Need advice filling pool with Florida sulfur well water

[PoolDoc]

1. Get a cheap OTO / phenol red drops test kit (unless that's what you have)

2. Get 4 gallons of PLAIN 8% household store-brand bleach (Walmart is good).

3. Add 4 cups (1 quart) of bleach this evening. Begin adding 2 cups each AM and PM, till the pool is HOLDING a dark yellow OTO result. At that point your pool will be sanitary and the sulfur will probably be gone (sulfur => sulfates).

4. Not sure why your filter was red. Please post additional observations on what the filter collects.

[BruceandBuddy]

Doc,

This morning the dip stick measured 0 CYA - Last night I put in 52 oz of 25% CYA and this morning I did the same - tonight the stick measured closer to 0 than 50, so I conclude that there's enough stabilizer and no more was added tonight.
The FC measured 2 ppm this morning and the filter was much lighter (but still I'd say toward red rather than brown). I put in 2 ppm worth of Cl this morning and the water measured about 1.5 tonight. Tonight I put in the 32 oz Cl, which calcs to about 5 ppm worth. So, I take it we're SLAMing the pool at about 7-8 ppm? The pH had come down because of rain, it was about 7.6 or slightly more. Tonight the filter was brown stained. A picture is attached ... sorry it's not because I don't have a url for my pic - sorry ... nerd again.

Thank you for helping me through this - the water looks nice so far and there’s FC left at the end of the day
Someday soon I'll dive into the PoolSchool....

BTW- I just ordered the Taylor K2006

-Bruce

[BruceandBuddy]

Tuesday morning update:
Only 2 ppm FC after putting in 32 oz eight hours ago. Water seems to be eating up about 5 ppm, is that right? Just now I put in 40 oz, which according to the Calculator is 6.5 ppm. Nobody will be in the pool for about another 6 hours. Was that the wrong thing to do?
Thx much.
-Bruce

[FormerBromineUser]

How's your pool doing? Do you love your K2006 kit?

[CarlD]

I'm wondering: Could the filter cartridge be turning red from the sulfur? Yes, I know pure sulfur is yellow, but lots of chemicals display other colors--like iron showing blue in pools as well as red.

[BruceandBuddy]

I am sorry that I have not responded earlier. I tried a couple of days ago but somehow it didn't make it through from my phone. So… how is the pool? At the time of your postings I was trying and had been for a couple of weeks to fix the cloudiness in the pool. I had for whatever reason gotten behind on the pool and had an algae bloom that I was not able to arrest. And the weakest link in my system is or was the filtrate shouldn't. What I ended up doing a couple of weeks ago is to drain and refill the pool. Since it's only 4000 gallons and we had had plenty of rain, I knew my well system could handle it. I took this approach based on advice given another Intex pool owner at about the same time. In hindsight I think this was a good lesson because I will probably incorporate at least a partial drain and refill in next season's Protocol, to be done in early August as a preventative measure. At the same time that I refilled the pool, I put in a sand filtration system, which has made a big big difference in the water clarity. However, since the peak of the season was over at the time of installation, I will have to prove out the filtration system during next seasons use. The water looks absolutely beautiful. Though I have been operating with a higher average chlorine level in the pool then previously. And I have been vacuuming the pool every morning with my Blaster Max (whatever it's called) battery powered vacuum cleaner. Bottom line… I have made some significant improvements to my management, but all is doing wonderfully.

Regarding the red filter that I used to have with the old filtration system… I think it was because of the large amount of oak leaves and debris that would enter the pool. It is unfortunately but of necessity in a location that is difficult to keep from it getting dirty. I don't think it's the water because I have never tasted or seen stains of evidence of iron to our well water. Carl, as you stated our water merely comes out slightly yellow and smelling of sulfur. The ground around the pool is sand mixed with years and years of decomposed shredded oak leaves. I think that's what I was seeing in the initial filter.

[CarlD]

I heard something about southern aquifers, like in Florida and the Bahamas getting sulfurous, especially if not enough water is run through them, but that there are also special filters for it.

My last experience with sulfur water was at summer camp in the early to mid 60's in upstate NY where for two summers the camp's water was dreadful, making everything taste and smell like rotten eggs. They said it was harmless, even good for us, but who knows? Even the camp's "bug juice" reeked of it.