New pool owner with a rough start

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sbs10v8

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Jul 4, 2016
8
Elizabethton
So I am a first time pool owner/installer and have pieced together a very budget friendly pool from mostly used parts. The actual construction and installation went great and I'm within a 1/2in level all the way around! That's about where the good news ends. I began filling the pool (well water) and about 3/4 way full my well started pumping orange, sediment heavy, water into the pool. I would assume it pumped dirty water for 20-30 min before I caught it, I decided I could filter out the sediment and kept on filling. Once the pool was filled it looked like chocolate milk. I have been running the pump/filter mostly 24/7 and I am making progress. Within the first couple days I added 2 gal of walmart bleach, about 3lbs of stabilizer , and one bag of shock. By the local pool stores recommendation I added 1 qt of "metal free", 1 qt of "stain and scale remover", and a few ozs of water clarifier. The first water test done by the pool store showed
Fc-tc- 10.25
Ph-8.5
Hardness-233
Alkalinity-191
Cya-28
Copper-0
Iron-.1
For the high ph and alkalinity I added approx 1/2 gallon of muriatic acid.

Next day at different pool store I got the following test.
Fc-tc-8.6
Ph-7.4
Alkalinity-165
Hardness-100
Cya-15?

This morning my tf-100 showed up and I got the following results
Tc-fc-12
Cc-0
Ph-7.2
Hardness-150
Alkalinity-260
Cya-40
This is my first time using the kit so my numbers may be a little skewed.

The water has gone from chocolate milk, to dark green, to cloudy light green today. I have been placing paper towels in the skimmer and they come out bright orange after a few hours so I'm slowly getting the sediment out. Any suggestions on where I should go from here?
Thanks
 
Maybe I didn't say it in the original post but the water in the pool is less than a week old and has had high FC since about half full. The first test numbers were from 3 days ago, second set yesterday, and last set this morning. I was under the impression that slamming was to get rid of algae? I'm more than willing to do a slam but just wanted to make sure it is what I need to get the water back clear. I know a lot of my cloudiness is from the sediment that I pumped in from the well. Everytime I backwash the water comes out bright orange and my paper towels in the skimmer are also turning orange within a couple hours.
 
If you have vacuum to waste ability one option might be too use a flocculant to drop the sediment to the pool bottom. This will require shutting down the pump for 24-48 hours but if you really suspect it to be sediment rather than algae you could be okay. The big downside to this is that you will have to refill the pool whatever volume you vacuum out. Something like this may help as well as filling the pool very slowly from the well.

Camco Water Filter with Hose - Walmart.com

Take this as a guess only, sorry I can't be of more help.
 
Oops, read cloudy green. Metal is usually clear green. Often several days to a week will clear up some funky fill water. Keep FC above target for your CYA, [FC/CYA][/FC/CYA]. Some polyfill pillow stuffing will also grab iron.
 
I intentionally over filled the pool knowing I would backwash and rinse several times but have tried to be conservative with my water loss in fear of having to add more well water back in. That hose filter looks like a great option if I do, thanks. I did try the bleach jug full of polyfill trick but had problems with it breaking loose under pressure. Do you think a skimmer full of polyfill would work? So I'm gathering the best course of action right now is to push on filtering 24/7 and hope it will work itself out? Thanks for the help so far.
 
Try the polyfill in the skimmer, what do you have to lose? Last year after adding bleach, the iron in the water precipitated out to make the water cloudy greenish brown. I ran my pump output through a 3 gallon pail stuffed tightly with the polyester fiberfill that my wife bought from her favorite quilt store. The water cleared up in 24 hours, and the polyfill looked like old rusty iron. This year again the water turned upon adding the bleach, it took my 16" sand filter 3 days to completely clear the pool. The backwash water is as dark as very very strong iced tea.
 
+1 on the polyfill. I actually wrapped the batting in a microfiber towel and placed them in the skimmer basket. Ran the filter and cleaned it out every few hours. Rusty orange , but you will see the progress. The batting and microfiber will also help to keep the filter from getting clogged up.
 

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This morning I rigged up a 5 gal bucket filled with polyfill to help with the filtering. I also added some DE to my sand filter to hoperully help grab some of those smaller particles. I have been seeing visible improvements each day so hopefully it will be swim worthy in a couple more days.
 
If your tap water is that bad, then hopefully you have a sediment filter on your house. If you don't you need one. For 30 bucks or so at Home Depot or Lowes you can get a sediment filter that will likely give you a flow rate a lot higher than that walmart filter. It would not be difficult to adapt it to a garden hose. The sediment filter you can also replace the cartridge on it.
 
Just wanted to give an update and thank everyone for the help and suggestions. The polyfilled 5 gal bucket removed tons of sediment from the water and each day has had visible color change and clarity. I finally got to see the pool floor this morning, about 6 days after filling. Been running the filter 24/7, vacuuming daily, and backwashing daily and here's where I was at this morning. Almost there!
20160716_120333.jpg
 
sbs10v8 said:
Yes my house water has several filters, UV, and a water softener on it but I didn't run the pool water through it. Now I know that I should have, oh well, live and learn I guess.
Click to expand...

Your pool water looks much better. For future I'd strongly recommend either cutting in a sediment filter to the hose bib you use to fill the pool. or buying one and adapting to hook up a garden hose then hanging it near the hose bib. They aren;t that expensive and they'll perform better than that walmart one.
 
I'll just be sure to fill with water that has been through my home filtration system instead of running straight off the well. Woke up this morning and the water is clear and no longer swamp like. Last picture update unless something drastic happens...which hopefully it won't.
20160717_115127.jpg
 
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