New Pool Soon.... Well water help..

[Suziqzer]

Hubby and I will be installing our above ground pool this weekend and need to know the best thing to do for our water supply.

We have very hard water... with rust and calcium. Never been tested, but know when our softner is running low on salt!!
If you leave water out for 24 hours it becomes orange with rust if it's not gone through the softner.

We do have a softener for the water in our home which made the water in my son's kiddie pool seem fine for the summer.

My question is this... should we run the water for the pool through the softner? Using rust out pellets or regular?
or....
Use an outside faucet that isn't softened and treat the water another way?

I understand the best option is to find another water source, but I'm afraid it's out of our possibilities.

Thanks for your help!

 

[No P in my ool]

Hi Your water softener will not keep up for filling your pool. My advice is to get your water tested and use a metal sequestering agent. Some one here can recommend a good one. you have to do an initial treatment and do maintenance doses,weekly I think. Good luck!

 

[Bama Rambler]

I'm going to go against No P on this.

While it would be easier to just fill it and deal with the metals later. To my way of thinking whatever it takes to clean it up now will make up for it by not having to spend tons of money and time dealing with it later. I personally hate iron in water because I've had to deal with it in the past so keep in that in mind when reading this post. :blah:

 

[Suziqzer]

:?: So... Bama if I read you right you're saying go ahead and use the softened water when filling the pool?

I know the softener won't "keep up"... I plan on watching the levels of the softener and recharging as needed until we get a full pool.

Then... if we use the softener.... should we use "rust remover/ iron out" or regular salt. Don't want to be over zealous, but don't want to deal with problems of extra chemicals later.

Thanks!

 

[ntrsandman]

Depending on the size/gallons of your pool, having "city" water trucked in to fill the pool could be an option. Your softener should keep up with evaporation/splashing and the cost of the water may be worth it over the cost of chems to treat your well water. Not to mention the potential damage the well water can cause to equipment. JM2C

 

[duraleigh]

How many gallons is in your pool? You are asking your water softener to take on a very ,very large task.

That said, I would do whatever it takes to keep iron saturated water out of the pool

 

[anonapersona]

Would carbon filtration remove the rust?

I ask because a friend of mine used carbon to filter water in which he bred discus. He had canisters filled up with activated charcoal and ran the water though that. They did last a long time, removed a lot of stuff from city water but not sure if it would help for rust. I think my refrigerator filter is carbon, and I used to use an RV filter on my fish tank water that was carbon filled. That came from Walmart, about $17 a few years back. No idea how many gallons you can run through one of those little ones. The scuba tank sized one that my friend made would be better I'd guess.

 

[Bama Rambler]

If your softener is a good one and it has enough capacity then I'd use it. On the other hand if it's on the smaller side then I'd consider an Iron removal filter. They may be expensive but given the task and expense of maintaining a pool full of iron you'll easily offset the cost by not having to buy weekly doses of sequestering agent

Here's one type.

They can be found here Whole House Iron Filtration

 

[geekgranny]

I purchased a fill filter for my spa but I'm using it now for pool too. It is called Pre-Fresh Spa & Pool Water Fill Filter. It can filter up to 8K gallons. The initial one is $29 but you can get a second for $19 if purchased with first. Here is the link.

http://www.spadepot.com/shop/Pre-Fresh-Spa-Pool-Water-Fill-Filter-P784C1.aspx

Another thing to look at is the Filler'-Up Bagâ„¢ by SlimeBag.

http://www.cleanerpools.net/slimebag.php

I'm having iron staining from, what I suspect, the "dirt" the puppies drag into the pool everyday; about 1 lb (damp but not dripping wet) of it a day, not counting what goes to the DE filter. Always had one or two dogs swimming a bit but nothing like these three guys. This is the first time I've had iron staining to this extent. I'm looking at creative ways to use some of the SlimeBags to help reduce the iron and to put backwashed balanced water back into the pool. I backwash at least once a week so that's a lot of wasted balanced water.

 

[Suziqzer]

Thanks all!! Guess I need to do a little more research

I'm not sure what we are going to do yet. Hubby doesn't want to have water trucked in because it will cost us about $600 or more.... was told it's how the fire dept makes $$.

We have a neighbor who works on the dept... Hubby is going to try and catch him and see if he can help us out.

I suggested to Hubby that we just ask the neighbor who has city water how much it costs per unit... assuming a unit here is a gallon and pay the neighbor what it would cost to fill the pool with a hose... assuming it would be cheaper than the truck. He wasn't to excited about that idea...

Need about 14,000 gallons from what I think we read earlier.. 24x52 round pool.

We have an older softener that has a good capacity... doesn't use a lot of salt. It was recently serviced, so is basically like new... just had to replace all the parts that the nasty water clogged and damaged.

Hadn't thought too much about a filter for rust... figured they wouldn't really do the job well enough for the $$. Will have to do some research tonight!

Some friends of ours who live in town have a similar size pool... but shallower, said they filled theirs with their garden hose for about $100 last season.

 

[Bama Rambler]

My 24' round by 52" deep (46" water depth) pool calculates to 12971 gallons.

$600 does seem a little much. The cost of a good iron removal filter is about $400.

The neighbor(s) look to be your best bet. I'd definitely approach the neighbor with the "city" water and see if you could come to an agreement on filling using their water.

Another thought is that if the water main is close enough to you it may pay you to have a meter installed just to fill the pool. The added benefit is that it could be your backup in case of a pump failure. We had wells for years and I don't miss it one bit. I haven't worked on a pump in the pouring rain in the middle of the night in years! Oh yeah, and no more dealing with orange water.

The last option is to use your softener and take a little longer to fill it.

 

[mnb]

There is also this one.

http://www.metaltrap.com/

I bought one to try and filter out some copper that I have in my pool. It seems to be working.

I need to get more hours of filtering with it to be sure. I did take a sample of my pool water and a sample of the water coming out of the filter (which was being fed by my pool water) to the pool store. My pool water had copper, the filtered water did not.

 

[Suziqzer]

Thanks mnb for your input. I had seen those filters in a catalog, but wasn't sure if they were "for real" if you know what I mean.

I'll update Hubby on all the info you have so kindly given and let you all know what we decided to do. Pool goes in Saturday, so not much time to get something ordered... possible some of the pool stores would have a filter if we decide to go that route.

 

[mnb]

Thanks mnb for your input. I had seen those filters in a catalog, but wasn't sure if they were "for real" if you know what I mean.

I'll update Hubby on all the info you have so kindly given and let you all know what we decided to do. Pool goes in Saturday, so not much time to get something ordered... possible some of the pool stores would have a filter if we decide to go that route.

No problem. I was skeptical as well, I guess time will tell if it can remove all of my copper.

I ordered mine online (the 25,000 gallon one), but one of our local stores actually had the 10,000 gallon model in stock. That gave me at least a little comfort of this being a real product.

 

[duraleigh]

To my knowledge, metals in solution (you can't see them) cannot be removed mechanically.....they can only be removed with a chemical proces....i.e. a water softener.

Metals can be removed mechanically if they precipitate out into something visible (like yellow water) but, by then, they have normally attached to something solid and the staining has already occurred.

 

[mnb]

To my knowledge, metals in solution (you can't see them) cannot be removed mechanically.....they can only be removed with a chemical proces....i.e. a water softener.

Metals can be removed mechanically if they precipitate out into something visible (like yellow water) but, by then, they have normally attached to something solid and the staining has already occurred.

I don't know how it works. Looks like they are doing it with a chemical reaction. This is from their brochure:

'With METALTRAP,
the difference is clear.
METALTRAP™ products utilize new “filtration
media materials” that don’t just treat water—
they chemically react to physically trap metals,
removing them permanently!'

All I know is that the sample directly from my pool had copper, the sample that came from the filter did not.

What is interesting is that it says each time you start the water through the filter again, you need to wait until the water runs clear before letting it go back into the pool. I don't know why, but sure enough, each time I start it, for about 15 or 20 seconds it looks rusty/dirty as it comes out and then it turns clear.

 

[PaulR]

To my knowledge, metals in solution (you can't see them) cannot be removed mechanically.....they can only be removed with a chemical proces....i.e. a water softener.

Well, not quite true. Reverse osmosis is a mechanical process and can handle that kind of stuff. I don't think that's the kind of thing people here are talking about, though. The websites for the systems mentioned by people in this thread are a little chintzy on the details, but I get the impression they use something that will attract the metal ions, you can debate whether that's a "chemical" process but strictly speaking it's not introducing anything into the water. I think.
--paulr