Help,not sure what this is on bottom of pool

[sisie5]

Oh by the way,the sand you see on the ground is the sand from the old filter.I was SOoooo angy I started throwing the sand.That was H.... getting that out,and to say the least just as bad trying to get the new sand in.

again thanks for all your help.here is pic of my pool on the first swim day.
cant wait to see that clear blue water again.

[les_smith]

I've got the same stuff in my pool. I added some DE to the filter. I didn't do it exactly right, but now that I've done the DE I don't seem to have as much sediment in the bottom of the pool. Here's the link to the thread where I was asking about what I did wrong when I added the DE.
http://www.poolforum.com/pf2/showthread.php?t=5376

It kind of explains the reason for the sediment. I think the sediment may be to fine and the sand filter won't catch it. That's my guess and that's why I added the DE.

[Unabomber007]

Nice pic. That's the exact same crap I have in my pool. I have a sand filter as well. Don't know what it is and my solution will probably be to throw my filter off of a building and go back to a DE filter. I've been battling that crap for months now.

[matt4x4]

That's the same stuff I fight every onset of fall, this stuff needs tons of shock 20-25ppm, AND DE in the sand filter to heplp grab it, if you flock once it's dead, it's relatively simple to vac up manually, however, the auto vacs seem to blow it around more than anything, BTW - the stuff in the pic is the live stuff, once you've killed it you'll get that light blue foggy water look - vac it up VERY slowly once dead (manually), you'll backwash at least twice over the course of cleaning the pool, this stuff is nasty and likes to stick around - even at 15 ppm.
Keep it at 25 ppm for 24 hrs, you'll kill it and won't have to replace your filter!

IT IS NOT DEBRIS, matter of fact, vac it up with DE, backwash and you'll see how green it looks, leave it in the pool, COVER if you want, it multiplies - dirt doesn't multiply....

[waste]

Matt, I was just comming back to refute my earlier post that cl wouldn't help ( ), after reading what you said here http://www.poolforum.com/pf2/showthread.php?t=5612. I'm just curious, where does this appear (part of country/ world)? If I've seen it before (Ct), I've misdiagnosed it as 'dirt' and paid it no mind, if I should be 'shocking the BEJESUS out of the pools, I'd really appreciate knowing.
Sorry for any 'bad' info I may have posted on this thread, but I did not know about this type of algae before I saw Matt's post above (though I don't think others had either, perhaps we can call it "Matt's Mud" or "4X4 algae" "

[jstonemo]

I am having the same exact problem that I posted about earlier today. I live in the KC, MO area.

[matt4x4]

Waste - Thanks for that, noe I gotta go get some paper towels and clean the coffee off my monitor!!!! LMAO
With regards to your question, I'm in southern Ontario (canada), Now having reread the posts from tuesday on, I'm beginning to think it does have something to do with people's locations being closer to rural than urban, we have lots of "feed corn" fields around our area, the soil is high in clay content, however, the "mud" is definitely not inert clay dust and could never multiply that much.
Around here, farmers also fertilize in spring, but it's usually so early, your pool is likely not open then, farmers around here also fertilize with liquid manure during fall before they turn the fields over - this was the case a few weeks ago, since it really stunk for a few days.

From my experience, this is what I have leaned in 3 years about the "mud":
Year one - nothing, thought it was dirt, then it was too late - shock shock shock, brush brush brush...
Year two - remembered year one, shock shock shock, brush brush brush but only to the typical 15 ppm, nothing really changed other than the mud very slowly became more mud - slower than year one. Finally had enough, it was end of season anyways, I dumped in my remaining chlorine and voila, within a few days, the mud was killed off.
Year three - this year, almost like clockwork, same time, different year, I started seeing our old friend "mud" again, this time, being wise about how mr mud works, I immediately dumped everything I had in the pool, brushed vigorously for about 2 days and all was well.

Swimmer load does have something to do with it too, I think this stuff set in when the circulation of the water is less optimal, we stopped using the pool on a regualr basis after the first week in august, meaning the water does circulate less, however, I was on top of my chlorine levels DAILY even though we were using the pool less.
First signs of this mud are always past the far side of the steps from the return (my worst spot for good circulation).

At this point, I'm just glad i have a way to control it, 20-25 PPM does seem to be kind of high, but heck, if 15ppm doesn't do it and 25ppm does, it's an easy fix and I'm not questioning it.
Since my chlorine levels and all other levels were in perfect range this year for sure, I can also determine that this stuff is pretty resilient to the effects of normal chlorine levels.

Oh, I wrote some more here:
http://www.poolforum.com/pf2/showthread.php?t=5612