Not Algae, But Metals....Didn't Know Where to Post

[rob.mwpropane]

This is NOT about algae (not yet anyway, but I see it heading in that direction), but I didn't know where else to post...

My pool turned green, (water had a very green/yellowish tint, but clear to the bottom...kind of like a glass of bourbon). Turns out it was metals in the pool. As per TFP I let FC drop to 0, lowered the pH to 7.2, waited a little while and added "Metal Out". Pool went crystal clear in no time! I let it filter for 24 hours, raised the pH just a hair, and added enough FC to bring it up to 6. Got home yesterday....and the pool is green again.

So yesterday afternoon I let FC drop to 0, lowered pH to 6.8 (as per "Metal Out's" bottle) and added the second bottle of Metal Out.

Am I doing something wrong? One bottle (per 10,000 gallons) should of almost been enough to clear the water (and it did, but the green came back). Am I adding too much Cl too fast? I'm getting a little worried because I know at some point the true green algae will bite me in the butt letting the FC be at 0 for a few days....

Any suggestions?

Currently;

FC - 0
TA - 70
CYA - 65-70(ish, after the pool cleared I added another sock to bring it to this level...it's dissolving now)
pH - 6.8

 

[crokett]

I went through this at my last house, it had extremely high concentrations of iron in the water. I'll keep a long story short, but say I now swear by the Jack's Magic line of products. I tried 3 or 4 different ones before I found Jack's Magic. What I learned from Jack (yes, the guy who's name is on the bottle): His products (and I assume others) assume 'normal' ranges of pH, Calcium Hardness, etc. His products also don't require letting the FC drop to 0, nor adjusting the pH, at least as far as I know. I did some testing in a bucket with pool water and found I had to use about 2.5 times his recommended dosage rate. I also had to adjust the CH up, I had a vinyl pool so wasn't worried about it. My problem was mostly not using enough sequestrant.

 

[rob.mwpropane]

My problem was mostly not using enough sequestrant.

I think this is where I'm at. I appreciate the suggestion of Jack's stuff. I'm anxious to see what the pool is doing later today...of course we're going camping this weekend, so I can only assume that I'll play h*ll trying to get it back in line when I get back.

Just a quick edit: last year I dealt with stains on the floor, this year it's just discolored water. I'm not even sure I needed to lower FC to 0 (and haven't had to add citric acid for anything) because I don't think I was trying to dissolve anything (to lift the stains). I most likely could of just added the sequestrant and been ok....maybe...

 

[rob.mwpropane]

So I'm reading a lot of stuff on the net about people "catching" the iron in filter socks with some pretty great pictures. Specifically, I keep ending up here;

https://www.finishing.com/149/95.shtml

Some of the more mild pictures is exactly how my pool looks. Nice green tint to the water.

How come this isn't an article in the school? Has anyone done this and to what degree of success? It would be great to get iron out of the pool as opposed to just sequestering it knowing one day it'll come back.

Thoughts?

 

[crokett]

well, having dealt with well water that had extremely high iron before, my thought with one of those filtering systems was adding more water off the well was just going to put more iron back into the water, and I'd be catching the iron all over again. I decided just to keep it sequestered, since I was going to have to do that anyway.

 

[Bama Rambler]

The problem is that at this point there's no reliable way of removing the metals from the water that's reasonably affordable. There's R/O, but that's not available to most and it's pretty darn expensive.

We've heard of paper towels in the skimmer, terry towels hung in front of a return, raising pH, lowering pH, shocking with chlorine to oxidize the iron and then filtering it out. And a bunch of different ways of removing the metals, but so far none have been very repeatable. Some work for some, but not for others, but no one or two methods are reliable regularly.

Once we find something or some method that's reliable most of the time, you can bet we'll be promoting it.

 

[rob.mwpropane]

well, having dealt with well water that had extremely high iron before, my thought with one of those filtering systems was adding more water off the well was just going to put more iron back into the water, and I'd be catching the iron all over again. I decided just to keep it sequestered, since I was going to have to do that anyway.

What is your average sequestrant use? Or anyone's average use for that matter?

I did not have this issue for the first 2 years the pool was around. At the end of last year I had a mild stain problem (honestly, I let the pH climb and that was most likely the source of my issue, the high pH letting metals precipitate out), did an AA treatment and all was good.

This year I switched to a new (used, new to me) filter. It is a Sta Rite cartridge filter (in sig). I cleaned the cartridges with muriatic acid as per TFP recommendation, and then it sat for a while. Almost instantly after turning this filter on, the water started to turn. What the kicker is, it means I added metal to my water when turning on this filter. I guess the good news is though, with enough sequestrant, I should be able to get it back under control, and also adding water to the pool from my well won't really increase the issue. Our toilets / tubs are pretty clean, and again, I've never had this issue before

If this round of sequestrant doesn't do the trick, I think I'll give Proteam MM a shot. From reading the other threads on here (and realizing my problems are no where near as bad as some, and at this point my complaints are starting to sound more like whining, at least to myself. Thank you TFP for putting my issues into perspective!!)

It sounds like with MM you do not have to lower pH, and it does not consume FC like other sequestrants do.[h=1][/h]

- - - Updated - - -

The problem is that at this point there's no reliable way of removing the metals from the water that's reasonably affordable. There's R/O, but that's not available to most and it's pretty darn expensive.

We've heard of paper towels in the skimmer, terry towels hung in front of a return, raising pH, lowering pH, shocking with chlorine to oxidize the iron and then filtering it out. And a bunch of different ways of removing the metals, but so far none have been very repeatable. Some work for some, but not for others, but no one or two methods are reliable regularly.

Once we find something or some method that's reliable most of the time, you can bet we'll be promoting it.

I would assume it's because the "one size fits all" approach doesn't work. It sure would be great to just throw something like floc in there to get the metals to fall out of solution and vacuum to waste.

Should my cartridge filter do as good of a job as "skimmer sock filters"? I have plenty of that floss laying around, but don't want to use it if I don't have to. I've read it can clog a cartridge filter up pretty good.

 

[rob.mwpropane]

Just a quick update, pool was blue yesterday when I got home. I did bring FC up to 6 (or at least I added enough to bring it there, the Metal Out might have "eaten" some). This morning it was still blue, so this afternoon I'll use borax to bring the pH back up. Fingers crossed, everything stays ok. It seems my discoloration usually happens when I raise the pH. I know adding the chlorine last night should of changed it if it was going to change also, so we'll see.

 

[rob.mwpropane]

Well I figure I'll update this for anyone else following at a later date. Adding the borax to raise pH did bring the discoloration back almost instantly this past Friday. It's insane how fast I can see the color change. I hurried and lowered the pH back to 6.8 w/MA. I was leaving for the beach with the wife and wanted to square some things away before I went. I cleaned the skimmer baskets and to my surprise the sock that I had added to the basket with CYA was covered in "rust", enough so that I could ring it out on the ground. I instantly went to the cartridge filter and tore it apart. What I found was crazy. My clean cartridge filter was covered in rust. I spent 45 minutes hosing it out. By then the water in the pool had changed a darker green from the borax I had added earlier, so I put the filter back together, kept pH at 6.8, and left for the beach. Came home to a spotless blue pool, again was able to get quite a bit of "rust" out of the filter. Put it back together, added borax to bring pH to 7.3 and so far so good!!

TL;DR

Dropped pH to 6.8, waited for cartridge filter to filter all iron out, cleaned filter, raise pH to 7.2, rinse and repeat as needed.

I really lucked out, as I've read a lot of posts about the iron just not going away, or worse still staining everything. When I raised my pH to anything over 7.0, I could instantly see the iron in the water in the form of a green tint. Lowering it back to 6.8 took quite a while longer to have any effect, but did work. The "Metal Out" just seemed to speed up this process a good bit, but my last go round I did not use MO, I just waited (mainly because we were at the beach, had I been home I would have been just as impatient as the next guy!)

Below are pictures of what was coming out of the filter. I've cleaned this twice now, these being of the first time. Tons of "rust" in the filter. I added this filter, and apparently didn't do a thorough job cleaning it, but lesson learned.

Dropbox - Iron in Filter

 

[Bama Rambler]

Thanks for coming back and reporting what you've found. There have been people who have reported being able to filter the iron out of the water, and I'm glad it worked for you. I'm not that lucky.