Interesting yellow clear water color, not sure what to do...

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bmarigoni

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Jun 4, 2016
10
Northern Utah
Hi everybody, great boards I have learned a lot searching. Forgive me if I didn't find this info elsewhere, but here goes.

I have a 16' x 48" Intex Steel Fram AG pool with the stock cartridge pump/filter. (seems pretty weak) I have the Intex Krystal Klear SWG as well.

Filled the pool on Thursday (6k gallons) and all was well. The next morning I wake up to clear yellow water. I filled with city water from my house, and I have never known to have high iron or other metals in it. Maybe that is what is going on? Need some advice where to go from here. Hopefully the picture attaches correctly. The guy at the pool store said they don't know, and that they don't really do water cosmetics (!?!?) but just to get the other chemicals in balance.

PH - 7.2
FC - 3
TA - 80
CYA - (+/- 0)

Salt is high - about 5000ppm at the moment.... I used the Morton Splash Ready 99.9% pure pool salt granules in the 40# bag - I put 5 in because the SWG keep beeping low salt.
 

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Welcome to TFP :)

That is a nice yellow color... It may be some low level Iron or some kind of metal, Is your city water from a well? I know mine is...

**** found this *** from here Well Water Problem Troubleshooting | Learn About Wells | Buer

Our water is yellow - how come?
Water that is yellow or greenish tint may have tannic acid that is discoloring the water. Tannic acid is caused by decaying vegetation being absorbed by ground water. Often it is related to nearby swamps or vegetation that was buried by the glaciers such as buried trees. Certain plants contain higher levels of tannic acid so just because you live near a swamp does not mean you will have tannic acid in your water. To test whether you have tannic acid or iron in your water turn on an outside faucet and let the water run for 15 min. Fill a clean white bucket with water. If the water immediately is discolored as the bucket fills you probably have tannins in your water. Sometimes tannins will have a swampy odor as well as color. If the bucket fills and is initially clear, but as time passes it turns yellow or orange it is more than likely iron oxidizing in the water.

How are you testing the water? we recommend your own testing as the best option :)

Get some CYA in there from walmart, HTH brand in the 4 pound bottle, you want 30ppm (2 pounds) poolmath above will help with all of this :)
while you're at walmart pick up 4 bottles of liquid chlorine 10%, your SWG will keep your Free Chlorine up but you want to raise it or add after a party with liquid chlorine.

Normally I would tell you to SLAM your pool but we need to know what test kit you have as most only go to 5 FC and to SLAM you need a test kit that will read up to 50 FC..

I hope this helps :)
 
I would call the city. At the minimum they have an analysis of your water supply and will give you a copy, and you can post it here.

They probably know what it is as they have probably have encountered this before.

EDIT: stop adding salt until you find out what is going on, and also you may have a salt generator problem to deal.
 
Thank you for the quick replies. My numbers came from a test strip I had, so they probably are not the most accurate. It will give a reading up to 10 on the FC. I am planning on getting a TF-100 next week, that should help with the accuracy of the numbers. In speaking with my parents who have lived in this city all of their lives, they are telling me that the water supply is a well.. I would have never known. We have a water softener in the house, and have never seen any discoloration in the bathtub or anything like that. The hose I filled with is hard water straight from the city though.

I apologize, I didn't read the threads about well water, because I did not know that I had that.

I added about 2 pounds of CYA, but it says to wait prior to testing the level.

I checked the cartridge filter which I replaced when I opened the pool, and it seems a little rusty, so maybe I am dealing with an iron issue. I was thinking of trying a metal sequester to see if that helps. Would that be recommended this early on? The rest of my numbers seem to be stabilizing for the most part - with the test strip anyways. I retested the salt content, and I am down to 4260 ppm.

I filled the pool with secondary water last year, and then treated it and never had this problem.. not that I will ever fill with secondary again - that was a chore with all the organics in that water.

Thank you everyone, I will get this taken care of one way or the other.
 
Update on my issue, last night, I placed a white sock over the outlet into the pool, and it quickly started turning red/brown. I added 30oz. of intheswim stain remover, and let the pump run all night. This morning when I checked, it was all but cleared up. I took the filter out to rinse it, and it was really bad. I attached a picture . I also took the sock off to rinse, and was able to rinse a ton of rust out of it. I am going to run all day and check it later.

20160605_070614.jpg
 
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you are getting it, you may have to get another filter but that's ok :) once you get your TF100 you can bring your water to SLAM level for your CYA and see if any more metal dissipates into the water (turns color green or yellow) you can also try paper towels to grab the metal..
 
I fixed my problem, and I thank everyone for the quick replies and the help. I am not sure which one of these fixed the problem, but I have crystal clear clean water in my pool now, and all of my chemicals are in perfect balance.

I added that stain remover, and ran the pump constantly for a few days.

Then I trashed that poorly performing Intex 1500GPH pump/cartridge filter combo and upgraded to a Hayward 1HP 3600 GPH pump with a Cooper Ranger 16" sand filter. First couple of backwashes were just rust, and that was it.
 
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