"DO have an interesting issue though, that I've not been able to figure out - but I assume these symptoms are related.

1. We have a strange metallic / somewhat bitter / slightly nasty taste in the water.
2. All of our eyes are irritated after 15-30 minutes of swimming in the water (blood-shot eyes, stinging sensation).
3. Our throats and sinuses are irritated if we accidentally inhale choke on the water. Also, I smell the strange smell /taste of the water in my nose and sinuses for several hours after I swim. Last night, I got water up my nose; the burning in my throat and sinuses was so unpleasant, I almost quit right then and there, except that I was too miserable to do anything for several minutes."

Hi Baq-n-ia,

We've been running baqacil for 3 years now and for the most part its been staying clear also but we also get the same symptoms, bad taste, eye irritation after 1/2 hour. Our pool is an 18' round with a dome cover so it says pretty clean as far as debris goes. I've only been adding the 1/2 gallon sanitizer and algistat when the water starts getting some algae forming as I thought the taste was from too much of this stuff. Also adding the gallon of oxidizer about once a month. I confess I don't maintain it much. The chemical test strips are very inaccurate as they have a limited shelf live and the local pool's test results vary way too much for me to have any confidence in their results.

I read in your later posts about adding shock which cleared up the taste and burning eyes. This was the issue that brought me here as I was consideriing switching to chlorine. Can you tell me what the name of it is and where it can be purchased?

Btw - I haven't changed my sand at all but did run a bottle of sand cleaner through the filter a year or two ago. Also, when the pool gets hazy, a capful of flucculant helps bind the smaller particles so the filter can remove it.

Patrick