Hi Waste,

Thanks for the observations.
Let me address the points one at a time.
1. I have regularly removed the eyeballs in order to reposition the direction of flow (they are tight so they have to be disassembled to change. There has never been any noticeable stain or deposit seen there.
2. When we got the pool installed 4 years ago the pool company shorted us about 4000 gallons on the initial fill and we used the well to finish that fill. Since then we have regularly added thousands of gallons of water from the well every year to replace splash out and evaporation. The pool holds about 500 gallons to the inch so it has been easy to keep track of how much has been added.
3. As mentioned in the initial post we discontinued using pucks, on 6-24-06 to be exact (I keep very careful records in the form of an Excel Spreadsheet – every test – every treatment and setting). On the July 1, 2006 we started using Cal Hypo granules at the rate of 12 oz being equal to 1 gal bleach – in conjunction with Michael's bleach calculator to determine the dose. We did this until we discovered (with the help of y’all on this forum) that the Cal Hypo was causing the cloudiness that would not go away (see my posts back around 2 weeks ago). We took Carl’s advise and quit with the Cal Hypo and switched to bleach. The pool cleared immediately and all has been good until we noticed the stain yesterday.
4. I have taken samples to be analyzed but not to the pool store. They once told me I had CYA in the well water (another long story that’s 2 years old). To make a long story short I don’t trust them ---- period. I was looking at a water softener a while back and was told I didn’t need one and there was very little iron in the water. That was a while ago so maybe things have changed.

Lastly --- some of the other comments and posts in the “stain” section recommend using Ascorbic Acid. The instructions on the container I got says to lower the free Chlorine to between 1 and 2 ppm before using. Now with the CYA above 50 I hesitate to do that either.

I guess you could say we’re caught between the devil and the deep!!!