Newbie needs help!!!!

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mctitan1975

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Jun 12, 2011
4
Hey guys, first time pool owner. I have an intex 16 foot ring pool.

I filled the pool last week using well water. The water had a rusty tinge to it so I went to the local pool store. They said it was iron from the well water which is common. They sold me a $20 bottle of stain and scale remover. They also said i needed to increase the alkalinity. I added the stain/scale remover and the water cleared up within 24 hours. As soon as I added the alkalinity rise the water turned rusty again. I went back to the pool store and this time they sold me a $30 bottle of Stain X, which cleared up the water in a few hours...........I noticed a green tinge to the water the next day. I assumed it was alge but didnt shock the pool because the Stain X said don't for for at least 48 hours. The next day the pool was entirely cloudy and green (I can't even see the bottom). I added 3 pounds of shock yesterday and 2 more pounds today with no results. I went back to the pool store and they tested the water and said I have chlorine lock. They said my free chlorine was 0.1 and my total cholrine was 16. They sold me 2 pounds of non-chlorine shock and told me to add it and come back in 2 days with a new sample.



What is the best way I can clear up this pool?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
 
It sounds like you have more than one thing going on. If you have iron in your water, you'll have to use sequestrant as long as the iron is in the water (which will be as long as the water is in the pool.

It also sounds like you have algae. You don't however have chlorine lock. There's no such thing as chlorine lock. You have however added about 70 ppm CYA to your pool and have not been keeping the chlorine nearly high enough.

How many gallons does your pool hold?

With a pool that small it's almost worth dumping the water and starting over right. Now that you've found this place we can start you off right and keep you from having problems in the future. It may be better to dump half of it and go from there.

Is there any way you can have metals free water brought in to fill the pool? It saves you the problem and expense of having to continually add sequestrant.

Also post all the numbers that you got from the pool store.
pH
FC
CC
TA
CH
CYA
Iron
Copper

Also include the brands and ingredients of what you've added.
 
Thanks for the quick response. Draining the pool would be a last resort, if there is any way to salvage the water I would rather do that.
Here are the levels they gave me today.....bear in mind this was after having 5 pounds of shock put in within 18 hours:

pH 6.5
FC 0.18
CC 15.9
TA 0
CH
CYA 50
Iron 0.1
Copper 0.1


Is there any way to remove the copper/iron? The pool store said it should be removed from the system after about 3 treatments of the Stain X.
 
There's no way to reliably remove metals from the water except reverse osmosis.
I suspect those test results but since that's what we've got, that's what we'll use.

You need to add enough baking soda in the pool to get it to about 70 TA and enough borax to get the pH to about 7.5. You can use the pool Calc to figure out how much that is based on your pool size.

Once you've done that we'll start shocking and adding sequestrant.
 
You have to shock to get rid of the algae. With a CC as high as you have it's going to take a lot of bleach. You need to add 1 large jug of bleach to get it to shock level for your CYA.

The biggest problem you're going to have is testing so you'll know when and how much to add to keep it at shock and when you're done.
 

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