Lime Green Pool Water

[PoolDoc]

Sounds like you've got iron in the water -- and the Walmart stain / scale is one of the weaker ones. But, without knowing your chlorine & pH levels, I'm sort of guessing.

Lime green and clear, with NO slimy feel to the vinyl walls is NOT algae. It's probably metal.

You need a testkit; at least a cheap OTO / phenol red one, and you need to tell us what you've got in the pool. You also need to run your filter 24/7. Doing so with a tab in the skimmer will help remove metals.

[amyches8179]

I checked the pool this morning and it was still green and clear but some cloudiness. We have a 27 foot round, 52 inches deep (16,500 gallons) pool on a sand filter. We use to have an ionizer and catridges but switched to sand filter and chlorine this year but seem to have more troubles getting everything balanced. Hopefully it will get easier. Five days ago we added 5lbs turbo shock and then added Phosfree and waited 48 hours per pool store directions and then vaccumed the pool. They then advised us to add 20 lbs of calcium over the pool three days ago and the water should have been blue but it wasn't. On friday (2 days ago) is when I added the metal, scale, stain control because I had my own theory because it was the only thing I had not done. Whithin an hour the pool was a pretty blue color and clear finally but it only lasted for 24 hours then turned green ago yesterday evening and has stayed this way. I did add 6 ounces of algecide last night but that is everything in the pool at this point.

Current readings:

OTO/Phenol Red Kit: CL/BR 1.5/3.4 PH 7.6 Both show Ideal


6 Way Test Strip:

Hardness 1000
Total Chlorine 0
Free Chlorine 0
PH 7.2
Alkalinity 120
Stabilizer 0

As you said it must be metals (iron) since that was the only thing that allowed the pool to turn blue for a day. I just need to figure out directions on how to get them cleared permanently.

[mbar]

Your calcium is very high - it should be 250 - 350. By putting in the algaecide and the metal out you have used up your chlorine - both use up chlorine. If it is possible I would do a partial drain to get the calcium down - I know that it was a waste of money, but put it up to a lesson learned. You may or may not have algae - because the chlorine demand may just have been from not having any cya (stabilizer) in your water, plus the chems you added to the water. The rule of thumb for stains to fall out of solution is high chlorine with high ph. This is what I would do if it were my pool.
Drain and refill till you get the calcium under 400
Add enough stabilizer to get to 30ppms
Add enough bleach to get your chlorine to 10 and keep it there until it holds overnight.
Don't worry about the color of the water until you are sure that the chlorine is holding and that it is not algae.
If the water is still colored, add enough sequestering agent like Jacks Magic or Proteams Metal Magic according to the directions on the bottle.
Keep the ph around 7.2, no higher.

You want to balance the water before you worry about any staining, because you are just throwing money away on chemicals that will fight each other and use each other up. Once the water is balanced, then you can swim in it while you get rid of stains. Adding the sequestering agent with ph on the low side (7 - 7.2) will usually clear up the water and light staining on the liner. You have to watch though, because sequestering agent can use up chlorine, so you will have to keep an eye on it and keep it at levels that match the cya in your water so that the pool stays sanitized and you will not have to shock. Once you get the water balanced, the stains cleared, the BBB method is the easiest and most economical. Once you have metals in the water, you have to use the sequestering agent to keep them in suspension. I only use the sequestering agent if the stains start to come back, I don't use them as a maintenance chemical.

I know it sounds like a lot, but once you learn how to take care of your pool by yourself you see that it is really simple. Feel free to ask any questions you have.

Marie

[PoolDoc]

Marie,

Are test strips accurate at that level? I was thinking that they were not.

Also, she hasn't really added enough total chemicals to raise her calcium that high -- if her fill water was 100 ppm CH, it would have taken 140 lbs of cal chloride to get her to 1000 ppm . . . and to do it with cal hypo would have taken even more than that.

My first guess would be the test result is bogus. The second would be that -- if there is 1000ppm in her pool now, most of it came from the fill water.

BUT . . . that seems unlikely, since high iron and high calcium don't ever (that I've heard of) go together. So my money is on the bogus results.

I can think of another, pretty far out, possibility. If she had water trucked in, from a very high calcium source, but using a steel tank truck with nodular (bacterial) iron corrosion, she could have both, since the bacteria generate a *strongly* chelated iron that WILL turn the pool green at higher pH and IS very hard to oxidize out. When I've dealt with that stuff, you could flip-flop pool colors with pH: above 7.2: green; below 7.0: blue!

[mbar]

Yes, I see that she only added 20 lbs of calcium - that would not have raised her calcium level that much - my mistake! amyches8179 can you check your calcium level again? Your Cya levels may be off too. Maybe if you can get your water tested at a pool store that does not use test strips. If you want to take control of your own pool you will want to get yourself a good test kit - this way you are not dependent on anyone else, and your results will be consistent. It is hard for anyone here to give you explicit advice when we are not sure of the chemical levels in the water.

[amyches8179]

Current readings on my pool:

CYA (Stabilizer) 43
Chlorine 4.1
PH 7.2
Alkalinity 151
Hardness 264


Yesterday I added one quart of bioguard scale inhibitor to the pool because the pool store owner thought is was scale instead of metals but of course nothing changed. I went back today and insisted on purchasing 1 quart of bioguard pool magnet plus and the pool is again starting to turn blue...yeah. Last time at the 24 hour mark the water started to turn green....was that because the chlorine levels dropped? Should I just try to keep the levels stable now for a few days and continue to run the pump??? I am so worried it will turn back green again. What is your advice on when to clean it, shock it and anything else that might be helpful. Thanks

[Watermom]

Amy,
I'm going to let Ben continue to advise you. I am only going to add that it is usually best to either follow the advice given to you here on the forum or that given by a pool store. When you do some of 'ours' and some of 'theirs' it doesn't usually work too well.

[PoolDoc]

Amy,

You're going to need to get a K2006 or K2006C for me to continue helping you . . . AND you're going to have to stay out of that pool store. They are not only selling you products you don't need, they are giving you bogus test results: there are NO dealer test systems that would allow them to distinguish Alk=151 from Alk=160, much less from Alk=155. Those systems usually are based on electronic readers of 'goofy strips' -- but the strips themselves can't reliably measure Alk well, much less CYA.

Meanwhile, run your pump / filter 24/7 and add small doses of bleach to maintain your chlorine levels.