A couple weeks ago I noticed a greyish-brown blob, sort of mudlike, in one spot in the pool. After the usual cleaning, it was gone, but then it came back a week later in the exact same spot - in a section of the pool that is a shelf, about 3 - 4" deep. Cleaned it, Ok, but then a week later, it was back again. It was cleaned again 4 days ago, and today, it showed up again - same exact spot. The photo I took is not very good, but I wonder if anyone has a guess as to what's happening?
BLOB in the pool
- Thread starter SRQGP
- Start date
See if you can scrape some of it off on a paper towel. Looks like a stain of some kind.
Pool was cleaned yesterday. Around 9 AM today it was still clean. At noon I took this photo of the Return of the Blob. It's a fine white powder. If I disturb it, it reaggregates into the brownish blob. Very strange, 
Do you have jets that push water onto that ledge? Might be dirt collecting there.
Good thought - but there are no jets pushing onto that shelf. I wish I still worked in a Chem lab - I'd bring some water in & test it!
It's worse than I thought. It's no longer just in that one spot - there are patches of this stuff all over the pool bottom. I scooped some up into a clear jar - and I see nothing. But if I touch it, it is slimy. Printout of readings yesterday:
CHEMICAL READINGS
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
CHEMICALS ADDED
|
Last edited:
Is that test from a pool store? If so, that’s the first thing you need to do is get one of the recommended test kits and test everything yourself. If you read through the site a little bit, you’ll find that pool stores have a very poor reputation of accurate water testing. If it’s slimy, it’s likely algae caused by inadequate chlorination
It's the test from our pool maintenance company. THey're practically living here lately - our heater failed, then after that was fixed, our filter pump was leaking. Now this. The Chlorine was 5 ppm - isn't that a bit too high, rather than inadequate chlorination. Pool's only 6 years old.
Read through the pool school And you’ll find out that adequate chlorine is dependent on how much sanitizer is in the water. So five parts Vermilion might be at the very low end of minimum or it may even be below minimum if the water is over stabilized. Best advice I can give is to get, one of the recommended test kits. Unfortunately, pool services are usually not any better at testing than the pool stores.
The Free Chlorine and Cyanuric Acid Relationship
Managing your cyanuric acid and Free Chlorine levels is key to stabilizing your pool. Learn how these two items affect each other.
www.troublefreepool.com
Such some up with a turkey baster. Put a white paper towel inside a strainer. Squirt the water/blob onto the paper towel. Allow it to dry and we will go from there.
Good Idea. Did that, and absolutely no coloration or any particulate matter on the paper towel. I then tried multiple volumes and still nothing. I'll try to get a coffee filter from a neighbor & see if that shows anything - that probably has a smaller pore size than a paper towel.
This is the deep end of the pool now.
This is the deep end of the pool now.
The CYA was 60. Our pool is serviced weekly by a pool maintenance company that is not affiliated with a pool supply store. They add chemicals as needed. No automatic chlorination. Funny thing - I noticed this morning that the paper towel I filtered the water through had a tiny insect wing in it.
What type of chlorine do they use? Does their test kit measure over 5ppm free chlorine?
Step #1 of your saga is getting accurate testing of your own. Here's links to
Test Kits Compared
Test Kits Compared