Problem with clear but green water

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S

Stever39

0
May 30, 2016
28
Des Moines Iowa
Soooo my pool is completely clear but a light green. I have an inground 21000 gallon swg pool.

I did a chlorine test last night to this morning and only lost 0.5 FC. I am assuming this might be metals but on the store test, yes I know not super accurate, it said I had 0 copper and 0 iron.

Last Saturday I started my swg and my pool was clearing up. Stupid me put Nix algae and phosphate remover. 2 hours later boom green.

I kept the FC around 10ppm and backwashed twice a day from Sunday night through last night. It is completely clear now but still has a green tint.

Last night levels
FC - 9.5
CC - 0.5 or less
CYA - 23 This is from the store
TA - 80
PH - 7.7

Everything I have read on here it sounds like it might be metals in the pool. Any ideas?
 
The injection of chlorine into water with iron in it causes the iron to become a filterable particle. So, you have basically made the iron somewhat visible (likely not to the naked eye). Well, the color of that iron particle is slightly yellow, and what do yellow and your blue pool water make? GREEN! Once your filter gets hold of those iron particles the green will dissipate in a couple of days. Do you happen to use well water? Do you see Iron stains on your liner?
 
The good news is, after much googling, I found an MSDS for that snake oil and it doesn't have copper in it.

Would you describe that green color more like gatorade or emerald green?

Gatorade would be iron. Try layering a bunch of paper towels in the skimmer basket and check them tomorrow. If it's iron, they'll be orange. Check out this picture: A Tale of Two Filters... and Ugly, Rusty Water.
 
Richard320 said:
The good news is, after much googling, I found an MSDS for that snake oil and it doesn't have copper in it.

Would you describe that green color more like gatorade or emerald green?

Gatorade would be iron. Try layering a bunch of paper towels in the skimmer basket and check them tomorrow. If it's iron, they'll be orange. Check out this picture: A Tale of Two Filters... and Ugly, Rusty Water.
Click to expand...

It is an emerald green. Crazy thing is I was already putting chlorine in and no green color. Then when I initially put that Nix in within two hours it turned very dark green.
 
Stever39 said:
It is an emerald green. Crazy thing is I was already putting chlorine in and no green color. Then when I initially put that Nix in within two hours it turned very dark green.
Click to expand...
That sounds like copper. I don;t know enough chemistry to know if any of the ingredients would react with any suspended copper. There are some real chemistry experts who may know. We'll have to wait for them. Here's the MSDS http://www.prolinedist.com/wp-content/uploads/GLB-Ultima_NIX.pdf
 
The NIX product is just lanthanum chloride (phosphate reducer) and a mild clarifier, not very powerful stuff but it will cloud a pool with phosphates. Also, the clarifier used in it is a simple ABDAC type algaecide and clarifier which, when oxidized by chlorine, will cause foaming and cloudiness in the water. Soooo....probably not the best stuff to add.

I would do as the others have stated and simply keep your chlorine elevated and keep filtering. Try the paper towels in the skimmer to see if that catches any particulates and you can also add some DE to the sand filter to help it filter out particulates a little better. However, in order to really help, we've got to get some REAL test results done not the phony-baloney pool store testing. Get yourself one of the recommended test kits and post some results from that.
 
As mentioned above, clear green is an indication of iron in the pool. The general metals tests aren't very reliable and usually return a false negative unless the iron content is really high. One way to determine if it's iron is to buy a bottle of the recommended sequestrant and add it to the pool. If it rapidly clears you can almost bet it's metals.
 

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I let my FC drop down to 5.5. Couldn't wait any longer because I am impatient. Put the sequestrant in last night. Wife just texted and the pool is crystal clear.

Our suburb's water comes from the neighboring city and is stored in water towers. I know Des Moines water has near zero metals. I am wondering if we are getting metals from the water towers.
 
That's a good guess. I actually think a lot of people get fluctuating but generally low volumes of iron periodically each season from municipal sources...and only suspect it on a precipitation event after accumulation. My suspicion is a season of reading water treatment methods/control for metals and their approach to sequestrant...which breaks down over time and I think gets further oxidized in pool settings.
 
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