Extreme Phosphate Milk Filled Pool

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mguzzy said:
Is is this?
www.homedepot.com

Robarb 1 Qt. Super Blue Water Clarifier (6-Pack) 20154A-06 - The Home Depot

Super Blue is a concentrated water clarifier. Customers love how Super Blue produces and maintains crystal clear pool water without affecting pH or alkaline balances. Super Blue works fast to clear cloudy
www.homedepot.com
if so here is the SDS

We really like to know what you are dumping in your pool. I hope your are cleaning your filter often, that is the best way to get suspended particulates out of the water. Clarifies just clump the particulates so the fall to the bottom. Most of the time it ends up in the filter anyway.
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Yes, that is it.

Please understand, the pool did not turn into milk because I put so many chemicals into the pool. It turned into milk because I put just one chemical in. I put in a iron/metal remover to get rid of extensive staining. As soon as I put it in, the pool went from clear to pure milk. I could not even see the first step. That did its thing for a few days and the staining indeed went completely away. The surface is now back to its normal look. Unfortunately the phosphate levels went through the roof, because the iron/stain remover is a phosphate based chemicals. After using it, I have had a bear of a time getting the pool water clear again. That's when I started using different products to try to clear the water. I am 75-80% of the way there now, after 11 days of using the clarifier and washing out the filter 3 to 4 times a day.

I added a photo to show where I am at today. Not perfect yet, but I have made a lot of progress from looking like a gallon of milk looks.
 

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Extreme Phosphate Nightma said:
Yes, that is it.

Please understand, the pool did not turn into milk because I put so many chemicals into the pool. It turned into milk because I put just one chemical in. I put in a iron/metal remover to get rid of extensive staining. As soon as I put it in, the pool went from clear to pure milk. I could not even see the first step. That did its thing for a few days and the staining indeed went completely away. The surface is now back to its normal look. Unfortunately the phosphate levels went through the roof, because the iron/stain remover is a phosphate based chemicals. After using it, I have had a bear of a time getting the pool water clear again. That's when I started using different products to try to clear the water. I am 75-80% of the way there now, after 11 days of using the clarifier and washing out the filter 3 to 4 times a day.

I added a photo to show where I am at today. Not perfect yet, but I have made a lot of progress from looking like a gallon of milk looks.
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I thought you did a vitamin C treatment. I have heard of some metal out type stuff turning the water cloudy.
Glad your making progress
 
Expensive vitamin C. Remember the iron is still in the water. To remove it you must drain the water and replace with iron free water.
 
YippeeSkippy said:
Did that cost very much? Was it called the CUlator?
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CuLator Ultra 4.0 Metal Remover & Stain Preventer for Pools. $73 which I thought was very expensive, but without it I would have to drain the pool to get rid of the metals. You just plop this into the pump basket for 4 months after doing the metal treatment and it is supposed to collect all the metals coming through. Time will tell.
 
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I think we can save you the trouble of waiting 4 months to see. :( I can't recall reading any posts where they truly worked. Might have gotten discolored though. And I bet you could drain and refill the pool with metal free water for less than $73.

Sorry.
 
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YippeeSkippy said:
I think we can save you the trouble of waiting 4 months to see. :( I can't recall reading any posts where they truly worked. Might have gotten discolored though. And I bet you could drain and refill the pool with metal free water for less than $73.

Sorry.
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Not going to risk draining a pool here in Florida. No freaking way, especially when I have a large body of water right behind the pool.
 
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Extreme Phosphate Nightma said:
I used BioGuard Erase Iron Stain Remover. It went well beyond cloudy. It was like I filled the entire pool with milk. I could not believe it.
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I asked way up thread the products you have put in your pool ... specifically. There are some chem guys here that know what exact reaction you created. The cool thing about this website is they can always recommend a generic alternative to the expensive pool store versions. ...
Extreme Phosphate Nightma said:
Not going to risk draining a pool here in Florida. No freaking way, especially when I have a large body of water right behind the pool.
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Check out the other types of water exchange methods that don't involve draining your pool. Specifically look at the no drain water exchange methods.

Draining - Further Reading

www.troublefreepool.com www.troublefreepool.com
 
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I suspect that the cloudy water was caused by the phosphate remover reacting to the phosphates and will get filtered out in a few more days. This is a negative of phosphate removers of almost any kind and should have been openly disclosed to you by the pool store. In the future you can easily avoid this issue by sticking with the FC/CYA Levels.
 
Even here in Arizona, in Tucson with probably the highest rates in the country, filling that pool would cost about $250 in water. In the grand scheme of things, you could change out the water if need be and it would have been cheaper than the chemicals.

If that was the cost of making the pool look like new, that's cheap in the grand scheme of pool ownership.

I figure when something gets really out of line in the water (I've had it happen in my 250 gallon hot tub) then it's just much easier going on changing out some or all of the water.

You can get a cartridge filter in a canister from Home Depot for about $50. Use that in line to vacuum out the bottom of the pool, and yeah you'll be cleaning out that filter a lot. (If you screw that filter up, they are much cheaper than the ones in your filter.) But then you might want to do a partial water change anyway. And yeah it seems you might need to let it settle a bit between vacuums. I'd say do that, and then change out about a quarter of the water and see if that helps. If not, do it again. I bet by then you'd be okay.

I get that we try not to do water changes, many of us are in arid areas. You are not. In Florida you do need to worry about floating the pool when you do changes (so you can only probably safely do partials), but it's not a terribly expensive option compared to those chemicals....
 

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