Filling my pool with well water

[garykane]

I have a concrete pool in the Chicago area with epoxy paint. I have to fill the pool with well water that is very high in iron (9ppm) and hard (80 grains of hardness).
My pool turns orange and then the algae is a persistent problem thru the summer.
How can I get the iron out of the pool and keep the algae at bay?
I heard I need a coagulant and possibly a floculant ? Does anyone have experience with this scenario?
Thanks, in advance.

 

[BoDarville]

Welcome to TFP

When you have iron in the water you need to use sequestrant to bind to the iron and prevent it from redepositing as stains. Unfortunately, sequestrant breaks down over time, you need to be constantly adding more. 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. Also, keep your pH between 7.2 - 7.4.

There is a chance that the iron may precipitate out when chlorine is added. If this happens, you can either add more sequestrant (if you are entertaining and need the pool to be absolutely clear right now) or, if you can deal with the rusty orange color for a while, you can try the "paper towel" method which involves placing paper towels in the skimmers. The paper towels may remove some of the precipitated metal particles. No guarantee this will work, but it is a low cost - low impact alternative worth trying, so I will put it on the table. Some members have had some success with this (see this post: http://www.troublefreepool.com/a-tale-of-two-filters-and-ugly-rusty-water-t46130.html) - scroll towards the bottom to see a picture of the iron filtered out by the paper towels. If you try this method, check on the paper towels every couple of hours or so while the filter is running. Replace towels as needed.

Even if the paper towel method removes some of the iron, you may still need to continue using a sequestrant but perhaps less of it if the paper towel method was at least somewhat successful.

A couple of things to help us help you...

• 1. Please add to your profile the state and nearest city in which you live. Your climate is important to the advice you receive. By doing this, it will appear in all your posts without you having to enter it each time.
  2. Suggest adding information about your pool and related equipment in your signature. By doing this, it will automatically appear in all your posts so you do not have to re-enter it each time. If you have a SWG, please include those letters in your signature so it stands out as the advice for SWG vs. non-SWG is often different.

Here's how to do both of the above: Adding location to your profile and pool info to your signature.

 

[jeffstang]

I had the same problem im also in the chicagoland area (south west suburbs). my well is also very hard with high iron content. I purchaced the metaltrap 6 filtering system from http://hydropuretechnologies.com/ I drained half of the water out of the pool and treated the remaining water with ironout the clarifier/sequestrant with the magnet on the bottle. I refilled the pool with the metaltrap 6 connected to my hose and the iron content is drastically reduced. its been 2 seasons and I no longer use a sequestrant or have issues with brownish orange water or with staining.