Poolrx

[Mzenblu]

hello,
I’ve managed my pool for years with pretty much just acid, and bleach along with an Intellichlor salt cell. For the last ~2yrs I’ve been traveling and hired a pool service, but left strict instructions for them to not add clarifiers, algae preventers, conditioners, etc. Recently, I was cleaning the skimmer and noticed they had placed a poolrx unit in it. I had read about issues with the chelated copper additive, and did not want to risk blonde hair turning green (3 blonde girls in the household), or staining of the white plaster. The pool service owner was cooperative and agreed to empty the pool and refill. During this process, my wife noticed a light blue/green stain on the plaster surface. The pool service owner claims this is normal for all plaster pools, but I’ve owned the pool over 10 years, and drained several times and have never seen this staining. Am I crazy for thinking this is caused by the poolrx? Any other plausible causes?

~20,000 in ground pool/spa with white plaster surface, pentair intellichlor, pentair cc+ 520 filter, intelliflow pumps. pH at 7.2, FC = 3.5, CYA 70. I dont recall TA or other water chemistry from last test 3 days ago.

 

[Texas Splash]

Hello and welcome to TFP! You're not imagining things. PoolRX adds silver, copper, and zinc to the pool. If enough metals gets in the water, it could lead to problems. The stain you're seeing sure sounds indicative of copper. If you have a little dry acid handy, you could place some in a sock and apply it to that area to see if it lightens or reacts to confirm.

 

[Mzenblu]

Hello and welcome to TFP! You're not imagining things. PoolRX adds silver, copper, and zinc to the pool. If enough metals gets in the water, it could lead to problems. The stain you're seeing sure sounds indicative of copper. If you have a little dry acid handy, you could place some in a sock and apply it to that area to see if it lightens or reacts to confirm.

Thank you Texas. I’ve always avoided everything with copper - including “blue” tabs and shock. The pool maintenance company owner claims all pools develop the blue staining over time. My guess is most people buy shock and various potions and don’t realize they contain copper. When pressed, he now thinks the copper is from my pool heater (which i only use 4-5 times per year, plus the couple weeks of freeze protection here in Las Vegas). The heat exchanger is copper, but this seems like a reach compared to the known copper content in the poolrx.

Poolrx website claims it will not stain because the copper is chelated.

Any other likely culprits, or should i still hold the maintenance company responsible?

 

[jblizzle]

It would only be copper from the heater if you pH was kept too low for too long.

 

[Donldson]

Any other likely culprits, or should i still hold the maintenance company responsible?

Well if it was copper from the heater that would mean that the pH was too low. So the fault would also be on the maintenance company, both for introducing copper in to the pool AND for damaging your heater.

I would think they would rather admit it was the stupid PoolRx pod...

 

[JamesW]

Do you have a picture?

 

[cfherrman]

Poolrx will never say their product stains a pool

"Buy this and it will cost you thousands of dollars" is not good for marketing.

The pool guy is either ignorant or dumb, and if you can provide history if testing and no copper products, need to take care off it.

Should have tested copper content before draing I guess

 

[JamesW]

The chelating agent is EDTA. It breaks down by getting oxidized by chlorine. So, the copper begins to get unchelated almost immediately and can definitely stain.

EDTA is not a very good sequestrant. HEDP is a more chlorine resistant sequestrant. Regardless of the sequestrant used, it's going to get oxidized by chlorine and the copper will get loose.