Help!! Iron???

Apr 1, 2015
6
wilmington nc
This is not my first rodeo, I found tfp years ago with my first pool and have used SLAM ever since, very successfully.
Last year we didnt open the pool (11800g inground vinyl pool running IC15 SWG and pentair clean and clear 150 filter cartridge, with new filters 2020) as my husband had a bone marrow transplant. It stayed covered. This year we came back to reopen, knowing we might take a day or two longer than the typical 2.5 days to SLAM to perfectly clear water. That was two weeks ago!!! We seemed to be making good progress for a few days then seem to have hit a brick wall. I believe our problem hit on day 2 when I decided to vacuum to waste, bc our little dolphin dx3 power supply fizzled. Husband refilled the pool from well (mistake, I have never done that), it was maybe 2 inches of water.
I had measured cya being at about 80, and so kept the chlorine at the appropriate level for that (31) Pool store later measures cya at 38, I dont think we added even close to enough water to bring it down that much. Several days of rain later, I am measuring cya at about 45, and keeping the shock levels appropriate for slam by tfp poolmath.
Pool store measured iron at .2ppm. I wonder if at the very high chlorine levels that level of iron could cause a slightly brown cloudiness?Note, the white stairs were badly stained brown. Tested with vitamin c tablet and immediately cleared the stain. The walls also seem to have light brown staining and the water is very cloudy. At pool store phosphates measured 441ppb. Pool store said that could be the culprit but from tfp.com I am not sure about that.
After 3 nights of occult free chlorine loss of <=1.0 and cc 0.5 but still cloudy and slightly grey brown water I am backing off the levels for next steps. What ARE my next steps? Focus on the iron?
Using Taylor k2006 test kit.
 
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Last night 10pm
FC 1.0
cc1.0
Ph7.2 (brought down from 7.6 with MA)
TA 70 (down a bit from the MA)
Cya 30

This morning fc and cc are the same.
Husband made and ran a polyfill filter for 2 days with no change. Clarifier two days ago...no effect. Floc for last 24 hours, no effect.
Considering an HEDP metal sequestrant.
 
So, it seems that dropping our chlorine to near zero has released the iron and it is now starting to accumulate in our polyfill bucket and skimmer (paper towels and poly fill). When the chlorine was high nothing was filtering out. Now we are getting mucky brown from those filters. I have added just enough liquid chlorine to bring fc up to 3.0, to make sure we dont bloom and to check occult loss overnight (last night I had 0 loss, but started at only 1). See pictures for our mucky brown filter rinse. (Our pool water doesnt look like this!!)7 Every little bit of iron we can get out this way may mean we dont have to use metal-out.
 

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Almost there. "Before" picture is after 2 weeks of SLAM, and after well water was added to shock level pool. No occult loss for 2 nights, but no clearing, either.
After picture is once dropping chlorine to near zero and the DIY polyfill filters started getting the brown out. Raised CYA to 50 and FC to 7.5 last night, to keep the algae at bay. Hoping I wont have to do the AA treatment and sequesterant....going to give it 48 more hours of filtering.
 

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