Why won't my pool get clean?

[chem geek]

If it were algae, then it would have some semi-transparent parts to it, especially near the edges. If it were dirt or pollen, then it will look pretty solid. It does sound like you've got some sort of reddish dirt in the pool. In addition to the excellent tests that matt gave, you could also just have a bucket of fresh water near the edge of the pool that gets a lot of this stuff and just see if the bucket of water gets it too. I'm betting that it's blown in dirt at this point. You didn't report any unusual chlorine demand.

Since you were able to scrape up some of this stuff, why not put it into a small container and add some concentrated chlorine to it as matt suggested. If it's algae, it will definitely discolor and turn more gray. If it's dirt, it may not change (you can take some dirt from nearby the pool to see how known dirt reacts to concentrated chlorine).

Richard

[mohawk]

I put 1 gallon of RO water in a bucket and then rinsed out the pool rover bag in it. Next I put 1/2 c of 6% bleach in and no change once the sediment settled. I kept adding bleach to see if there was any change and so far after 2c it's still the same color. I used a spoon to dip out the sediment and it looks like sand-very small and fine. The only thing that changed color was the grass and tree stuff that blew in-that changed to white. Maybe I'll try putting something on the return to see if sand is coming in from the filter.

[rilesworld]

mohawk,

I believe the stuff in my pool is some sort of silt/pollen as well. After shocking heavily for 4 days this brown silty substance still finds its way to the bottom the day after I vacuum.

I may take apart my sand filter (which has never been done) to visually inspect the sand and see if any maintenance is needed there. Otherwise I may try a filter sock or else I will just live with it and eventually the vacuuming and backwashing will get it out.

BTW, maybe this is just more pollen, but lately I can see a bunch fine white particulate on the surface of the pool. You can only see it if you catch it at the right angle. This is different than the intial pollen explosion, becuase then I was getting a green film on everything. The cars would be green. Now I am not seeing this green film on the cars, but this white particulate is clearly getting into the pool.

Oh well, its not really effecting the pool any, in fact it was a great weekend of swimming.

Riles