Metal in pool

[aylad]

The fact that the chlorine and pH were raised is probably what caused the iron to precipitate and give you brown water. We know how the chlorine got that high....but also keep in mind that high chlorine tends to give falsely high pH results, so I don't really trust your pH result until the chlorine comes back down some.

What is the ingredient in the "shock" and the "chlorine granules" that he added? If it was dichlor, which I think it probably was, it added some CYA. Also, the trichlor pucks that you are using add a great deal of CYA over time, plus you added a huge dose of CYA from startup, so that's why your CYA is suddenly so high. With a CYA that high, you do normally need to run higher chlorine levels to keep the water clean.

You don't need to increase your calcium in a vinyl pool, so if you haven't added the other pound, I wouldn't. Calcium is necessary in plaster/gunite/concrete pools to keep the water from leaching calcium out of the concrete and making it brittle. In a vinyl pool, there is no concrete to protect. Brittleness in a liner is normally a result of sun damage, and/or out of whack water chemistry, not calcium deficiency. Mbar recommends a little calcium in her pool to help with the metals staining the water, but you do not need to raise it any higher than it is. That's a pool store thing--I think they tell you that you need calcium in a vinyl pool because that's what they've been told....and it doesn't normally make any discernable difference, but it's not needed.

Janet

Edit: I see that Marie was typing at the same time I was--I will always defer to her on the metals front!!