Should I use creek water to fill my pool?

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leashy333

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Jun 9, 2013
63
NC
We are in the middle of putting up a 15k gallon above ground pool and are trying to figure out how to fill it up. Our choices are:
a) have the water brought in for a lot of money (cant really afford that)
b) use our well water
c) pump it from the creek

Option B: would be a problem because our well water is very very high in iron. I can smell it in the water, and strongly taste it. I took a sample to the pool store and they agreed that it was very high. They said it could be done but would take a lot of chemicals and several days of backwashing constantly to get the iron out.

Option C: I dont know if its an option or not :) But i saw another user has posted something about using their creek and was asking questions about getting the color out. I could see this maybe being a problem too....The water from the creek has a pretty strong yellowish-brownish tint. Not completely terrible, but definitely obvious in small mason jar. BUT i cant taste or smell any iron in it like I can our well water, so I'm thinking as far as that aspect goes, it would be better to use than the well water. I just dont know what the yellow color is and how hard it would be to get out. I was thinking about taking a sample to the pool store to see how it tests out, but havnt had a chance yet.

So....thoughts anyone?
 
Since your still in the building stage, it sounds like the first thing you need to do is order a good test kit for yourself so you no longer need to rely on a pool store. You can then test each water source yourself and determine which one will require the least amount of work to clean up. If you decide to use the creek, keep in mind that the contents of that water can, and likely will, change from day to day depending on whats going on upstream of you and is likely to contain a lot of organics (<--- aka...algae!) and possibly fertilizer/chemical runoff from farm fields, neighboring yards, etc...


http://tftestkits.net/TF-100-Test-Kit-p4.html
^^^^ Link to Test Kit ^^^^

Congrats on the new pool!!!! :party:
 
We plan to put the wall and liner up this weekend. And will be filling it as soon as we can after that. How does that TF-100 kit compare to this kit?
http://www.amazon.com/Taylor-Comple...8-1&keywords=taylor+pool+water+test+kit+tf100

I found that on another forum as a recommended kit to get. Of course it might be good to also get an iron/copper test kit as well.

Wife is going today to the pool store to test the creek water. The creek is fed by a nearby (1/2 mile away) spring-fed pond. The pond is on a farm, where they do use pesticides, so there is a potential for some stuff to be in the water. I wonder if a water test that I or a pool store could do would even detect stuff like that? And what if there was pesticides, i wonder if it would be safe - like if the chlorine would kill it or whatever.

If we were to try to test for iron ourselves, i guess we would need something like this?
http://www.amazon.com/Taylor-Commer...241964&sr=1-4&keywords=taylor+pool+water+iron
 
To answer the other questions - the well doesnt have a filter. I didnt give you a full picture actually, we do have city water, but I'd rather not use it. The city water is only on the inside of the house - all of our outside faucets are on the well, so it no longer has a filtering system setup. So to even use the city water, I'd have to get some plumbing work done.

The slime bag - I saw that the other day and it looks neat! But then I saw where other users kind of made their own homemade filter, using a 1-gallon bottle packed tight with pillow or quilt stuffing material and were raving about how well it works. I was thinking about using that as a pre-filter to filter the water going into the pool, and then creating another larger bucket full of stuffing material and feed water into that from a sump pump submerged in the pool to keep filtering the water and try to get the iron out (thats if we use well water). Supposedly people have done similiar setups with a iron-filled dirty brown water pool and got it pretty clear within a day or two of filtering with their homemade filter. I'm just afraid it might not work as good for us, b/c our well water is really really irony. So thats why i was thinking of using the creek.
 
It is almost impossible to mechanically filter out iron that is in solution.....despite the claims you hear and see.....it just doesn't work to any meaningful extent.

Iron is most always more prevalent in well water than in a stream so, in lieu of actually testing them both, the creek is your best percentage bet.

When I filled from my pond, I was able to run the pond water through my large pool filter first, then directly into the pool. backwashing about every 4 hours or so, I actually got most of the solids out.

From there, it was a matter of adequate chlorine to get my water crystal clear.
 

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< a) have the water brought in for a lot of money (can't really afford that) >

Are you sure you can't afford that? Do a little cost analysis and you might find that you can. You might find that buying water is a reasonably priced option.

*The cost of importing water is something you know.
*On the other hand, the cost of buying lots of chlorine, sequestrants, etc., and the time involved to get that creek water swimmable is what you need to figure out. You already know that the creek water doesn't look sparkly like you want your pool water to look.

Good luck!
 
Hey, nice to hear someone else use pond/creek water and have good results!

Does adding chlorine (which I've read makes high-iron water turn red/brown) take the iron out of solution to where a filter would help a lot? Most of the places where i read people using their homemade filter and getting good results was from when we they added chlorine to their pool for their first time and were like "Ahhh! my fairly clear water just turned into chocolate"
 
CUTiger78 said:
< a) have the water brought in for a lot of money (can't really afford that) >

Are you sure you can't afford that? Do a little cost analysis and you might find that you can. You might find that buying water is a reasonably priced option.

*The cost of importing water is something you know.
*On the other hand, the cost of buying lots of chlorine, sequestrants, etc., and the time involved to get that creek water swimmable is what you need to figure out. You already know that the creek water doesn't look sparkly like you want your pool water to look.

Good luck!
Click to expand...


I checked a couple weeks ago. It was somewhere in the $225-275 range per load. A load is 6k gallons. I would need 2.5 loads. So I'm assuming I could get either well or creek water clearer for cheaper than that...I also dont mind doing a little bit of work to accomplish it.
 
leashy333 said:
Hey, nice to hear someone else use pond/creek water and have good results!

Does adding chlorine (which I've read makes high-iron water turn red/brown) take the iron out of solution to where a filter would help a lot? Most of the places where i read people using their homemade filter and getting good results was from when we they added chlorine to their pool for their first time and were like "Ahhh! my fairly clear water just turned into chocolate"
Click to expand...


Have you tried that with the creek water yet?

Do you know how long ago they sprayed on the farm? Has it rained recently? Do they have livestock that use the creek/pond? Is the pond stagnant, or quickly replinished by the spring? What does the pond water look like?
 
Does adding chlorine (which I've read makes high-iron water turn red/brown) take the iron out of solution to where a filter would help a lot?
Click to expand...
If you get the iron out of solution, then run it through the filter BEFORE it goes in your pool, that might work reasonable well but you would have to rig up some sort of holding tank PRIOR to the filter.

If you let the water get into your pool and then take the iron out of solution, you risk iron stains and the subsequent night mare of dealing with them.

Don't speculate. Test your well water and then your stream water for iron content and make your decision based on test results..... not guessing.
 
I saw them out spraying probably 2 weeks ago. It has rained here. Not in the last several days, but before that moonsoon-like east coast rain. We would have had our pool up 2 weeks ago, but it did nothing but rain for 2 weeks! Our creek was a river. So...the pond is not used by livestock. I've never actually been to the pond, i could walk over there later today maybe a take a look. So not really sure how often its replenished. But the water coming down our creek is yellowish. Dont know if its like that in the pond or if it turns that way due to the small creek meandering through the woods,roots,etc before getting to our yard.
 
leashy333 said:
I checked a couple weeks ago. It was somewhere in the $225-275 range per load. A load is 6k gallons. I would need 2.5 loads. So I'm assuming I could get either well or creek water clearer for cheaper than that...I also dont mind doing a little bit of work to accomplish it.
Click to expand...
There ya go! Analysis done.

One other thing you might want to consider is running the creek water through a filter bag as it fills the pool. Some people here on TFP have used Slime Bags, others have found that filter bags at Duda Diesel filter as well & are cheaper.

Techguy beat me to it!
 

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