New Pool Owner With High Iron Manually Removing Iron

[labdi01]

Hi Marie.

I actually found a way to remove iron - really remove it. No more chemicals!!!

We took a 5-gal bucket (Fresh Step kitty litter, plastic bucket). My husband drilled holes all over it, he put a big hole in the lid (to accommodate a hose), got his sump pump, hooked a hose from the output on the pump, stuck the other end of the hose in the hole he made in the lid of the bucket, filled the bucket with pillow stuffing (a whole pillow's worth), put the lid on the bucket, sunk both the pump and the bucket (now connected to each other) in the pool. Some batting came out of the bucket and settled in the skimmer - and 15 hours later, we can see under water across the pool (it was opaque brown when we started this). We pulled out the bucket (and gross brown water flowed from it - it made a yucky cloud in the pool), but we rinsed the stuffing out (kept it in the bucket) and removed the stuffing from the skimmer (BROWN), cleaned it and put the bucket back in the pool and clean stuffing in the skimmer. I can't tell you how absolutely amazing this is.

We were searching for pool-water deliverers and making plans to drain/refill. It was going to cost us another $300 - and that plan wasn't perfect, because we still have to fill from our well.

We weren't sure what to expect - but I can tell you, we didn't expect this.

I'm still shocking like mad. I have to test for all my levels today at the store (no kit yet) and we continue to collect the iron.

I'm so incredibly excited - It's not clear - and it's still brown (diluted iced tea with a hint of green) - but not only can we see the bottom, we can see the bottom across the pool! I'm hoping by tonight, we might actually have clear water!!! Then I can focus on getting in it rather than finding another way to deal with the iron - and all that comes with having iron.

I'm also surprised I haven't seen this mentioned in this thread - so I'm waiting for the bad news about this method.

[labdi01]

Update: The homemade and sand filter have been in use for about 43 hrs now. Both are catching lots of iron. The water isn't clear yet - but I am catching glimpses of the bottom in the right light (patterned pool liner). The water is a greenish/turquoise color. We recirculated the water for several hours yesterday, because we could see a noticeable 'clearing' start between sand filter's ouput (input into the pool) and the homemade filter. We didn't want to keep filtering the same water (I know we're really not - but we wanted to rustle things up a bit and get the water moving toward the homemade filter).

I put about another 6 gals of bleach in yesterday and used Borax each time as well to try and keep the pH in check.

Took a sample to the pool store today and my numbers are:

CL/FC - 5
TA - 150
CYA - 0
pH - off-their-charts high (oops)
Iron - 2 (was 3 when we first opened the pool)

Not sure what's going on with CYA - I dissolved a whole bottle since Wed or Thu and continue to use pucks a couple times a day. Still no reading.

Still putting DE into sand filter with each backwash - it's catching tons of iron as is the homemade filter.

We've cleaned the pillow batting in the homemade filter 7 or 8 times since Friday evening and backwashed about 4 times.

I put another 1.5 gals of bleach in today to try and reach shock level, in case my green hue is due to algae. I also put a little muratic acid in to bring pH down - will check levels in a couple hours to see if I need to bring TA up since it was at a good level (150).

Water is definitely changing toward the better and iron is definitely dropping. Will keep you posted. I sure hope I'll get a clear pool within a few days and won't be enslaved to expensive sequestrants. Who knows, may still have to - I can't seem to find much info on dealing with iron this way.

Any info or advice, welcome!

[aylad]

As far as I know, this is the first experience anybody has had with this around this forum--keep us posted on how it's going, we all are continually learning!!

Janet

[labdi01]

Will do Janet! Wish me luck! We're going into week 3 battling this iron issue - this was second-to-last resort! )

[mbar]

Wow, this is a great experiment! I love when I hear of something new that can be used to battle staining Keep us informed. You can keep your makeshift filter around to use for all of your refilling - what a brilliant idea. Keep us informed!

[labdi01]

Marie - it's working!!!

We could definitely see bottom at our last round of rinsing the batting from the homemade filter. We saw some 'pools' of debris at the bottom of the pool, so we ran the vac for a little while - and clearly saw a path everywhere the vac went - so there was some level of settling. We're so excited (silly, I know - but we felt truly defeated on Thu and Fri).

We still have a greenish-hued pool - but it's faded since this am (the hue). There are no visible signs of brown in the pool, but the homemade filter batting keeps coming out brown!

So, I think the green (turquoise) a lot of us see when clearing metals is actually lesser-levels of iron. I won't stand by that statement for sure until the hue is gone and the batting comes out clear. I continue to add bleach - esp since we had a crazy T-storm today and it added about 1/4" of water to our pool (better than coming from our well!!!).

I'm so excited to see the pool tomorrow morning.

Oh, and we changed the homemade filter material to 'traditional quilt' poly fil from Walmart (a rolled 'blanket' of batting), rather than the loose fiber poly fil we were using- because too much of that stuff was escaping and getting into places it shouldn't be - but it DID work. The other downside of the loose fiber was, the second you lifted it from the pool (whether in the bucket or loose in the skimmer), it would immediately drain the iron right back into the pool. With the quilt poly, you still have to lift your bucket out and away from the pool fast - you don't have to be AS quick as you do with the loose poly.

Eager to see the pool tomorrow am - and I'm going to bring another sample to the store tomorrow to find out how much the iron level fell (and hopefully the pH, too). Cross your fingers for me.

I'll keep everyone posted. It's so much cheaper than sequestrants - and takes about the same amount of time!

[Watermom]

You know what they say --- necessity is the mother of invention!

[labdi01]

Good point!!

Here's hoping I don't humiliate myself on the forum with this! But, you know what? If it saves someone else the time, money and frustration of trying it - well then, I saved someone time, money and frustration!

But how cool would it be for this to actually work???

Gotta say - it's looking good! I can't imagine I have anything left in suspension after almost a week of not using sequestrants and adding as much bleach/cal hypo that I have since Thu.

My husband is calling me "Pool Macgyver" HA!

[CarlD]

Wow! That's exciting! What I like about this idea is it has very little downside--cost of a bucket and batting, and maybe a little lint in the pool. It's not actually capable of harming your pool.

I have an idea: If the bucket with the holes and batting are small enough, before you pull it out of the water, immerse it in a bigger bucket or small plastic garbage pail, then pull them both out. That way the brown iron impregnated water will flow into the outer bucket and not back into the pool.

[mbar]

I love this forum