Mustard Algae

[AndreaA]

I don't think that I have rain water flowing into the pool and/or spring water entering by accident. I did however add the spring water a few months back... One time!

I could see how I might have a metal problem but the brown dust makes me think I have mustard algae.

I did have enough drops to test last night and this morning. It was 16.5 last night and 15.5 this morning. Is that a significant drop??

PoolDoc and Watermom-- could you have a metal person look at this thread and let me know if this is a metal problem too?

Thanks so much for all of your help!

[AndreaA]

This is what my pool looked like this morning...

Let me know if that works

http://www.flickr.com/photos/29501372@N06/

[AndreaA]

Great and thanks again for helping me out.

I have another strange thing... Let me explain a little and I'll post a pic or two of my issue.

So I have the natural spring under my pool therefore I have three drains that are draining water to a creek that runs through my back yard. Drain one is just ground water and is a french drain under the pool, drain two is for my backwash/waste (the first two were installed by pool constructors), and drain three was put in by my husband to flow the water from the pump (natural spring) water from under the liner to the creek.

This morning when i walked down to the creek I noticed that drain two (backwash/waste) the water in the creek right at that point was completely orange with yucky fluffy stuff. The thing that makes it strange is I just weed whipped that whole creek sunday afternoon and the water was completely creek like "no orange" and since sunday we have vacuumed to waste twice.

So I googled the orange fluff and it looks like an iron reaction to chlorine.. My question is.. is it iron that's already in the creek reacting to my chlorine or iron that's in my pool mixed with my chlorine and then added to the creek water? Or is it even iron?

[AndreaA]

ok. posted photo of the orange goo on the same link as above.

[Watermom]

Wow. That is some yucky-looking orange stuff. Congrats on being the Pool Forum's first weird case of the year!

[AndreaA]

Any advise on what I should continue to do for the meantime?

[PoolDoc]

Looks like iron, alright. You can take a sample from the creek, add a bit of bleach, and see if you get similar fluff to test and see if the creek is iron filled.

But, I don't see why it matters, as long as you don't fill the pool from the creek.

The brown dust in the other picture just looks like dead algae.

PoolDoc