Well water fill

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M

mommao

0
Apr 29, 2015
11
Northwestern PA
Hello!

I am setting up a proseries 16'x48" AGP for the first time this summer. For now, I have the stock pump. My fancy test kit is the mail (Taylor K2006), planning on BBB... But for now, I'm still working on digging down my hillside site to level. One shovelful at a time. There will be an uphill retaining wall involved. Side question: I do have foam insulation for underneath- any utility in a thin layer of sand as well?

We have a well with very good supply, but the water is quite hard and sulferous. For house use, we put it through two carbon filters and a softener, and then an RO for drinking.

What parameters should affect my decision to:
1) use the straight well water
2) take it post- filtration
3) take it post-softening
or have it delivered?

I don't have my test kit yet, though I could dig up some water quality testing I had done for the home a few years ago.
 
Thanks!
Here's what I've got:

Sulfur: present
pH: 8.0
Iron: 0.5ppm
Chlorine: not present
Hardness: 9gpg
Total dissolved solids: 450-500ppm

I used to test my tapwater hardness about every month until we got a good softening rhythm established, but haven't monitored any other levels. The bathwater is aquamarine, so I guess there is plenty of iron still in the water post-treatment. If we keep the carbon filters fresh, the sulfur smell is unnoticable post-filtration.
 
Last edited:
The iron and sulfur would be my concerns. Your pool is vinyl so hardness is not a huge concern.

If the iron and sulfer are filtered out then I would probably go that route. If it is not then maybe call around and see what a truck delivery would cost.

- - - Updated - - -

Your pool holds about 5300 gallons according to pool math. You cannot fill the pool the full 48"
 
Okay, another question: if I were to fill it straight from the well, what problems would I have to expect? Is there anything about the iron and sulphur that would make balancing the chemistry difficult, or is it just the issues of smell/ staining the pool? Thanks!
 

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If the iron content is too high then it can precipitate out when exposed to chlorine turning the water brown, this can be treated by the repeated additions of metal sequesterants which keep the iron in solution in the water. The downside here is you have to replenish the sequesterants as they breakdown over time. My water has little/no iron so I can't tell you too many details on amount, cost, etc.
 
Enough Iron in your well water (maybe .5 ppm or more) will be problematic as Isaac says above.

That's why you run it through a softener in your house.

If you could make the fill with trucked in (iron-free) water and then refill through the filters, your troubles will be over. Otherwise, you may be adding sequestrant as long as you own the pool.

I have no familiarity with Sulfur but I suspect it gases out quickly.
 
Update:
We decided the price of trucked water made filling it ourselves worth a shot. We grabbed it after carbon filtration and softening. There is no sulfur smell and it feels great, but we are getting the classic clear green hue (thank you, TFPers and your cameras, for alleviating my algae fears...) from the iron during our first SLAM. Not sure yet whether to bother with sequestrant or not... the color wasn't too bad before SLAMing.

...then there's always that bottle of blue dye ("make it party perfect!") that came with our used pool. How's that for antithetical to TFP?
 
So, I popped a polyfill-stuffed sock into the skimmer basket a few nights ago, and it grabbed quite a bit of the iron. The pump didn't seem to have too much trouble sucking through it. I rinsed it out a few times, filtering through it maybe 20 hours total. I gave the bottom a vacuuming through the sock filter, too. The water is now a gorgeous aquamarine, even with the FC up. If iron is so easy to filter out, I wonder why people spend cash on sequestrant... I'll update if the color returns or I find some other downside! Any thoughts, wise and experienced ones?
 
(I mean, obviously the sock/stuffing isn't going to grab soluble iron, but if you use it while you have FC at shock level and thus a lot of the iron precipitated out, it seems like it could be effective in removing enough not to have gross water next time round... And if you do, another round of filtering is still much cheaper than an $18+ bottle of sequestrant. Right?)
 
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