Fiberglass Pool Off-White Beige Stain / Hamilton Index Question

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Swampwoman said:
Good morning, Draco. After re-reading your thread and considering the time you've already lost, I think your plan to go forward with Jack's, followed by an end-of-season treatment before close makes the most sense if you're able to manage that way. I do wonder if the .3 ppm iron you read prior to treatment was your municipal water OR whether the salt you sed for swg startup was maybe less-pure...if you get a chance to test your tap water, that might be good to know.

Before you close, you might be a candidate for a true floc treatment, eg alum, as a removal experiment for the iron and any excess po4 from all your treatments. I'm considering this kind of annual strategy for sequestrant/metal/po4 management going forward, and will be looking into best methods to achieve in a month or so, so will post back.

In the mean time, cheers to clear.
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Hi Swampwoman,

I bought 3 more CuLator bags and am going to use one per month and continue to using the Jack's. So far it's been a week and I just added my weekly dosage and the water is clear and blue and no staining.

I am hoping the CuLator can over time, coupled with the Metal Trap for new water, will reduce the metals and get me near zero.

My wife wasn't too happy with the drain and refill and the Pool Refresh treatment, and although the CuLator bags are expensive, they are non-intrusive and don't cause me to lose any time with the pool nor mess up the chemistry.

Would the alum floc remove metals as well as the phosphates I am adding over the season from the Jack's Purple?

Regarding the water test. I tested the muni water and my pool water and they both came back with roughly .3 PPM.
 
Would the alum floc remove metals as well as the phosphates I am adding over the season from the Jack's Purple?
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Yes, that's the beauty of that specific product is that it does both...provided it works/forms floc...got to drop the ph to get it to work right! And is cheaper than other alternates.

Glad you're in the clear. Let me know if you have any evidence the curators work...I didn't have good luck with them but would like to know of the who have for when others ask ;) I'm not sure they nab any iron when heavily sequestered.
 
Before moving to the beach I lived in the Piedmont, NC region, home of red clay and hard water. I used a whole house AMF water filter and changed the cartridge monthly or so, catching what I thought the time was clay intrusion to the aquifer. There was no appreciable iron taste, lab tests did indicate calcium and magnesium which precipitated out of melted ice cubes. Now I realize that what was being filtered out was dissolved iron, the particles were large enough to be caught by the filter while the ca and mg sailed on through. Raw water here has high enough levels that the iron and sulfur require a softener. But since the Metal Trap is simply a small micron, expensive filter, though with a $6 valve attached, wouldn't a .1 or .5 micron filter with replaceable cartridges be just as effective and a lot less expensive?
 
Vickers, I am personally using a disposable 1 micron filter in a big 10" Pentek filter housing I've rigged up to my fill hose and its been filtering down to about .1 ppm this season (after softener, so approx .5 to .1) -- for the reasons you cite. But since I've just started doing it this year and never used metal trap I couldn't say which is better. My working theory is that they may be quite comparable in efficacy, but I'd hate to counsel someone when I have no data to prove it ;) Results are also variable depending on load and rate of flow in both cases, so what works for me might not work for someone else ;)

My question about the metal trap is that while its filter is green sand (magnesium) and is whats used in large iron removal systems, iron also fouls the resin and the large systems require backwashing/chemical treatment for regeneration...with metal trap there is no regeneration which depending again on load would to my mind make fouling difficult to predict or notice until it just wasn't filtering any more...plus there's no internal mechanism for air injection. That's why for the price, I didn't go that route.

So I think our theories are similar, but Draco had already purchased the metal trap so makes sense to use it and see what kind of removal rates he gets and once its spent, consider other options as desired.
 
I wondered if the Metal Trap was a variation of an unbackwashable, non-regeneration green sand system. Something like that with a disposable cartridge seems quite feasible with a standard filter housing really shouldn't be terribly expensive. With a clear housing loading can be seen. I understand the principle of a small market resulting in higher prices for specialized products, but seeing the numbers here, this is not necessarily a small market. I think there is a missed opportunity for someone to fill.
 
Hi Draco, skim read your story, wow what a ride

Forgive me if this has been suggested but I didnt see it, is there any way you can catch/harvest rainwater, at least for topups for the pool. Its a free source of metal free water. I realise it probably wont help with your current situation, but once you and Swampwoman resolve the metals it may stop you from reintroduction

HTH and best of luck
 
Vickery said:
Before moving to the beach I lived in the Piedmont, NC region, home of red clay and hard water. I used a whole house AMF water filter and changed the cartridge monthly or so, catching what I thought the time was clay intrusion to the aquifer. There was no appreciable iron taste, lab tests did indicate calcium and magnesium which precipitated out of melted ice cubes. Now I realize that what was being filtered out was dissolved iron, the particles were large enough to be caught by the filter while the ca and mg sailed on through. Raw water here has high enough levels that the iron and sulfur require a softener. But since the Metal Trap is simply a small micron, expensive filter, though with a $6 valve attached, wouldn't a .1 or .5 micron filter with replaceable cartridges be just as effective and a lot less expensive?
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Hi Vickery,

Actually the Metal Trap is a very fine micron filter BUT it ALSO is using green sand which I believe actually causes the metals to precipitate out and get stuck in the filter. I've actually daisy chained two together so they are double filtering the water and have been using it to fill the pool when it needs to be topped off.

Next season will be my true test since in the Northeast the weather will start getting cold again.. I'll keep you posted!

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Caco said:
Hi Draco, skim read your story, wow what a ride

Forgive me if this has been suggested but I didnt see it, is there any way you can catch/harvest rainwater, at least for topups for the pool. Its a free source of metal free water. I realise it probably wont help with your current situation, but once you and Swampwoman resolve the metals it may stop you from reintroduction

HTH and best of luck
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Thank you! Actually, in the past I've pumped the water out after large rains when it got above the skimmer.. but about a month ago I started not doing that and letting the pool fill up.. It kind of stinks to lose your skimmer, but it means less top-ups from the fill water.. but definitely good idea!

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Swampwoman said:
Yes, that's the beauty of that specific product is that it does both...provided it works/forms floc...got to drop the ph to get it to work right! And is cheaper than other alternates.

Glad you're in the clear. Let me know if you have any evidence the curators work...I didn't have good luck with them but would like to know of the who have for when others ask ;) I'm not sure they nab any iron when heavily sequestered.
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Ahh thanks again! I will definitely do this... I am thinking I can do this at the START of the season though.. Since I always open the pool to nice green water and having a floc would assist in clearing it up.. Is that OK?

Just so I have a sample alum floc to point to, can you show me a link to one? I've used a flocculant before, but I'm not sure what makes it a "alum" floc?

Just an update. It's been 3 weeks now since using the CuLator with a maintenance (weekly) dose of Jack's Purple (only 8 oz a week or 1 bottle per month), and my pool has been crystal clear, bright blue, and absolutely no staining... I have one more month left of swimming so I'm going to pop in a new CuLator bag and then next season will truly show where I stand with the metals.. Hopefully with the alum floc at the start of the season, the CuLator bags month, and Jack's Purple on maintenance (and metal trap for fills), I should be in a better position next year. I know this sounds like a lot, but I only can swim 4 months out of the year, and that's only 80$ for Jack's and the Culator bags I've been buying for 15$ a bag.. So that's literally 35$ a month for materials to combat the metals... Which i can live with!

I appreciate everyone's help and I encourage everyone to give the CuLator + Metal Trap + Jack's Purple (or any color) trifecta a try and see if you have similar results.
 
Hey everyone,

Just wanted to post an end of season picture. I stopped putting Jack's Purple Stuff in about 2-3 weeks ago and let it slowly break down. After using Jack's with a CuLator bag it seems that the staining is coming back just as strong as ever.

I've included some pictures. You can see the white fiberglass through the beige stains.. Horrible :/

I am keeping my pool open for another 2 weeks since I need to have the patio resealed and am thinking about trying the Leslie's Alum Enhancer Flocculant Additive that Swampwoman recommended so hopefully next season I can open up and not have as much of a problem.

One thing I also thought of.. What if I did an AA treatment, then upper the SWG to shock the pool with one return line going into a bucket of polyfill (I saw a video for this) so that it precipitates out and gets trapped in the polyfill... Does anyone think this is worth it?

https://ibin.co/2wWmoICDji5Y.jpg
 
Hi Draco. If you do the latter, use a big 10" Pentek blue filter house and 1 micron filter (search amazon) for better results than poly fill. I honestly can't predict which would. Mor effective for you, but am sendin to the mojo.
 

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Isn't the point of the Polyfill to allow the iron to precipitate out and capture it then you throw it away?
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Poly fill only catches larger, oxidized particles of iron, and passively. Think brown water. A reducer filter, 10" from 25 microns to 1 micron, captures a LOT more of smaller iron particles...but neither seem to reliably catch all.

If the floc actually WORKS, it would in theory capture more than a filter because the alum binds with the iron in solution. I've seen it first hand straight from well, but my well ph is about 6.9-7.0. I couldn't get it to work in my pool water in a bucket test. Which doesn't mean it won't...but does confirm reports of mixed results.

I don't need to try it now as I've changed my water with a liner change, but if I ever had to again, I'd bypass the heater and lower my ph first to 7.0 and let my sequestrant wear down as you have.

Here's a quote from a research portion of a WQ manual:
Alum was being used as a coagulant at a relatively high pH. At point A on the chart the pH was 7.8. At point B sulfuric acid addition was started and the pH lowered to 7.2, a much better pH for alum coagulation. Particle counts immediately dropped. Establishing the proper conditions of pH and alkalinity before addition of a coagulant are important to successful coagulation and flocculation
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-- That's why I think my well water test worked great at its naturally low ph, bu my pool water test didn't. I'd made the mistake of "oxidizing" the water trying to precipitate the iron, which would have driven the ph up a good deal.
 
Swampwoman said:
Poly fill only catches larger, oxidized particles of iron, and passively. Think brown water. A reducer filter, 10" from 25 microns to 1 micron, captures a LOT more of smaller iron particles...but neither seem to reliably catch all.

If the floc actually WORKS, it would in theory capture more than a filter because the alum binds with the iron in solution. I've seen it first hand straight from well, but my well ph is about 6.9-7.0. I couldn't get it to work in my pool water in a bucket test. Which doesn't mean it won't...but does confirm reports of mixed results.

I don't need to try it now as I've changed my water with a liner change, but if I ever had to again, I'd bypass the heater and lower my ph first to 7.0 and let my sequestrant wear down as you have.

Here's a quote from a research portion of a WQ manual:


-- That's why I think my well water test worked great at its naturally low ph, bu my pool water test didn't. I'd made the mistake of "oxidizing" the water trying to precipitate the iron, which would have driven the ph up a good deal.
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Thank you! So now that my sequestrant is almost completely gone, I'll bring the PH around 7 or lower, then do an AA treatment to remove the iron from the walls then throw in the Alum floc? Then you just vacuum the stuff to waste and filter for 2 weeks until it's all gone?
 
The entire time I have been reading I have been wondering, why haven't they tried the polyfill? Most of this is way over my head, and your pool is a lot bigger than mine. Mine is just a vinyl Intex, but we have 2.1ppm iron and had green brown water when we first set it up and we're slamming because we thought we had algae. Apparently our FC level made the iron oxidize. I used the polyfill bucket filter for about three days, plus paper towels in the skimmer. The stuff that came out of the bucket filter was the nastiest orange rusty water I have ever seen. One time when we topped the pool off, we had a tiny bit of brown in the filter for about a week. Other fills have been provided my mother nature. Other than that, we have not used a single chemical or anything to deal with the iron. I don't know how much is left behind, but we have not had a single stain since, so it has to be minimal. The bucket filter cost about $10, worked like magic and was really easy. I don't understand why it wouldn't remove a lot of your iron too? (if you didn't have sequesterant) is it because the iron isn't oxidized?
 
pabeader said:
rwood - That last sentence is the kicker. It isn't turning the water brown/orange/yucky looking. So the bucket method doesn't have anything to filter out. :(
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I thought the polyfill would allow the iron to oxidize and capture it so you can throw it away and keep going?

My water never turned any colors. It looks green only because the sides of the pool are light yellow which makes water look green.

Does anyone know what the chemical in Alum floc is? I refuse to pay Leslie pools 10$ to ship a bucket to me.. Want to see if I can find it locally.
 
Draco1219 said:
I thought the polyfill would allow the iron to oxidize and capture it so you can throw it away and keep going?

My water never turned any colors. It looks green only because the sides of the pool are light yellow which makes water look green.

Does anyone know what the chemical in Alum floc is? I refuse to pay Leslie pools 10$ to ship a bucket to me.. Want to see if I can find it locally.
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Back around post 21 and 24 it was mentioned the water was green and the iron started to precipitate when the floc started to wear off, so I wondered if maybe you added more floc before the water had time to change colors drastically. I thought I'd seen you mention trying the paper towel in the skimmer too, and it turned brown (but I didn't read all previous 70 posts again to confirm) . That's why I mentioned the bucket filter. My simple mind was thinking if a paper towel catches it, the polyfill might too.
Our pool was light teal blue-green, then darker green, then brown/pea soup green, never orange.
 

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