Can't clear pool

[dairy]

Hi there, I"m new here, we have a 33 foot round pool. We filled it in May with my well water, all 96 000 litres of it. Initially it was nice and clear, then came time to shock, that turned it completely iron color so off to the pool store I went. My water tested for Maganese. So they sold me a pile of pool magnet and kwick clear sticks. Once the maganese was gone it was cloudy and murky so they "balanced" it but buckets upon buckets of calcium, raised the ph and stabilised it. So now my water chemistry so they say, is perfect, however, my water is still cloudy. Friday they offered to use me as a test subject for free so I agreed, they but four pouches of shock which would normally treat 160 000 litres of water and two kwick clears in the skimmer. I did see a noticeable difference, but yet, no clear water at all. I have a sand filter, 21" and a 1 High Output horsepower pump. I also have a remote vacuum. Anyone have any suggestions? Spent over 500$ in chemicals in three weeks so am pretty much willing to try anything.
Thanks
DIane

[aylad]

Hi, Diane, and welcome to the forum!!

We've had a number of pools this year with well water and having to deal with metals in it. You want to keep metals sequestrant in the water, and keep your pH and chlorine on the low side to stop them from falling out of suspension and staining your pool.

There are lots and lots of reasons for cloudy water, one of them being "buckets upon buckets of calcium" (which, by the way, you don't need for a vinyl-lined pool--only for concrete/plaster/gunnite pools to keep the water from leaching the calcium out of the concrete and making it weak). If you could post some numbers for us, taken with a drop-based kit, it would help us help you get it cleared up. We need numbers for free chlorine, either combined or total chlorine, pH, total alk, calcium hardness (to see where they have yours at), and stabilizer (CYA). Also any test results you have for metals. Usually if the water gets brownish-orange, you have iron in the water. Manganese tends to turn the water purplish. Post those numbers here (but I wouldn't buy anything else from that pool store if it were my pool!) and we'll try to help you get it figured out!!

Janet