AHHHHHHH What is this stuff? Pic

[DLO]

Okay....I've been trying to rid my otherwise clear pool of this stuff:

I assumed it's algae, but now think it may be scaling.

I shocked the pool to an FC of 28 for the last 24hrs. I had the FC up to 16 for 24hrs before that. I tryed to brush the pool this morning and the stains/algae wouldn't come off. The last time i was swimming I tried a stiff brissled brush and some elbow grease. A few of the stains broke free and others remained. The texture is hard and feels a bit like high grit sandpaper. I tried to make a mark in it with my fingernail as well....to no avail.

This morning's water tested as follows:

FC-20
CC-0
TC-20
pH-7.5
TA-310
CH-190
CYA-48
TEMP-78F


The fill water (rural well water):
pH-7.0
CH-260
TA-400

 

[JasonLion]

Scale is possible given your very high TA, the PH wouldn't need to go all that high to cause scaling. You should work on lowering your TA. Given your fill water you may want to invest some thought into the best long term strategy for aeration. Check out this post by Poseidon and look at the picture for one cool approach.

You can verify it is scale by getting a little bit of it out of the pool and putting a drop of muriatic acid on it. If it foams and bubbles then it is calcium scale. It is a little darker than calcium scale typically is, hard to be completely sure from the photo.

You could also double check for metal stains by rubbing it gently with some crushed vitamin C tablets for 30 seconds and seeing if it clears up.

 

[DLO]

I assume a positive metal test if it does clear with Vit C? I suspect a positive test, our water is high in Iron. Many thanks!

 

[tnthudson]

Also DLO, you may want to have a well company come out and talk to you about an acid reduction system for your well...I had pretty low pH in my well and I was told that it can damage your pipe fittings, appliances, etc...just a suggestion but may be worth the time. I had to get an acid reducer and water softener, but it helped alot.

 

[JasonLion]

It is also possible to have iron mixed into the calcium scaling, which is one way it could get that color if it is calcium scaling (calcium is normally white).

 

[DLO]

Thanks again all! I fabricated an aerator for each inlet and dropped the pH to 7.1. Once I get my TA down to normal levels, and the stains do in fact prove to be scaling/iron....what is the proceedure for removing them?