I went to the pool store and they tested for metals. Not sure how accurate it is though - Iron was at 0.8 ppm, no copper detected. My guess is that the metals are coming from the city water.
Good morning, Texas. Metal measurement is actually one test the pool store can be decent at
.8 ppm is pretty high...sure fire staining is at .3 ppm. If your municipal water doesn't stain your sink, my guess is that the source water isn't as high but that over time it has accumulated in your pool.
SO, I really like max2k's idea about doing the ascorbic acid treatment then partial drains to get both your cya AND your iron concentration down, but here are my reservations/caveats for a new pool owner on that front:
1. The AA treatment and low FC environment often has folks turn green from algae because they take too long coming back from the treatment. If you end up having to slam, that burns off the sequestrant too (waste of money) and can lead to restaining.
SO what you need to know here is that when you use AA, it WILL fight your chlorine when you try to raise it...often zeroing it out. The trick is to add FC, test in an hour, add FC, test in an hour, until you have broken down your leftover AA and have your TARGET FC from the [fc/cya][/FC/cya] chart maintaining. But do this in a singe day...not over a few.
2. In this case, you will not want to add the sequestrant (use Metal Magic or Jacks Magic for sure fire results) until AFTER you've refilled the pool -- it will need the lower concentration of iron to last/work well.
So in this case, you would refill, add the sequestrant while the FC is still low and ph is in range (in this case, Jacks wants it at 7.2 but Metal Magic would want it at 7.6 ph. So if your tap water is closer to one or the other, that might guide your choice. But since you're to be adjusting your ph to 7.2 and maintaining low h per AA treatment instructions, Ack's is more consistent with your target parameters)
BUT then still add your FC right away...test in an hour...add again etc. ignore any commentary re javks or metal magic about keeping FC low. It will still work (I've done this) in higher FC...its just slamming that wears it down.
3. Lastly, using sequestrant will sometimes make your water look cloudy for a day or two while filter catches up with any excess calcium that as bound to the sequestrant.
I fear this might obscure an algae breakout if one were to start. But if you treat then bring back and maintain FC right away the way I described, then you'd likely be confident enough to ignore any clouding and not slam
with metals, one does everything in ones power to avoid the slam
SO with those caveats, its a good plan of action. A bit fussy for a brand new pool owner, but if you're up for it, we'll guide you through. Here's the link on AA treatment in case you hadn't read (but sounds like you did)
Ascorbic Treatment to rid Pool of metal stains
And alternate approach would after-dilution to do the Metal Magic Sponge test (
http://www.proteampoolcare.com/images/uploads/MetalMagicSpongeTest.pdf )
and see if that alone removes the stain. I had great success with ths aproach one year and never did another AA treatment again thereafter. In this case you are skipping AA and just adding a larger dose of sequestrant. It worked pretty well on my old vinyl pool and was easier to perform.
I always found the AA test a bit nerve-wracking in terms of getting FC up to target without either overdosing or under dosing, each with unintended consequences
Just so you know, going forward, you will need to add maintenance doses of sequestrant to keep the remaining iron in solution.
Since you asked, I did not really have any luck with culator, but am on well and had a constant high source of iron at the time (2 ppm). I now use softened water to top up (its plumbed to my pool spigot) but as of yesterday, also have new water I'd trucked in for a liner change...so I get a fresh start with 24,000 gallons of metal free water
Once you've digested this and formed your plan of action, let us know and please feel free to ask any questions!
