This is our third year at our home with a pool and well water and we’ve never been able to get the water right. This year we decided to start over. We have a brand new pentair cartridge filter that we installed a few months ago and the equipment is all working well. We also decided to drain the pool to start over with the water.
We have a section of the pool that’s a spa of about 800 gallons and the rest of the pool is about 18000 gallons. Started with filling the spa area only with our well water that I ran through an RV water filter and it looked pretty good. Moved on to the main pool and the water turned dark brown after a short period of time. Drained that again and hired a truck to bring fresh city water to fill up the pool and it was the clearest the water has ever looked…until it mixed with the spa water and was topped off with some more hose water.
At that point all the water immediately turned green. I took it to be tested (Leslie’s - I don’t have a good test kit yet) and it showed alkalinity of 200, 23 CYA, and no free chlorine. It did not detect elevated metals, but I’ve had experience with brown staining on our tile from the water that I’ve cleaned effectively with vitamin C powder, so I added about a pound of vitamin C to the water. By the next day the water was crystal clear and the green color was gone.
Took a sample to a different local pool store that said pH was low and my test strips agreed, showing about 6.8. I added 2 pounds of soda ash last night, ran the pump for about five hours and when I checked in the morning the water was very cloudy and the pH had not risen hardly at all. I added another pound or so of soda ash and now 12 hours later the water looks about the same - still cloudy, still low pH. Is it normal for the water to be so cloudy 24 hours after adding soda ash?
I have also added a quart of royal metal out and had a few chlorine pucks in the skimmer basket for about 10 hours today and also added about a gallon of muriatic acid after the ascorbic acid due to alkakinity being high according to my test strips.
I’m clearly a newbie to this and have probably made a bunch of mistakes, but I’m not sure where to go from here to get back on track. Any thoughts on where to start would be great.
We have a section of the pool that’s a spa of about 800 gallons and the rest of the pool is about 18000 gallons. Started with filling the spa area only with our well water that I ran through an RV water filter and it looked pretty good. Moved on to the main pool and the water turned dark brown after a short period of time. Drained that again and hired a truck to bring fresh city water to fill up the pool and it was the clearest the water has ever looked…until it mixed with the spa water and was topped off with some more hose water.
At that point all the water immediately turned green. I took it to be tested (Leslie’s - I don’t have a good test kit yet) and it showed alkalinity of 200, 23 CYA, and no free chlorine. It did not detect elevated metals, but I’ve had experience with brown staining on our tile from the water that I’ve cleaned effectively with vitamin C powder, so I added about a pound of vitamin C to the water. By the next day the water was crystal clear and the green color was gone.
Took a sample to a different local pool store that said pH was low and my test strips agreed, showing about 6.8. I added 2 pounds of soda ash last night, ran the pump for about five hours and when I checked in the morning the water was very cloudy and the pH had not risen hardly at all. I added another pound or so of soda ash and now 12 hours later the water looks about the same - still cloudy, still low pH. Is it normal for the water to be so cloudy 24 hours after adding soda ash?
I have also added a quart of royal metal out and had a few chlorine pucks in the skimmer basket for about 10 hours today and also added about a gallon of muriatic acid after the ascorbic acid due to alkakinity being high according to my test strips.
I’m clearly a newbie to this and have probably made a bunch of mistakes, but I’m not sure where to go from here to get back on track. Any thoughts on where to start would be great.
Definitely get yourself a TF-100, TF-Pro Series, or Taylor K-2006C test kit. That's a must. IMO the TF-test kits are best. Take the tablets out of the skimmer. They should never be placed in a skimmer, always use a tab feeder or floater. Plus, they are acidic and are making your pH even lower. Aerate! Aerate the water to increase the pH to at least 7.2.
