pool turned orange overnight

[jsc1648]

About a week and half ago, I did an ascorbic acid treatment to my pool and returned all of my orange jets, drains, and skimmer baskets to a bright white. After that I drained half the water out and refilled to lower my CYA (I figured this was the time to do it). Upon refilling, I put in a sequestering agent and did the full TF100 battery of tests and returned all levels to normal. Yesterday, the pool looked fine. I added a little bleach and went on my way (I use the BBB method for the most part). Today, we got maybe an inch of rain while I was at work and when I returned home, the pool is a dark gold color. Not green so much, put a yellow/gold. Plus, all of jets are all the sudden orange again like they were before the acid treatment. I immediately raised the chlorine levels way up by dumping a bottle of bleach in (my "spool" is only about 3500 gallons). This was two hours and nothing seems to be changing. I can normally get noticeable results very quickly as I can get most of the water through the filter in a short period of time. I don't remember ever seeing the pool this color. Also, I can't believe the plastic turned orange on me so quickly (I tested it with a vitamin C pill and lifts right off). The chemistry never got way out of whack or anything. Any advice? I can't seem to find much info on gold water.

Thanks,
Jeff

 

[JasonLion]

Sequestrant will hold the metals in solution for a while, but it slowly breaks down and you need to add more regularly least the stains return. When the sequestrant level is low, iron in the water can react to increased PH levels and/or the addition of chlorine by coloring the water yellow/orange/brown and/or starting to deposit on the surface of the pool. For many people, yellow water plus a blue pool surface gives a green appearance, but if the pool isn't blue it can look like various shades of yellow/orange/brown.

If you see any sign of the stains returning or the color of the water changing, add more sequestrant and/or lower the PH. Both will discourage the formation of any more stains. Adding more chlorine, on the other hand, can have the opposite effect, speeding up the coloring/staining problem.

 

[jsc1648]

Thanks for the quick response. My pH has been about 7.2 this whole time. I guess I'll need to do another AA treatment after I get this algae under control. I probably should have added some more sequestrant by now. I had never used any for the first 3.5 years of having the pool. The plastic didn't turn orange for the first couple years. Now, it seems like it can turn orange in a heartbeat. I'm on "city water", so I wouldn't expect the amount of metals in my water to have drastically changed, but who knows. Bummer

 

[JasonLion]

Metals often build up in the water over a period of years. Most likely your city water has a low level that isn't enough to cause problems at first, but they build up over time due to evaporation and you finally got to a level where there is a problem. There are plenty of other possibilities of course, the city water might have only gotten metals in it recently, or the metals could be coming from somewhere else (though I can't imagine where), and so on. In any case, once the level gets high enough you will continue to have problems until you replace enough water with metals free water to get the metals level down.