Copper Green pool

[msbellas]

We are going on 3 weeks with green water! Cannot get the water to change at all.
We have an in ground, vinyl, 35x15, less than 20,000 gallons.
It is definitely high copper, chlorine was perfect, had the water tested and high copper metals.

All levels are in okay range, except copper @ 3, pH is a little on the low side.

So we bypassed/completely disconnected heater thinking copper corrosion was coming from heater.
Drained water 6-8 inches 3 different times and refilled, hoping to at least dilute the green....no change.
Lowered chlorine to .5 and then added 2 containers of Metal Free....no change.

We fear draining completely as we have had a lot of rain, ground is saturated, already have weak walls due to previous liner change.

What will work?

Thanks, kindly.

 

[linen]

Welcome to tfp, msbellas

Is your green water tinted but still clear or is it cloudy?

What is ph a little on the low side mean?

The only quick and reliable way to reduce copper is to a drain/refill and we recommend keeping it below 0.3 ppm to protect against staining and blond hair turning green. Your draining of 8 inches X3 would have reduced your copper to ~ 2.1 ppm. It will take ~20 cycles of this to go from 3 ppm to 0.3 ppm (and will require 2.4 times the volume of you pool to do).

Another approach you can take until your ground water goes down is to use a sequestrant such as Jack's Magic Blue Stuff (I think). Metal Free is not one of our recommended sequestrants.

 

[msbellas]

Thanks for the advice.
The water is definitely green. In the sunlight we can see the bottom and the water is clear but the deeper down gets progressively greener.
PH 7.0
FC 0
CYA 35
TA 40
Copper 2.0

Do these specifics help change anything? Is Jacks stronger than Metal free?

Does jacks need high pH low chlorine to be effective? Thanks again

 

[durandetto]

Get some chlorine in your pool before you have an algae problem, if you don't already. What is your cc level?

Sent from my SPH-L720 using Tapatalk 4 Beta

 

[durandetto]

Did the water change to green after adding chlorine? If so it is probably a metal problem. I had the same issue. I used metal out even though it's not recommended it still got the job done. You need chlorine most of all so you don't end up with an algae problem.

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[duraleigh]

msbellas,

Keep about 3-4 ppm chlorine in your pool at all times while you are developing a plan to get rid of the copper.

Now, do you know how the copper got there? Do you know that even using Jack's or metal free in enough dosage to turn you water back to blue STILL will not get rid of the copper in your water? It'l mean you will have to be constantly adding sequestrant to keep the copper from being visible.....but it's still there.

Answer the above and we'll help you develop a plan.

 

[msbellas]

Yes the copper was from corrosion in the heater, which has since been disconnected entirely.

Yes I understand the copper will still be there, however hoping to just get rid of the toxic green at this point.

TDS are 0 and phosphates are 0 as well.

The pool store suggested lowering chlorine to let metal free work. otherwise the chlorine was staying at 3.

Is there any gram in using high doses of Jacks? This is a product we are not familiar with and no pool company locally sells it.

Thanks again.

 

[msbellas]

So we are making progress with the copper levels. We have done a partial drain, added jacks, backwashed/vacuumed etc and got most of the levels to improve.

The water is still an Aqua greenish color and seems a little bit cloudy.

Here are our most recent numbers
TC 4
FC 4
CC 0
PH 7.2
TA 75
Copper 1
CYA 67
Phosphate 300
What more can we do to get rid of the green?

 

[duraleigh]

I would drain/refill the water out of the pool in 1/3's until the copper level was below .3 ppm. Should be about 2 or 3 - 1/3 drains.

Then your copper issue is past history and you can focus on any remaining pool water issues without concern of the copper.

Unless you do that, it will hang over your head for a good long time.

 

[JasonLion]

Metal Free is not one of the sequestrants we recommend, it is much inferior to the other choices. Sequestrants based on HEDP, phosphonic acid, or phosphonic acid derivatives are the most effective. ProTeam's Metal Magic and Jack's Magic The Pink Stuff (regular), The Blue Stuff (fresh plaster), and The Purple Stuff (salt) are some of the top sequestrants. You can also find many other brands with similar active ingredients, some of which are noticeably less expensive.

Copper at 2.0 is very high. It will take quite a bit of sequestrant, adding more regularly, to keep that under control. It is more cost effective to replace most of your water.