I've never seen this before, have you?

Jump to latest Follow Reply
R

ramrod

0
Jul 27, 2010
6
A week a go, our water started clouding up. I figured, ok, no prob. the usual shock thing, throw some bleach in there, then back to norm. Uh, No. It has gotten worse to the point where the water is green, with green stuff settling to the bottom on a daily basis. So I kept shocking, and kept shocking, and kept shocking, daily for a week. Not to mention running the auto pool cleaner too. Now we're at 26ppm chlorine and this stuff will still not clear or go away. My numbers are FC 26, TC 26, PH 7.4, TA 130, CH 320, CYA 40. We've had our pool for years, but never seen anything like this. Yesterday I cleaned the filter cartridge. When I took the cover off the filter, the whole cartridge was green. And I mean tree leaf green. So I figure, ya know, algae, right? There was this green residue at the bottom of the filter, which I was able to catch out of the drain hole into a bucket along with some remaining pool water. I figure, if this is algae that won't die, I'm gonna make it die!!!!! I took the bucket of water and green crop and put some bleach in there. Still was green. Then took a bag of calc hypo, threw it in there, still green. Put some muriatic acid, STILL GREEN!!!! What in the hey is this???? Here's some pics:

Yesterday after bleach, cal hyp, and acid:
http://www.box.net/shared/5uld970v5s

Today, after sitting outside and settling:
http://www.box.net/shared/6sdbhsnh4u

BTW, the second pic somewhat represents what the color of water is right now. Though, not as cloudy, but still with this this awful color and crop settling to the bottom. Any Ideas???
 
I would try the same thing in the bucket, and JUST USE BLEACH. Calhypo will cloud it and there is no reason to add acid which only complicates the issue.

What are you testing with and how confident are you about the CYA result?
What brand of bleach was it and how old was it?
 
I use a taylor k 2006 kit for testing. Been using taylor kits for years, is there a reason not to trust them? The bleach is clorox, 5%, about 2 wks ago from the store, put about cup or so in there. I know the cl hypo would cloud but hoped it would at least turn to white. I was HOPING this was just algae, but not sure now. There's a lot of chlorine in the pool now, and nothing's getting better.
 
Some of what you describe sounds like calcium clouding, some of it sounds like metals in the water and some of it sounds like algae.

You should do an overnight FC loss test. If that shows a loss of 1.0 or lower, you should let the FC level come down below 10 and then lower the PH to 7.2.
 
green + green = white?!

Ok, so I took the bucket of green, bleach smelling water and was gonna do a chlorine test on it today. I had the bucket sitting on a concrete walkway under our deck. While filling a test vial, I accidentally spilled a little on the concrete and it turned the green moss on the concrete white. Almost instantly! Short story, green bleach water plus green moss equals clean white concrete! But the water in the bucket is still green. I've let the TC in the pool get down to 15, but I still got a greeny on my hands. I wasn't losing TC at night, only during the day, which is normal. I've heard that copper can make water turn green. Could this be the cause? I'm gonna find out if Great Escape can test for metals and see where I'm at on that. If not, than I'll see if I can get a test kit online for it. If it is copper I don't know how it would get in there. I don't use algaecides, or any gimmick stuff they sell at the pool store. Never had the need. Could the calcium from the cal hypo turn a pool green? What color is oxidized calcium? I know iron oxide is the famous orange color, and copper turns green, so maybe calcium also turnes green? I digress. Any suggestions would be much appreciated. Thanks.
 
Iron in the water turns yellow. Against a blue pool surface it can appear green. Copper can also have a green tint.

Try some sequesterant, like HTH Metal Control, GLB Sequa Sol, Proteam Metal Magic - anything that is phosphonic acid based.

Add a little sequesterant to your bleach bucket solution - if it changes to another color you'll confirm metals. Some pool stores do test for them but it's not always accurate, and it would likely be cheaper to try metal squesterant than buying your own kit.
 
So here's an update= Nothing's changed

Picked up a bottle of natures way metal treatment from great escape. Tried adding a little to the bucket, no change. We're looking at a Mountain Dew like color at the moment. I drained about a third of the water out of the pool, then refilled. Shocked to 25 ppm TC using bleach. This was yesterday evening. I checked late morning today, and we're at 12 ppm TC. Hmm... wasn't losing that kind of chlor before. No change in pool color. There is a brownish green settlement on the floor, Pool rover doesn't seem to want to pick up any if at all. Seems to just mix it up again. I've read that metal treatments don't play well with high chlor. I added the bottle this morning, should I still shock again to bring back to 25ppm or give it a day? If I can't get this fixed in a week or 2 it may be time to call it quits for the swimming season. :(

Numbers: TC 12, FC 12, CYA 35, PH 7.3, TA 220 (I know, the fill water is 240 and wreaked havoc on my PH/ta) CH 280
 
ramrod said:
So here's an update= Nothing's changed

Picked up a bottle of natures way metal treatment from great escape. Tried adding a little to the bucket, no change. We're looking at a Mountain Dew like color at the moment. I drained about a third of the water out of the pool, then refilled. Shocked to 25 ppm TC using bleach. This was yesterday evening. I checked late morning today, and we're at 12 ppm TC. Hmm... wasn't losing that kind of chlor before. No change in pool color. There is a brownish green settlement on the floor, Pool rover doesn't seem to want to pick up any if at all. Seems to just mix it up again. I've read that metal treatments don't play well with high chlor. I added the bottle this morning, should I still shock again to bring back to 25ppm or give it a day? If I can't get this fixed in a week or 2 it may be time to call it quits for the swimming season. :(

Numbers: TC 12, FC 12, CYA 35, PH 7.3, TA 220 (I know, the fill water is 240 and wreaked havoc on my PH/ta) CH 280
Click to expand...

Jacks Magenta stuff works with high chlorine. I just got in a case of it. This will be first time use of JM. I've been using HTH to prevent iron staining, and very slowly release calcium scaling. I'm going to try the Magenta to see if it will release some copper stains. Old copper stains, on my plaster, are going to take a long time to fade no mater the product; that is if one wants to use the pool while the treatment is going on.

http://www.parpool-spa.com/Page/PoolCar ... Stuff.html

gg=alice
 

Enjoying this content?

Support TFP with a donation.

Give Support
Ramrod,

Unless you have tested positively for metals or know for a fact you have metals, I see no reason to treat the pool for them.

Chlorine kills algae....period. Your latest loss of FC clearly tells me you have algae in the pool (again, unless you know for a fact you have metals)

There is no algae that is immune to chlorine. It can resist, but if you are persistant, you can win.

I don't think you are holding your FC high enough, long enough.

Read "How to Shock you Pool" up in Pool School and follow that procedure precisely.....your pool will turn crystal clear. It may take another week and it will SURELY take you monitoring your FC levels and never letting them drop below 15ppm but your pool will clear.
 
Unless you have tested positively for metals or know for a fact you have metals, I see no reason to treat the pool for them.
Um, I think the bucket test with a half gallon of bleach, and a bag of cal hypo proves to me that its not algae. Still stayed green. I was guessing 25ppm is high for chlor and I'm pretty sure that the bucket had prob 10x that much. Still green. I took the pool back up to 25ppm after my last post, still green. Not even a change of any sort. I'm gonna get in touch with a friend of a friend who works for a water treatment plant and see what he says, or what they use to get copper out of water. He may be able to get a real test done for me. I really don't want to just be dumping chemical after chemical in this pool, for fear of ruining a liner, filter, heater or hoses. I do appreciate the responses but nothing seems to be working at this point. Like I said, this could be just the end of swimming season for us :(
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
UPDATE:

This may be of interest to some of you here so I thought I'd post my recent results from the copper battle.

I was able to get a hold of a guy that works for a village waste water treatment plant (friend's friend). He was able to come by to take a look. Upon looking at my pool he right away knew it was copper. He said I could use a sequestrant in the future to prevent the oxidation, but since the copper had already oxidized, it would do little or no help right now. He told me to pick up a couple bottles of flocculant, add it, then turn the pump off to let it settle, then vacuum to waste. Then let it settle again, then vacuum, and repeat till all visible copper was gone. Then use a sequestrant to keep whatever is left in suspension. He said at the plant, they have huge tanks they use to process waste water. They actually use chlorine at very high levels to kill the bad bacteria from the solid waste, then use flocculant to settle the waste to the bottom, where its removed. Normally, metals such as copper, iron, calcium, will bind with the solids thru the floc process so they really don't have to remove them from the water itself. This process is repeated thru several tanks, then sent to dechlorination before being put back to the river or ground. Did you know there is a chemical called sodium thiosulfate that actually removes chlorine from the water? He told me to use some if I couldn't get my chlor level back down, so as to not bleach my liner. This guy was library of knowledge when it comes to water! He told me what color several metals were when oxidized. Copper, of course, is green. Iron is orange, silver is brown, calcium is a pale tan color. Metals are heavier than most substances, so they almost always settle eventually, but the floc process quickens this. This explains why I was getting some settling even with the pump on. I asked him where I could've got the copper from, he told me to always check pool chemicals labels for the ingredients. A lot of pool chems have copper or some sort of metal in them. Even some chlorines do. Also, rainwater at times will bring some in. Or it could even come from pipes of fill water. I.E. a lot of underground village pipes are copper. He told me to pick up a metal test kit in the future to keep an eye on the levels.

Right now, after 2 days of vacuuming, I'm looking at an almost crystal clear pool, thanks to this guy! Needless to say, many beers are coming his way :cheers: Once again, thank you all for the help. Hope some of this info can help anyone who may experience this mess like I did :)
 
Ramrod.. My 20x40 rectangular IG pool is now looking exactly like you describe! Chlorine levels through the roof and pH 7.4.

I've learned in the past that I can floc the pool and stuff drops to the bottom, which Ive already done once this year, but it just keeps coming back! Couple of questions for you pros.

How often is it safe to Floc the pool?

Is it safe to swim in a pool with flocculant added?

Im worn out and tired of friends making comments about my GREEN pool !!!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Thread Status
Hello , This thread has been inactive for over 60 days. New postings here are unlikely to be seen or responded to by other members. For better visibility, consider Starting A New Thread.
Top Bottom
Back
Jump to latest Follow Reply