new liner, well water filled, rust stains + high total alkalinity

[jenmenke]

oh my gawd. I'll be in your same boat in a couple months. Am researching new liners and DREADING starting over with well water because I remember too well the coca cola brown stage and all the cleaning I had to do to get things in check: gallons and gallons of muriatic acid, etc.

I'm sure you've got this figured out by now, but curious how it went. My answer to you would have been to address the TA first because that will wreck your equipment in a heartbeat. It ruined our heater in a matter of two weeks before I knew what I was doing and the pool company was CLUELESS.

[Jbonnette]

Last season I had problems with stains on my liner from time to time when the pH got too high (from the SWG). I bought a couple of packets of Culator to test towards the end of the swimming season. It worked great for me. In fact, I just ordered several packets today for this season. One note though, once the stains are on the liner, I found that I needed to treat with ascorbic acid to release the stains. The culator worked well enough that the stains never came back (even when I let the chlorine and/or pH get too high). I only make this comment because you might save yourself a lot of work by putting 1 or more culator packets in the pool when first filling with the well water to prevent the metal stains in the first place.