New pool startup GREEN!

[Lershac]

So new plaster, just finished the acid startup, during the startup the pool looked great, clear (except when we brushed but that cloudiness cleared out quick!)

Added cl to bring it to 3 FC (no CC on testing)
Added washing soda to neutralize he acid
Added baking soda to bring up the TA

BING pool turned green.

Why? We have alot of "floating solids" you can see in the lights too. Pool is clear enough to see any sediment on the bottom. Just green!

 

[Bama Rambler]

If it turned green after the addition of chlorine it sounds like metals of some type. You should get some sequestrant in there soon.

 

[duraleigh]

Help us understand how long it took to turn green. Did you add those three things one after the other?

 

[Lershac]

No I waited about an hour between each chemical addition. To be honest, it was too dark to see color, but when I saw it as the sun came up I was like wtf? So I have no idea how long it took to turn green. To be safe I put sequestrant in after work today. It was slightly less green, but 0 FC and 0 cc.

 

[Bama Rambler]

If it burned up your FC really fast it could have been an algae outbreak. I'd dose it with chlorine and check it in an hour and see if it's all gone. Be careful about shocking with new brand new plaster. Just try to keep some FC in it.

 

[Lershac]

Yeah I am just bumping it up to 4 ppm every am until I reach the month mark. Then I can add salt and get the swg into play to keep a steady feed if need be. I figure 45 days and I can look at shocking it.

 

[carlscan26]

Have you added any CYA yet?

 

[Lershac]

CYA is sitting on the deck in bottles, waiting for me to get it into some old pantyhose and hang it over a return. Been working 18 hour days for the past week or so (only a couple more!) on customer system upgrades. Only upside to this, is I aint got time to swim, my wife is doing all the brushing, and so the plaster is getting a good break-in period.

 

[duraleigh]

Lershac,

There are a few very similar threads in the past couple of seasons (and I have experienced a clear green pool upon start-up in the Spring as well) that are unrelated to algae and apparently unrelated to the common metals (iron and copper) that we find in pool water.

Jason, chem geek, and I are discussing this with Taylor to see if we can gain some insight. I'm only posting this to say there may not be a clear answer to your issue (at least just yet) but based on what knowledge we have, your pool should clear up in the next 5 days or so just from running the pump/filter 24/7.

Just confirming, but your pool water has been a CLEAR green, correct? Has it continued to slowly improve?

 

[Lershac]

Hey Dave, thanks for chiming in.

My initial fill was green, but quickly went away within a day. After the acid startup and a few days of clarity, we neutralized and balanced as described above, and the pool went from crystal clear and blue (sorta... its a grey plaster) to GREEN. I mean GREEN. I immediately thought of metals, but this being MY pool, and MY first startup, I wanted to get some advice. We definitely have metals in our fill water here according to Leslies, and several reputable pool builders locally, and on the advice of the guys here I added a startup dose of sequestrant. The water has un-greened, and returned to the original grey/blue.

To add to that... way back before the plaster, when we had about 15" of rain due to TS Lee, I filled the pool about 4 feet deep, and the fill water was green as grass but relatively clear.