Confusion after Drain/Refill

reggiehammond

Gold Supporter
Oct 4, 2020
2,253
Fort Worth, Texas
Pool Size
30000
Surface
Plaster
Chlorine
Salt Water Generator
SWG Type
CircuPool RJ-60 Plus
After dropping my pool service and doing a 80% drain/refill, I'm a little perplexed. For the past two summers, we've seemingly had mustard algae. It's never been terrible, but mainly appeared lightly on walls and walls of steps. Could never shock enough to kill off, which made sense once I read up on the TF methods and finding my high CYA levels.

Drained off 80% of the pool, then refilled from our well water. Our aquifer has high iron content in the water.

Upon refilling, I noticed the same yellow/orange tint begin to appear on the walls, which wasn't surprising as FC was effectively 0 due to the refill. Tested, brought the level up to FC 5, as I wasn't ready to SLAM due to wife being out of town and two small kids.

Strangely, I'm not seeing any real changes to water chemistry. I expected FC loss and higher CC's, but I'm not seeing it. Lost FC 1ppm yesterday but it was hot and sunny, so not unexpected.

What should I do? Continue to watch and wait? Or begin SLAM even though I already pass OCLT parameters?

Poolmath logs should be available but please advise if I need to post separately.
 

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Are you sure it’s algae and not iron staining? Water looks nice.
No, I'm not sure. :)
In past summers, I noticed it more as the weather warmed up, and less during the cooler months. But that may also coincide with looking at the pool after the pool service had brushed. It's also not consistent across all of the pool surface, seemingly never on the floor.

Is there a test for iron or means for figuring this out?
 
No, I'm not sure. :)
In past summers, I noticed it more as the weather warmed up, and less during the cooler months. But that may also coincide with looking at the pool after the pool service had brushed. It's also not consistent across all of the pool surface, seemingly never on the floor.

Is there a test for iron or means for figuring this out?
Isn’t the vitamin C test for that purpose? My plaster has all kinds of stains so I haven’t bother to figure out which ones were caused by which element. :)
 
So I've confirmed it's iron stains - it's showing up mainly on the walls of the pool. Water is perfectly clear and balance has been good. Loving the new SWCG, so now to tackle the iron. Read the posts about using a polyfill filter medium and picked up two boxes yesterday at Joann for 1/2 the price of Amazon and Walmart. Score.

If I can visibly see the iron, do I still need to SLAM to get the iron to oxidize? When I brush the iron on the walls, it comes off in a small cloud currently.
 

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