Mustard Algae

[AndreaA]

Great and thanks again for helping me out.

I have another strange thing... Let me explain a little and I'll post a pic or two of my issue.

So I have the natural spring under my pool therefore I have three drains that are draining water to a creek that runs through my back yard. Drain one is just ground water and is a french drain under the pool, drain two is for my backwash/waste (the first two were installed by pool constructors), and drain three was put in by my husband to flow the water from the pump (natural spring) water from under the liner to the creek.

This morning when i walked down to the creek I noticed that drain two (backwash/waste) the water in the creek right at that point was completely orange with yucky fluffy stuff. The thing that makes it strange is I just weed whipped that whole creek sunday afternoon and the water was completely creek like "no orange" and since sunday we have vacuumed to waste twice.

So I googled the orange fluff and it looks like an iron reaction to chlorine.. My question is.. is it iron that's already in the creek reacting to my chlorine or iron that's in my pool mixed with my chlorine and then added to the creek water? Or is it even iron?

[AndreaA]

ok. posted photo of the orange goo on the same link as above.

[Watermom]

Wow. That is some yucky-looking orange stuff. Congrats on being the Pool Forum's first weird case of the year!

[AndreaA]

Any advise on what I should continue to do for the meantime?

[PoolDoc]

Looks like iron, alright. You can take a sample from the creek, add a bit of bleach, and see if you get similar fluff to test and see if the creek is iron filled.

But, I don't see why it matters, as long as you don't fill the pool from the creek.

The brown dust in the other picture just looks like dead algae.

PoolDoc

[AndreaA]

If it's algae then why is it not clearing? I've maintained at least 15ppm "no less" for more than 10 days. My filter has been running 24/7 and I've brushed and vacuumed to waste every single day :-(

Do you think it's mustard? Could I have both algae and Iron in the water? I'm seriously ready to throw in the towel. I don't know how to keep this water clear every time I shock with bleach my water turns green. I'm having a pool party on May 7th and feel like it's not going to be clear by then and my kids are driving me crazy to swim.. I'm about ready to hire someone to fix it (sorry I'm venting)...

Tears :-(

[AndreaA]

I have had the water tested many times for metals.. Including today just to be sure.. It all comes back at 0. I've been to two different stores to have it tested and they all come back as negative. I don't know what to think.. No one knows what is wrong with my pool. Everyone says its algae.. I treat for algae and it's still green. I let the filter runs for weeks NON STOP and it's still green. I'm seriously at a loss... The pool store gave me a floc today to put in the filter b/c I went up there raising heck... They took care of this pool for almost a year.. They gave me a written letter when we purchased this house that this pool was in good working order. The guy who was doing the cleaning vacuumed HUGE acorns to waste--which caused a HUGE clog and my skimmer would no longer work.. We had to fix that. Then they had me dump shock in that turned my water green... SWAMP green.. Then they sold me Yellow Out and that made it worse.. Then they sold me Phosfree.. Which made it worse!!! Then I changed out the sand and here I am.. It's still darn green. I've tried the all bleach method and that's not working either... I can't even imagine the amount of bleach that I've dumped in this pool.. My garbage guy probably thinks we are a bunch of weirdos since half of my garbage can is full of empty bleach bottles twice a week... I seriously don't know who to trust or what to do. I've put so much money and crap in this pool in a matter of 4 months and I feel like I've been taken advantage b/c I'm a new pool owner. Everyone is saying something different.... ARGGGGG!!!!