Can I use lake water to fill my pool?

[troy1]

I am buying a foreclosure house. The pool pump hasn't run in over a year, and is very green (Central Florida).

I have read a lot on this website and most people seem to recommend fixing the existing green pool water, but it seems like it would be faster and easier to just drain it, clean it, and refill it.

It seems to me that a drain/refill would be better in many ways. 1) Quicker time to sparkling pool. 2) Probably less chemicals as I don't need to kill a 3/4" thick matt of algae 3) No clogging up the DE filter 4) a lot less backwashing, and therefore less lost DE powder too.....

The only downside is where to get the water. The house is on a well and septic. The toilets and showers are orange, so I know the well water has high iron.

But the house is on a small lake!

Granted the lake is kind of a swamp too, but at least I could try to draw from the middle of the water column and I could filter it too, so at least whatever algae I got in there would be small and suspended in the water column and not hundreds of pounds of it. The real advantages of the lake water are: low iron, less organics than the green pool, and it's free water.

Please let's discuss the pros and cons of doing this.

 

[harleysilo]

Draining a pool in a high water table area could cause it to float out of the ground. What's your water table like?

 

[jblizzle]

Yes the lake water can be used. There are a few threads about using pond water.

You will still have to go through the shock process to kill everything off.

Oh and, there are some threads about introducing mustard algae to the pool (which is difficult to get rid ot) after using the same swimsuit, toys in the lake and the pool.

 

[troy1]

I don't think water table is an issue. The water table should be about the same as the level of the lake and that is easily 15 feet lower than the pool deck, so I should be fine with that.

As for cross contamination of the lake with the pool. I don't think any sane person will ever swim in that lake. It has a muddy shoreline and lilypads everywhere.

Yes, I understand that I will have to shock it hard at first, but I was thinking that it would just be so much less junk to deal with than the amount that is already in there. The walls of the pool are growing algae about 3/4" thick. I have no idea what is on the bottom. There must be hundreds of pounds of organic material growing in there. The only good thing I can think of is that the pool is inside a screen enclosure, so it has no leaves and other organic debris falling in there. Just what has grown in there in a year and half.

I've seen non-screened pools with tadpoles and frogs and floating mats of actual pond weeds growing in there. This one is not "that" bad.

OK, so search for pond water. I was searching on lake water and not finding much... I will try using the keyword pond then.

 

[frustratedpoolmom]

In theory I guess you could. You plan to pressure wash the walls, etc? Whatever you decide, please post pics. We love "Green to Clear Pool Porn". LOL

 

[duraleigh]

I used pond water to fill my pool. A VERY important step is to filter the water as it comes into your pool. YOu may have to rig up something but running the pond water FIRST through your filter gives you a big head start. This will be more difficult with a cart or DE filter but I think it is almost essential to make clearing the pool much less painful.,

 

[troy1]

My plan was to install an irrigation pump to water the gardens with lake water anyway. So I will install the irrigation pump and then I was thinking to buy and use this filter when filling the pool.

http://orlando.craigslist.org/for/3747392998.html

It's only $50.

So I will drain the pool using a sump pump. Wash down and then pressure wash the interior of the pool. I will wet vac the last few inches of mud from the bottom of the pool so we start as clean as possible.

Then refill the pool with filtered lake water.

Once full, turn on the pump and filter 24/7 and start balancing. Closing should be next week. IF it closes on time, I should be ordering test kit and sump pump the week after.

 

[duraleigh]

You could be cleaning that small cartridge filter probably every twenty minutes as you fill. A larger sand filter would be a much better option, even if it cost more.