Light green water

[PoolDoc]

By any chance, do you have an older smaller Intex around, that still is usable?

This is getting pretty involved, but if you can pretreat the fill water in a small pool, and then transfer it to the larger pool, you can keep the iron out of the big pool.

Also, can you disconnect or remove the guts of the SWCG (salt) system? You wouldn't want to use it know, at best. And, at worst, it's adding MORE metals (copper) to the pool! I'm not sure that EVERY Intex SWCG is this way, but the one's I've looked at ALSO add copper.

[Huskerdee]

I do not have any smaller ones still. I can remove the copper ionizer from it and will do that. When I test my water though my copper is 0, but cannot hurt to take it out. I got the chem Tek metal and Calcium remover and added the suggested amount to the water. This morning my PH was back up to 8.2 but I did not treat it yet because this metal chemical says it's an acid that lowers PH. After I added the metal and calcium remover, brushed the pool really well, and the water now turned a milky, cloudy green. Is that a sign it's working? How long should I wait to bachwash now? How long till I should notice a color difference? How long till I should check and adjust the PH? Should I brush more than a couple of times a day? Should I vacuum or wait? Lot of questions, I knows Lol. I appreciate your guidance through this.

[PoolDoc]

I got the chem Tek metal and Calcium remover and added the suggested amount to the water. This morning my PH was back up to 8.2 but I did not treat it yet because this metal chemical says it's an acid that lowers PH.

Go ahead and lower the pH - it's not that much of an acid. You want the pH around 7.0 -- the HEDP can't pick up the iron if the pH is high.

About the cloudiness -- I don't know what's happening. How much did you put in? An overdose of HEDP can cause cloudiness, but I've never seen a company label an HEDP product at doses high enough to cause that.

I'll call Kem-Tek, to see if I can find out if anything ELSE is in that product. You go ahead and lower the pH, and keep filtering.

[Huskerdee]

It said to put one quart per 10,000 gallons. Since our pool is almost 15,000 I added a quart and a half. I will go our and put PH reducer in now.

[PoolDoc]

I've tried 3x, but haven't been able to reach them.

I'll have to call this evening (for me -- they are in Calif).

I've re-read their literature, and am not sure what's happening. One & 1/2 quart of 20% HEDP is not high enough so I would expect calcium problems, though it is higher than I would have thought they'd put on their label. But, they are calling the product "calcium eliminator" -- that's par for the course for HEPD products, even though they don't "eliminate" anything -- they just dissolve it. But, it's possible that they did add something that will "eliminate" calcium, such as STPP. It's non-toxic, so they don't have to list it.

Even so, that doesn't explain what's happened, since commonly, wells with iron have ZERO calcium.

For now, DO lower the pH and DO keep filtering. Ironically, if they have done something that has precipitated calcium, once the iron's re-dissolved, the calcium products on the filter (as they filter out) WILL help REMOVE the iron from the pool. So, it may work out for the best. But, until I find out what ELSE is in that product, I'm guessing.

This is one of those times when I wish I had a "PoolForum" line of plain un-mixed chemicals for sale, so I could be SURE of what was going into people's pools!

Ben

[Huskerdee]

Ok working on lowering PH. I do think the water is looking better. It just looks a light greenish color, but the yellowish color looks gone, just a murky green. I really appreciate all of your help.

[PoolDoc]

OK.

I was able to reach the head chemist at Kem-Tek, and surprisingly, discovered that they not only know about PoolForum.com, but liked it! That's gotta be a first for a pool chemical company!!

Anyhow, the product you got was just 20% HEDP + water, so I'm not sure what caused the cloudiness. But DO continue lowering the pH.

AND . . . once you get the pH below 7.4, you need to begin adding nightly doses of 6% household bleach, about 3/4 gallon at a time. Recheck chlorine the following evening, and if it's below 2 ppm . . . add another dose.

BUT . . . continue lowering your pH till it's near 7.0, but not below.

FINALLY, you got the KemTek stuff, but did you also order the K2006 testkit? We really need those test results in order to keep making progress!

[Huskerdee]

I have the PH down to 7.4 but the chlorine has not lowered. My test kit goes to free chlorine of 12 but my level is somewhere over that. The water color is really orange so I'm guessing it's around maybe18 or so. Do you still want me to add bleach? I did not order a test kit because I already have one I ordered about 2 weeks ago. Do I want to vacuum the pool at all? What about back washing, or will that remove to many of the chemicals just added? I did notice a slight change in my water entering the skimmer. Before adding the metal chemical it was brown and yellow tinged. Now it's got like a slight cloudy film. Could that mean there is also dead algae in the pool? I didn't think so because usually when chlorine is fighting algae or something it drops and mine holds really steady. I don't get much of a drop at all.

[PoolDoc]

Ok, exactly what test kit did you get? And what results -- chlorine, pH, alkalinity, calcium and especially stabilizer -- are you getting with it?

We're going to have to have full and RELIABLE results, in order to continue. Right now, we're sorta playing a guessing game. I understand that, if you've spent money on a new kit, you're reluctant to buy another. That's fine with us --IF-- the kit you have is reliable and accurate.

But, if not, not so much.

Flying blind on purpose is something we try to avoid here.

[Huskerdee]

Well I had to take my son to swim practice last night. Since water was so yucky looking dear sweet husband thought he would help and add algaecide 60 to the pool. I came home and went to do my normal filter backwash and wow. The pool had grey, white, and brown stuff floating on the water. I thought, great now what. Anyway, I heavily chlorinated as suggested to do. This morning I could see a definite improvement. I still have cloudy water but not so green. There is still stuff floating a little and the water is still cloudy but looks better. Do you think I was fighting two prob
Ems? I think we finally won and the algae is dying and dead, and the metals are really precipitating. This morning I decided to unhook my salt water chlorine generaror because it seemed it couldn't keep up with the pull from the sand filter. I was right, the suction and circulation are much better and my psi on the sand filter dropped 5. I think by morning the water will look considerably better. Do I want to consider using a floc or something to drop the stuff to the bottom so I can vacuum it? Or will it eventually all filter out? Thank you so much.