix pool water problems.

Yeah-I was just guessing on the dimensions. I will try to measure it, but the pool place saw it and said 30000 gallon.
Here is a list of chemicals added over the last 3 weeks (chronolocigally and as best as I can remember!)

Pool is black:
1 qt phos away
25 lbs granular dichlor
Pool turns brown:

3-4 days later...
20 lbs power clear (calcium hypochlorate)
~15 3" trichlor tabs
1 qt floc
Pool turns dark green
vacuum, vacuum, vacuum

Pool turns aqua green
A couple days later...
~12 lbs multiclear shock (sodium dichlor)
~ 8 lbs pH up
Pool turns cloudy blue

Another day...
12 lbs baking soda
1 qt floc

Vacuum alot again
Pool turns clear

2 days ago...
~8 lbs multiclear shock (sodium dichlor)
~7 lbs pH up
Brushed the pool sides

Pool turns dark brown
1 qt algecide plus (3% copper)

I turn to poolforum for help!

And now we are up to date.
Oh yeah-I tested the water a few minutes ago with my walmart kit (OTO\Phenol) The chlorine is right at 1.0ppm (kinda more between 0.6 and 1 but closer to 1) and the pH is still at the 6.8 color.

The pool dimensions are 20X38, with an average depth of 5.5 foot.

I ordered a Taylor 2006 kit, but it won't be here till Friday. Is there something I can do in the meantime?

I know it's a lot of bleach, but I would like to NOT drain and refill the pool.

Thanks!!

Yeah.

1. Filter 24/7.
2. Add a quart of polyquat, if available. It will help with algae AND removing iron and dead algae.
3. Add frequent 1 ppm doses of chlorine to the skimmer. Cal hypo would be best, but bleach will help too. 1/4 gallon of bleach or 1/3 lb of cal hypo.
4. In between chlorine doses, add 1/2 box doses of borax, added slowly to the skimmer. Continue these regularly, till you reach 7.0.

Yeah! I got my Taylor K-2006 today!
Here are my results (well most of them, I couldn't do the ca hardness bc my kit had 2 of R-0012 reagent, but I'm getting that taken care of)

pH=7
Alkalinity =90ppm
FC=0.8ppm
CC=1.2 ppm
CYA= 50ppm

The water is no longer muddy brown, but I need to know what to do with it now. :-)
I have bleach, baking soda and borax on hand and am ready to go!!

for a 30K gallon pool, pH=7.0; FC=0.8; CYA=50:

1. Add 2 gallons of bleach immediately (4 ppm) and 6 gallons (12 ppm) tonight.
2. Add 1 box of borax SLOWLY via the skimmer.
3. Retest chlorine and pH in the AM. If FC>10 ppm, you are probably OK, and can live with daily 4 ppm (2 gallon) doses till you have another plan.
4. If the pH < 7.4, repeat daily borax doses till it is above 7.4.
5. Read the Best Guess chart page, so you can get an idea about how you may want to operate your pool for the rest of the summer.
6. Test your calcium levels, to make sure they are not high enough to be a problem.

Check! I did all of that stuff and re-tested the chlorine and pH this morning. The pH is at 7.2, so I will continue to add more borax till it gets to over 7.4.
The chlorine is only 1.4 FC and 1 CC. So I should continue adding large doses of chlorine until it loses less than 1ppm overnight, right?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by lucybfiddle

So I should continue adding large doses of chlorine until it loses less than 1ppm overnight, right?

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Yes. But make sure your filter is clean and that all dead algae and other goop is removed. That stuff can sometimes consume chlorine, too.