Living in the 90s... Australia

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Hydrookie

Member
Dec 29, 2023
6
Australia 🇦🇺 (the hot part)
Hello - I find myself in the curious position of lurking and learning after buying a house with a wild 90s pool. The previous owner had a laissez-faire approach to most things related to maintenance and the pool was no exception. The pool was surrounded by crazy shedding trees. The weir door: missing (now replaced). Looks like epic blue copper stains, tannin stains and heavily abused pebblecrete that either had multiple acid washes along the way OR it's the original 1992 pebblecrete and it's a mess. There has been a repair of the step and they appear to have chosen the pebblecrete colour for that step repair from a crazy wheel. It is currently on the acidic side because I am making my way down to try citric acid for this copper but I think it's been there so long we're past the point. I found the previous owner's stash of copper algaecide so I suspect... it was that. I suspect they drained it half way down for the step repair then the copper went wild plating all around (guessing). I am resigned to a pool renovation in the not too distant future. I have become obsessed about the stains and I will mostly like continue to play my stain removal games until I commit to a facelift for it.

I managed to dodge pool duties in all previous addresses in my life so I came in cold at this place. I had a pool guy come round and talk absolute BS "you can't really ever have too much chlorine in this heat" he said. Oh also that I need to hurry up and buy more salt. Would have been nice if he told me I had CC. I discovered TFP and have since bought a Taylor kit. I play with the pool more than in the pool.

Now I can say:

FC: 3.5 (still coming down after SLAM - checking to see if these stains were organic... they are not)
CC: 0 (no pink on the test today)
PH: 7.2
CH: 250
CYA: 33 (I have been diluting after the chloramine scandal)
TA: 50 (came down after messing with oxalic acid stain remover... was too impatient to wait for FC to come down so I know I played myself there).

The water is so clear so the stains are making me extra mad.

I have been on a murdering spree of the shedding trees and am in the process of finding and re-planting pool friendly items. Also found an algae blob hiding inside the lower surface of the pool light! There was no other visible or brushable algae anywhere else so it explained the weird numbers (when I had guess strips).

Thank you to everyone who contributes here, it's forced me to do it right and learn the things. It's true what they say: you don't know what you don't know. Blissfully clueless. Now I'm out here like Harry Potter in potions class having flashbacks to what kind of craziness was in my water!!!
 
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Welcome to TFP 👋
Have you checked out these articles?
👇
For identifying your stains:
www.troublefreepool.com

Stains in Your Pool

The stained pool is beyond embarrassing. Our in-depth Guide to remove stains in your pool will help you to remove the stains and prevent them in the future.
www.troublefreepool.com www.troublefreepool.com

&
Since you mainly suspect copper (copper is a real pain!):

Copper in Pool Water - Further Reading

www.troublefreepool.com www.troublefreepool.com
Using citric acid or ascorbic acid can actually darken the copper stains if they are heavy so you want to do a test spot first before treating the entire pool.
 
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Hydrookie said:
Hello - I find myself in the curious position of lurking and learning after buying a house with a wild 90s pool. The previous owner had a laissez-faire approach to most things related to maintenance and the pool was no exception. The pool was surrounded by crazy shedding trees. The weir door: missing (now replaced). Looks like epic blue copper stains, tannin stains and heavily abused pebblecrete that either had multiple acid washes along the way OR it's the original 1992 pebblecrete and it's a mess. There has been a repair of the step and they appear to have chosen the pebblecrete colour for that step repair from a crazy wheel. It is currently on the acidic side because I am making my way down to try citric acid for this copper but I think it's been there so long we're past the point. I found the previous owner's stash of copper algaecide so I suspect... it was that. I suspect they drained it half way down for the step repair then the copper went wild plating all around (guessing). I am resigned to a pool renovation in the not too distant future. I have become obsessed about the stains and I will mostly like continue to play my stain removal games until I commit to a facelift for it.

I managed to dodge pool duties in all previous addresses in my life so I came in cold at this place. I had a pool guy come round and talk absolute BS "you can't really ever have too much chlorine in this heat" he said. Oh also that I need to hurry up and buy more salt. Would have been nice if he told me I had CC. I discovered TFP and have since bought a Taylor kit. I play with the pool more than in the pool.

Now I can say:

FC: 3.5 (still coming down after SLAM - checking to see if these stains were organic... they are not)
CC: 0 (no pink on the test today)
PH: 7.2
CH: 250
CYA: 33 (I have been diluting after the chloramine scandal)
TA: 50 (came down after messing with oxalic acid stain remover... was too impatient to wait for FC to come down so I know I played myself there).

The water is so clear so the stains are making me extra mad.

I have been on a murdering spree of the shedding trees and am in the process of finding and re-planting pool friendly items. Also found an algae blob hiding inside the lower surface of the pool light! There was no other visible or brushable algae anywhere else so it explained the weird numbers (when I had guess strips).

Thank you to everyone who contributes here, it's forced me to do it right and learn the things. It's true what they say: you don't know what you don't know. Blissfully clueless. Now I'm out here like Harry Potter in potions class having flashbacks to what kind of craziness was in my water!!!
Click to expand...
Your pool guy wasn’t totally wrong about chlorine. Letting your FC get down to 3.5 is getting too close to the bare minimum. (If you’re doing stain treatments then the low FC makes sense). Make sure you follow the chart for maintaining enough chlorine. It’s more common to have way too little but having too much is possible. All the lists that say FC can never be above 4ppm are assuming (or unaware) of how CYA affects the amount of active sanitizer in the water..

Here’s the CYA article/chart just to make sure:
www.troublefreepool.com

The Free Chlorine and Cyanuric Acid Relationship

Managing your cyanuric acid and Free Chlorine levels is key to stabilizing your pool. Learn how these two items affect each other.
www.troublefreepool.com www.troublefreepool.com
 
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Another note- I know you’re probably gun shy of algaecide but when lowering fc to perform stain removal tfp recommends using polyquat 60 algaecide to prevent algae during this time. It doesn’t contain copper.
It’s also recommended to tackle this task when the weather & water is cooler (low 60’s or less) to further help reduce the chance of an algae problem occurring.
As well as using a sequesterant after the stain removal process then exchanging that water to rid yourself of the metals. Otherwise you will be forever beholden to the expensive sequesterants to keep the pool surfaces from restaining since they break down over time.

Ascorbic Acid Treatment - Further Reading

www.troublefreepool.com www.troublefreepool.com
 
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Today’s weather report: strong chance of cloud.

Don’t know whether I can continue the legend of the stain treatment here but I’ll just do it until someone tells me not to do so.

Part of being a rookie incudes cocking things up.

Sooooo…

FC 1.0
CC 2.8!! After all we went through to get to 0
PH 7.4
TA 70
CH 260
CYA suspiciously absent

After my last post I added our equivalent of polyquat60 or close to: Lochlor miraclear algaecide

And
Lochlor metal solution but I’ve done away with the bottle now and can’t remember which

And I went about my business for a couple of days. I think the cloudiness hit after the metal solution. But can’t be sure. I really think I’ve botched the order of things here.

So I added a clarifier but it did zero. Backwashing and what-not. Cannot see my robot on the bottom!

I have been building the chlorine back up but am spewing about the return of CCs.

Does this mean I have an algae pit? If cloudy at 5 days does this confirm pit status?

I’ve had the fear about slamming pool too soon lest I undo my copper stain work. But now I’m thinking I am back to square one.

My CYA left town. Whatever was left.

Order of operations: go.

Please.
 

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Welcome to TFP! Good to have you here :)

Re: "Australia (Hot Part)": Do you mean top end or outback? Big difference in terms of dilution you'll eventually get.

You may or may not have an iron issue, and ascorbic acid doesn't work for copper, so let's set that one aside. I'd say leave the staining issue for later, and plan it based on water exchange. What is your source of water and how big is the pool?

Now let's talk filter... what sort of filter do you have?

When you get a chance, please add a signature: Create Your Signature - Further Reading
 
CCs usually arise from heavy use of the pool or contamination coming in from runoff. We've had heavy use by a lot of kids the last few days and the water got a little cloudy one day. I had CCs higher than I've detected before. All gone now, although I did run the pump for longer hours and added extra liquid chlorine.
 
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No one has been in there for at least a week… but the rain and run off situation has been bad this summer.

This water and pool has been through heck with the previous owner so we just decided to pull the plug, so to speak. I only just noticed this “using a sequesterant after the stain removal process then exchanging that water to rid yourself of the metals” from further above.

My partner has been hovering with his submersible. The quickness that he moved when I said we’re done here. I think he’s been dying to get rid of it.

Off we go….

Any tips on start up appreciated
 

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Are you in northern Queensland? If so, you'll get enough dilution over time to drop the copper level down to where staining won't occur, now that you've stopped the pool from getting any more copper.

I took over a pool of that vintage, that had been regularly polluted with copper. It took around three years of no copper additions, and the black stains lifted. Along the way, I thought it was stubborn black algae, but no amount of effort on black algae ever changed it, then one day I arrived there, and the black stains were gone. That pool is topped up with rainwater, which would have been part of the quick change on the stains. I could be off base, but that's part of why I'd suggest getting everything else under control before dealing with stains. Those are unlikely to change in a hurry.
 
In the pool draining article, you'll notice "No Drain Water Exchange" which is the safest way to swap your water. It may seem complicated but it's actually not that hard to do.

There's a calculation you can do or I can do it for you. We can temporarily raise the salt level to help ensure that it works. Chances are you'll be doing "drain from bottom, fill on top", after adding extra salt into the existing water. It may not be much extra salt, or any at all, given that you already have a saltwater pool. To understand the method, it's important to understand that fresh water tends to float on salty water, unless it's a lot colder than the salty water, or the salty water is not salty enough.

It's easiest in winter when the pool water is colder, so that's a better option if you can ignore the stains until then.

At some point, and guessing you have a pool thermometer, let me know these numbers:

Pool temperature (degrees celsius is fine, I'll convert it to fahrenheit. Be aware the article is not clear that they're using degrees fahrenheit)
Fill water temperature (run the tap on full for three minutes, then fill a bucket, and take the temperature from the bucket)

Pool salt level and calcium level
Fill water salt level and calcium level (your fill water could easily be a single drop of salt test reagent, and likely very few drops for calcium)

I much prefer to do fresh water on top, pool water pumped by submersible from the bottom. It's not as complicated as it sounds, so don't let that put you off.
 
We have recently corrected a major drainage problem where we took on a huge amount of water from neighbours up the hill behind us. The pool over-flowed in about 2 hours. It was wild. The level of dodgy set up around here is amazing. I managed to get the pool back to balance but the CC was crazy after that event. And I was on the high side with CYA so it took a lot of tinkering.

We have not had that severe run off situation since. I think the previous owner was just totally overwhelmed across the board.

We drained half of the pool yesterday to visualise the broken step repair area. Cracked. Rust coming up through crack. Delamination galore. Black algae hiding in the broken parts etc. It has expedited our repair/reno plans. We have a local guy coming out tomorrow to assess and quote.

I would have been chasing my tail forever trying to battle subterranean black algae.
 
Side questions…

The concrete dude is coming today.

I still have clouds. But… I’ve killed all the CCs. I have just run out of CYA reagent so I can’t see what’s going on. The strips are … strips. Says 60 ish

Meanwhile… should I just let it sit now until after concrete talk? Or keep chlorining a bit.

Interestingly the water level is below all known black algae hiding spots. Was remarkably easy to knock off the CCs.

FC .2 (after 15L of 12.5% liquid yesterday)
CC 0
PH 7.2
TA 50 👀
CH 250
CYA unknown

I feel like I need to mind my business for a minute until I know what concrete guy says.
 
Do you mean a pool plasterer?

Add enough baking soda to bring TA to 60. Let pH rise to 7.8 and don't add acid until you see 8.0 (remember most water volume is in the upper half of the depth. Adjust for the lesser volume.

Order CYA testing supplies.
 
On chlorine, yes, keep it around 10% of CYA until you're next able to SLAM, based on your last CYA measurement. Again, remember volume is reduced. Adding large amounts of chlorine doesn't do anything more.

Have you been brushing?
 
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The cloudiness may be just time needed for filtration. It's likely an old filter that hasn't been maintained. Post a picture of the filter and I can explain how to deep clean it, for starters. Or you can read this big ole link: Deep Cleaning a Sand Filter

Also be sure you've backwashed it when that becomes possible (Backwash around 2 to 3 minutes, Rinse for 1 minute, then back to Filter, shutting off the pump between each change, or anytime you need to move the multi-port valve handle).
 
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