Dark Brown water - NOT IRON!!!!

[PoolDoc]

Hi Cheryl,

Usually, we tell people that if they just follow the plan, we can help them out, and that it won't be too hard or too expensive.

I can't tell you that.

Filling a pool with crappy water is one of the hardest problems we have to confront here . . . and metal contaminated well water is about as crappy as it gets, from a pool operations point of view. The water is probably perfectly safe to DRINK, even without treatment or filtration. But it's not "pool-safe".

But, we can solve crappy water problems, usually.

However, the other really hard problem we face is trying to help people run their pool, when they have crappy filters and circulation systems. This is the problem with most AG pools with sand filters . . . and with ALL Intex pools. Still, we can usually help people run Intex pools successfully. One of my mods, CarlD, did so for several years with great results.

However, the way we solve crappy water problems is to filter out the crap. And, the way we solve crappy filter problems is to avoid having to filter out much, by starting clean and keeping it that way. You can probably see where this is going.

You've got crappy water, which we need to fix with filtration, and crappy filtration which we need to 'coddle' by avoiding water problems. There's no way that I know of to 'hit a home run' on this field.

Here are your options, at least as I understand them:

#1 - We can help you experiment with ways to succeed in situations like yours. It may work; it may not. Personally, I'd love to have your pool in my back yard WITH your water in it, so I could experiment. But if I did, I wouldn't be counting on swimming in it anytime soon.

#2 - We can help you run a safe-to-swim pool with a combination of polyquat, filtration, and copper. It would STILL be something of an experiment, and it wouldn't be likely to look good for a month. But you and your family -- probably no one else -- could enjoy it, if y'all wear old (or no) swimsuits and just don't worry about the metals. If you dump and refill, there's a fair chance you could even keep it sorta clear. But you would need a couple of sets of extra cartridges to clean and swap out.

#3 - You can possibly have water trucked in and then use house water (I assume you've got some sort of filtration on the water in your house) to maintain water levels. In that case you could run it like any Intex pool.

But what I don't have is a good, safe, inexpensive and easy way to run a clear blue water pool when you are filling with metal contaminated well water and putting it into an Intex pool.

Sorry!

Ben

PS. I wouldn't place too much importance on the "no iron" results. There are several possible reasons why these results might have occurred., not least of which is the fact that dealer testing is often awful in quality. Water that turns brown when you add chlorine is a VERY strong indication of metal contamination. Brownish orange is iron; brownish black (coffee) is manganese. Iron is much more common than manganese, but both occur frequently.

[CarlD]

Ben is, of course, right. And, yes, I did run an Intex Donut for a few years before installing a FantaSea 40'x16' pool. Intex filters are fine for clean clear water, but not so good when you have problems...been there, done that.
I seem to remember somebody inventing a contraption using a submersible sump pump and a capped 5 gal bucket filled with cotton()? that acted as an adjunct filter. It sucked the metal out and it stuck in the cotton...does anyone else remember this gadget? Real Rube Goldberg but it worked. I'm not sure what else might work for you. If, in fact, it's metal (and I'd bet it is) the more you can filter out the better.

When I had my Intex I jury-rigged a vacuum that went through the filter cartridge. I had to be creative to find a way to use the drain for the vacuum but it did actually work.

[aylad]

Carl, is this the one you mean?
http://www.poolforum.com/pf2/showthr...cally-for-Free

Janet

[CarlD]

Jan,
No, but it's a GREAT idea none-the-less! And if it works it's as good as the one I was thinking of, with a sump pump to a covered 5 gal bucket filled with the same kind of stuff.

Carl

[madwil]

one big key- look in your toilet tank; if it is black or orange, you definitely have metals in your well water, regardless of other tests!

[Watermom]

I bet this is the one that Carl was thinking of:

http://www.poolforum.com/pf2/showthr...Removing-Iron&

[CarlD]

Yup! That's it, Lisa!

Also madwil's idea about the toilet cistern's a good one, although on a 20 year old commode even very low amounts of metal in the water will have accumulated, even with city water.

Carl