Metal in pool

[newpoolgirl]

Tested pool this morning after adding the bleach last night and strips showed it at 0 again. (If i dip a strip in pure bleach it shows color). Added more chlorine this am due to running out of bleach(will go buy more today). As soon as I dumped it around pool, I stuck strip in(for my own peace of mind) and it did show high chlorine level. It's going to be hot all week here in NE PA. I have been adding algecide as instructed on bottle, and I've never had a slimy liner. Can't find one with polyquat 60%(however you spell it) in it around here.

I have been running new sand filter all night. "I think" that it's less cloudy, but it could be just my imagination. Going to vacuum again today. When I did yesterday there was alot of what looked grey going into filter.

POOL DOC Chemicals ADDED:
32oz Metal out beginning of june
32oz Metal control middle june
32 oz Pool stain treat. (Used 16oz approx almost 3 wks ago (cleared water) got to swim finally for about 2 wks and then used other 16oz approx. on 6/30 when water turned brown. It did not clear this time with procuct.
16oz pool breeze metal treat on approx 7/2 water turned from brown to mint green on7/3, then just cloudy white on 7/4. This is where I am now trying to add bleach to get chlorine reading.

I know, a chemical bath.

[PoolDoc]

OK.

That's not so good.

Do you have exact brands and label names of the "Metal ...." products? Many of those products contain HEDP. Typically, a bottle will be an appropriate dose for a full size 20x40. If that's the case, you may have added a 7x overdose of HEDP to your pool . . . TWICE.

HEDP, in overdose conditions, can precipitate calcium phosphonate as an essentially un-filterable colloidal (really, really small particle) suspension. I did this once, to a 240,000 gallon pool, turning it into a pool filled with 'milk'. It took us two weeks with a massive vacuum DE filter to clean it up.

And, that's just the "Metal . . ." stuff.

Pool Stain Treat is a United Chemical product. Their products notoriously work like black magic: impressive results up front, with a horrible price at the end. They put sodium bromide in almost everything. In Pool Stain Treat, it would lower the oxidation potential of the sanitizer (by changing it to bromine) thus tending to reduce the staining. But bromide INSTANTLY changes your pool to stabilized bromine. They also like oxalic acid. But besides its toxicity (probably not a major risk, because of the way it's applied), oxalic acid has its own chlorine demand. I don't know how large the demand is (Chem Geek may), but it exists.

Honestly, at this point, I have no idea what's in your pool, or what it's doing.

If you have an above ground pool, the most straight forward thing would be to drain and refill. At least that way, we'd be working with a couple of known issues, rather than half a dozen unknown ones.

If you don't drain, we may find you can clean things up in a few days. Or, it may not clear all summer long.

Good luck,

PoolDoc

[waterbear]

Pool Stain Treat is a United Chemical product. Their products notoriously work like black magic: impressive results up front, with a horrible price at the end. They put sodium bromide in almost everything.

Ben,
Pool Stain Treat (and the the Pool Stain Treat spotting bags also) are oxalic acid. 1 lb treats 10k so in her 5k pool this is enough of an overdose to create problems It is a reducing agent just like ascorbic and also creates the same type of chlorine demand! This is one of their products from the short list that is NOT sodium bromide.

[newpoolgirl]

ummmm...figures.. Will I glow if I swim in it? lol

When my pool water turned brown this last time that's when it got cloudy. It turned brown cause my husband added shock and chlorine granules w/in a matter of a few hours.. That was before i added the rest of oxalic acid 16oz and 16oz of United chemicals Metal treat(Tricurboxylic Acid/Phophonbutane).

How do I not get my water to keep turning if I'm not adding a metal treat prevenative dose.( I know I over did it)

But I got my chlorine level to hold for 4 hours the 1st time of my pools life.
pH 7.2
TC 1
FC 4

[PoolDoc]

Hi NPG;

When you have iron in your water, turning brown is what it has to do before you can get it out. Brown iron is the filterable form!

What you could do is drain, refill, and add polyquat as you fill to prevent algae, etc. Then gradually chlorinate with calcium hypochlorite added to the skimmer (I can't remember, do you have a skimmer?) in small doses.

This while STILL cause it to turn brown, but hopefully, you can filter it out as it does.

If not, the other option is to chlorinate, let it all turn nice and brown, then turn the pump off and let it settle. Then, siphon vacuum it off the bottom and out of the pool. Of course, you'll have to refill some after you do, but you might be able to fill to flooding if you are planning to do this, and then vacuum down to normal levels.

Ben
"PoolDoc"

[newpoolgirl]

will the sand filter catch this brown?

[PoolDoc]

It should.

AG pool filters tend to be undersized, and the pumps oversized. Your filter will perform better if you can throttle the flow back some.

Ben
"PoolDoc"