Mustard Algae

[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

[AndreaA]

If it's algae then why is it not clearing? I've maintained at least 15ppm "no less" for more than 10 days. My filter has been running 24/7 and I've brushed and vacuumed to waste every single day :-(

Do you think it's mustard? Could I have both algae and Iron in the water? I'm seriously ready to throw in the towel. I don't know how to keep this water clear every time I shock with bleach my water turns green. I'm having a pool party on May 7th and feel like it's not going to be clear by then and my kids are driving me crazy to swim.. I'm about ready to hire someone to fix it (sorry I'm venting)...

Tears :-(

[AndreaA]

I have had the water tested many times for metals.. Including today just to be sure.. It all comes back at 0. I've been to two different stores to have it tested and they all come back as negative. I don't know what to think.. No one knows what is wrong with my pool. Everyone says its algae.. I treat for algae and it's still green. I let the filter runs for weeks NON STOP and it's still green. I'm seriously at a loss... The pool store gave me a floc today to put in the filter b/c I went up there raising heck... They took care of this pool for almost a year.. They gave me a written letter when we purchased this house that this pool was in good working order. The guy who was doing the cleaning vacuumed HUGE acorns to waste--which caused a HUGE clog and my skimmer would no longer work.. We had to fix that. Then they had me dump shock in that turned my water green... SWAMP green.. Then they sold me Yellow Out and that made it worse.. Then they sold me Phosfree.. Which made it worse!!! Then I changed out the sand and here I am.. It's still darn green. I've tried the all bleach method and that's not working either... I can't even imagine the amount of bleach that I've dumped in this pool.. My garbage guy probably thinks we are a bunch of weirdos since half of my garbage can is full of empty bleach bottles twice a week... I seriously don't know who to trust or what to do. I've put so much money and crap in this pool in a matter of 4 months and I feel like I've been taken advantage b/c I'm a new pool owner. Everyone is saying something different.... ARGGGGG!!!!

[AndreaA]

Sorry about venting!

We are getting our source of water from the hose. Our house was built in 2003 so I don't think we have pipe problems. Also, I have several neighbors that have pools and are filling from the same county water and they don't have green pools and or iron problems. I've looked under the house and all I see is regular pipes (plastic white ones) so I'm not really sure. But the liner was replaced in this pool last year in Feb so I know the pool water is not that old and from all the vacuuming and wasting I've pretty much refilled this pool in the past 2 months.

I have not tested the creek water.. But like pooldoc said I'm not using that as a source of water to fill. But very interesting to know that I have such high iron content around my house. I did check the creek today and the part that was orange is completely normal now-- STRANGE. I guess I just had SO MUCH chlorine in the waste water that I had a major reaction with the iron in the creek. I did try and test the spring water from under the pool by adding chlorine to the test water.. I didn't get any orange/brown/green from it.

I don't have any chlorine test stuff left. I've order a refill but it hasn't made it here yet. So I'm not sure about what I'm losing if any at night.

Here are my latest results.. I haven't added chlorine since I run out of testing stuff. My test 3 days ago read 15.5 so these are my numbers (from pool store) as of 5pm today.


FC: 10.4
TC: 10.4
CC: 0.0
Alkalinity: 71
PH: 7.9
Calcium Hardness: 51
CYA: 12
Copper: 0
Iron: 0
Total Dissolved Solids: 1
Saturation Index: -0.42