Brown water after brushing

[PoolDoc]

A key element of what Janet is telling you is to get OUT of that pool store, and do your OWN testing. Pool store testing is designed to do just one thing, and that thing is NOT "solve your pool problems" OR "provide very accurate results"! Most of the digits in those number they gave you are made up by the machine -- 'guess strips' cannot reliably tell the difference between a stabilizer level of 40 and one of 60 ppm!


+ Get a cheap OTO (yellow drops) / phenol test kit, or if available at YOUR Walmart (check availability), get the HTH 6-way DROPS test kit, which is compatible with the Taylor K2006. Test the pool as soon and you can, and post the results. If you get the 6-way kit, ALSO test the water you FILL the pool with, especially if it's a well, and post THOSE results as well. (The HTH is the best available kit you're likely to find locally, but it's not the K-2006. It can only provide rough measurements chlorine levels above 5 ppm, and it measures "TOTAL" hardness, rather than "CALCIUM" hardness, which is not ideal.)

+ Having a good test kit makes pool care easier for EVERYONE. A good test kit means a kit that can test chlorine from 0 - 25 ppm, pH, alkalinity, calcium hardness, and stabilizer with reasonable accuracy. Test strips (AKA 'guess-strips' ) do NOT meet this standard. Some pool store testing is accurate; most is not. The ONLY way you'll know whether your pool store is accurate or bogus, is by testing accurately your own self. On the other hand, pool store 'computer' dosing recommendations are NEVER trustworthy -- ignore them. They are designed to sell more chemicals than you need, and WILL cause many pool problems.

+ We recommend the Taylor K-2006 test kit, which meets the requirements above, for many reasons. The HTH 6-way drops kit is a great starter kit, and is compatible with the K2006 (it's made by Taylor). There are a few alternatives; for example Lamotte makes an FAS-DPD kit that's OK -- but it costs 3x as much. But, we're not aware of any test that is better, and since we are all familiar with the K-2006 (and can help you with it) we recommend it exclusively ( Test kit info page )

One caution for the 2012 season: Amazon does not stock the kits directly. So when buying at Amazon, Amato is our current preferred seller. However, they often don't list enough stock to last the whole day, so try order mid-morning. You should expect a delivered cost under $60 for the K2006A and under $95 for the K2006C. If you can't find that, wait a day.

+ Here are links to the kits we recommend:

HTH 6-Way Test Kit @ Walmart
Taylor K2006A (3/4 oz bottles) @ Amazon
Taylor K2006C (2 oz bottles) @ Amazon

[PoolDoc]

Oh, one more thing. I looked at your chart info -- either your pool dimensions are way off, or your gallons are. It matters, because getting the dose reasonably correct makes it much easier to fix pool water problems.

[lucybfiddle]

Yeah-I was just guessing on the dimensions. I will try to measure it, but the pool place saw it and said 30000 gallon.
Here is a list of chemicals added over the last 3 weeks (chronolocigally and as best as I can remember!)

Pool is black:
1 qt phos away
25 lbs granular dichlor
Pool turns brown:

3-4 days later...
20 lbs power clear (calcium hypochlorate)
~15 3" trichlor tabs
1 qt floc
Pool turns dark green
vacuum, vacuum, vacuum

Pool turns aqua green
A couple days later...
~12 lbs multiclear shock (sodium dichlor)
~ 8 lbs pH up
Pool turns cloudy blue

Another day...
12 lbs baking soda
1 qt floc

Vacuum alot again
Pool turns clear

2 days ago...
~8 lbs multiclear shock (sodium dichlor)
~7 lbs pH up
Brushed the pool sides

Pool turns dark brown
1 qt algecide plus (3% copper)

I turn to poolforum for help!

And now we are up to date.
Oh yeah-I tested the water a few minutes ago with my walmart kit (OTO\Phenol) The chlorine is right at 1.0ppm (kinda more between 0.6 and 1 but closer to 1) and the pH is still at the 6.8 color.

[lucybfiddle]

The pool dimensions are 20X38, with an average depth of 5.5 foot.

I ordered a Taylor 2006 kit, but it won't be here till Friday. Is there something I can do in the meantime?

I know it's a lot of bleach, but I would like to NOT drain and refill the pool.

Thanks!!

[PoolDoc]

Yeah.

1. Filter 24/7.
2. Add a quart of polyquat, if available. It will help with algae AND removing iron and dead algae.
3. Add frequent 1 ppm doses of chlorine to the skimmer. Cal hypo would be best, but bleach will help too. 1/4 gallon of bleach or 1/3 lb of cal hypo.
4. In between chlorine doses, add 1/2 box doses of borax, added slowly to the skimmer. Continue these regularly, till you reach 7.0.

[lucybfiddle]

Yeah! I got my Taylor K-2006 today!
Here are my results (well most of them, I couldn't do the ca hardness bc my kit had 2 of R-0012 reagent, but I'm getting that taken care of)

pH=7
Alkalinity =90ppm
FC=0.8ppm
CC=1.2 ppm
CYA= 50ppm

The water is no longer muddy brown, but I need to know what to do with it now. :-)
I have bleach, baking soda and borax on hand and am ready to go!!

[PoolDoc]

for a 30K gallon pool, pH=7.0; FC=0.8; CYA=50:

1. Add 2 gallons of bleach immediately (4 ppm) and 6 gallons (12 ppm) tonight.
2. Add 1 box of borax SLOWLY via the skimmer.
3. Retest chlorine and pH in the AM. If FC>10 ppm, you are probably OK, and can live with daily 4 ppm (2 gallon) doses till you have another plan.
4. If the pH < 7.4, repeat daily borax doses till it is above 7.4.
5. Read the Best Guess chart page, so you can get an idea about how you may want to operate your pool for the rest of the summer.
6. Test your calcium levels, to make sure they are not high enough to be a problem.