Brown water in pool- from Iron

[PoolDoc]

NewPoolGirl;

I realize that it's confusing when you first get a pool, to try to work out what to do. As is the case in other areas of life, the people who are genuinely trustworthy and knowledgeable don't walk around with a special halo that lets other folks distinguish them from the not so knowledgeable or trustworthy.

But, even so, you have to choose.

If you go to a two different doctors, with an small critter bite, and one says take doxycycline for a week and the other says to take aspirin for a week, you can't help yourself out by alternating with doxycycline one day and aspirin the next. You'll just end up with an untreated infection (if you have one) and intermittent analgesic relief from the aspirin.

But, that's sorta what you are doing here -- you are trying split the difference between HTH's advice and ours, even though they are not compatible. I'm sure it *feels* like doing this way gives you a better chance of success, but unfortunately that's not true.

It sounds like you've mostly followed HTH's advice, so, I would encourage you to stick that . . . and I would ask posters here including the mods to help her do so by not posting more advice in this thread, unless its directed to the ORIGINAL poster, "NewGuyJosh".

Sincerely,

PoolDoc

[Cardiac]

I had the same problem that Newguyjosh and Newpoolgirl had: cesspool brown water, as we have terrible well water. . We have an 18'x54" that holds approx 9,000gals. I have been reading everything in this forum, and it all worked! The water was brown right from the start, so I got busy filtering. Made up some filters out of old cotton towels and placed them in the skimmer. Used an iron and stain remover to isolate the iron. Kept changing the homemade filters and cleaning the cartridge on the Hayward filter. Did this for 24 hours and then shocked it with pool shock that came with the pool. Got a chlorine level of 15ppm. Added pH UP (Use Borax now), and Baking soda to get the pH and alkalinity in the ballpark. Hung a sock full of CYA next to the skimmer, and now my levels are awesome and the pool is crystal clear. Couldn't have done it with these folks.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.....

Bob