Brown Water From Iron in Above Ground Pool!

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DaviKoNui

0
May 30, 2017
10
Lake Stevens, Washington
Hi so I filled up my pool for the first time this year. I would always empty it out at the end of summer and refill at the beginning of next summer. I only realized that I was ruining my liner recently and that I shouldn't empty my pool. Also I have a sand filter by intex with multivalves.

Anyways, my water has not been filtered with salt for a while and had high iron levels. I filled the pool up to a very light green but clear color (this is what I normally get). Shocking the pool fixes this. My main startup routine is to put chlorine in the skimmer near the pump, shock the pool and then put algeacide after 2-4 hours. This time I put it in immediatly after the shock because I wanted to do everything at once. The water immediately started turning brown, I was able to see it start turning fast. It got darker within the hours. I figured this was rust from the iron. I put 10 oz of flocculant (pool is 12500g), ran on recirculate for 2 hours, shut off pump and left overnight. In the morning I vaccumed the wall and floor to waste. Water is a lot lighter brown now. I can still see those brown particles floating around though.

My question is, what is the next step? What do I do? I have a professional test kit I got on Amazon for $60 but have never even opened it haha. If needed, I could do some tests and post, just let me know what is needed.

Thanks! First time posting to a pool community.
 
Welcome! :wave:

If you can vacuum out any precipitated Iron, that's the best. Even vacuum and then clean the filter. Then it's gone.

Other people have had good luck layering paper towels in the skimmer or packing it with polyester pillow batting. See the picture: A Tale of Two Filters... and Ugly, Rusty Water.

When you have physically removed what you can, then you use a sequestrant. From Pool School:
Sequestrants bind to the metal and prevent them from depositing as stains. Sequestrants slowly break down in the pool, so you will need to continually add more sequestrant on a regular basis to maintain sufficient level to keep the iron or copper sequestered.

Sequestrants based on HEDP, phosphonic acid, or phosphonic acid derivatives are the most effective. ProTeam's Metal Magic and Jack's Magic The Pink Stuff (regular), The Blue Stuff (fresh plaster), and The Purple Stuff (salt) are some of the top brand sequestrants. There are also other brands with similar active ingredients, some of which are noticeably less expensive.
Click to expand...
 
Richard320 said:
Welcome! :wave:

If you can vacuum out any precipitated Iron, that's the best. Even vacuum and then clean the filter. Then it's gone.

Other people have had good luck layering paper towels in the skimmer or packing it with polyester pillow batting. See the picture: A Tale of Two Filters... and Ugly, Rusty Water.

When you have physically removed what you can, then you use a sequestrant. From Pool School:
Click to expand...

Hi so I've removed most of the rust and still waiting on that sequestrant to ship. My pool is now a yellowish green, not my normal green at pool opening. What should I do? pools been shocked and there is a chlorine tablet in the leaftrap of the pump. Should I wait it out?
 
DaviKoNui said:
Hi so I've removed most of the rust and still waiting on that sequestrant to ship. My pool is now a yellowish green, not my normal green at pool opening. What should I do? pools been shocked and there is a chlorine tablet in the leaftrap of the pump. Should I wait it out?
Click to expand...
Welcome to the forum.

First bit of advice is to get that tablet out of the pump basket. Not only is that tablet adding CYA (stabilizer) along with FC, the local area low pH/high FC is really not too good for your pump's seals and such. You should use bleach, aka liquid chlorine.

Our advice at this point will hinge on which test kit you have.

Does your kit include a FAS/DPD chlorine test?

Can you tell us exactly which kit you have?
 
domct203 said:
welcome to the forum.

First bit of advice is to get that tablet out of the pump basket. Not only is that tablet adding cya (stabilizer) along with fc, the local area low ph/high fc is really not too good for your pump's seals and such. You should use bleach, aka liquid chlorine.

Our advice at this point will hinge on which test kit you have.

Does your kit include a fas/dpd chlorine test?

Can you tell us exactly which kit you have?
Click to expand...

taylor technologies inc k-2006 test kit comp chlorine fas-dpd
 
I'd up the chlorine and hope it forces more Iron out and kills any possible algae. Have you added any CYA beyond what's in a few pucks? If not, shock level is 10 FC. I'd let the pH stay wherever it is, in contradiction of the usual SLAM process, to further precipitate any Iron. Make sure you can pass an Overnight Chlorine Loss Test and then adjust pH/FC to whatever levels the sequestrant recommends. You can add the CYA then. Let's not get too far ahead of ourselves.
 

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The paper towel method works like a charm, but takes up to a week. You need papertowels that will not rip or get sucked through the skimmer. I used dried up Clorox wipes (which I of course rinsed of all chemicals) and would replace after every night. Pump would run for 8 hours.

I do have one issue tho, I have a bunch of brown stains in the pool (spotted all over), most likely from the rust. I tried putting in sequestrant, but after 5 hours nothing so far. Not sure how long I need to wait. Ordered a new pool vac and will try to vaccum the spots I believe are stains.
 
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