Time to replace water? Orange stains, again

[racharoow]

My iron problem has been getting worse over the last few years. Our water is dull and lifeless. I miss the days of crystal clear water.

I don't know what to pin it on, but my area does have high levels of iron in the water. Note: I haven't used hose water to fill the pool in years. At the end of last year, I had success clearing the water and stains by using citric acid and/or AA, but the stains would come back as the FC rose. I tried several bottles Jack's Magic Purple but that didn't seem to provide any stability. Is it possible something in my equipment is adding metals to the pool? I have a heater inline that never gets used. I'm not sure if the internals of that heater or metal or not. Being a salt water pool, oxidation is always in the back of my mind. I'd be willing to run the pool without the SWG if I could just get a handle on this issue.

I just opened my pool and am working through clearing the water of whatever is growing in there. Once it's clear, I was going to do citric acid or AA to get everything sparkly and clean then empty the entire pool and get a load of new water. I'd start it off with the correct amount of sequestrant. Obviously, I don't want to get all new water if the problem is elsewhere.

What should I do in this scenario?

Thank you!

 

[Texas Splash]

It sounds like you already have a good concept of what needs to be done. The heater? ..... certainly a possibility if the core is copper and the pH was low for a while. Then you would have an iron/copper cocktail in the pool. If that heater is nothing more than a tunnel for water that never gets used, I'd bypass it or consider re-routing the plumbing to bypass it - or perhaps add a valve to control the flow later if you ever want to use it in the future.

So it's very possible that your source water (iron) and heater (copper) are causing your problems. It's good you can get a truck delivered for the bulk of it. If you refill later from the hose, try pre-filtering as much as you can. The SWG, coupled with a high CYA an relatively low FC, should help to keep any residual iron from trying tp precipitate. Hope that helps.

 

[racharoow]

It sounds like you already have a good concept of what needs to be done. The heater? ..... certainly a possibility if the core is copper and the pH was low for a while. Then you would have an iron/copper cocktail in the pool. If that heater is nothing more than a tunnel for water that never gets used, I'd bypass it or consider re-routing the plumbing to bypass it - or perhaps add a valve to control the flow later if you ever want to use it in the future.

So it's very possible that your source water (iron) and heater (copper) are causing your problems. It's good you can get a truck delivered for the bulk of it. If you refill later from the hose, try pre-filtering as much as you can. The SWG, coupled with a high CYA an relatively low FC, should help to keep any residual iron from trying tp precipitate. Hope that helps.

I had that very thought of taking the heater completely out of the picture. We turned it on the first day we had it (June 2010) to make sure it worked, but never again after that.

Thanks!