Polyquat 60 effectiveness length

linuxninja00 · May 20, 2018

Hey TFP,

I'm going to be adding some Polyquat 60 to my pool and was curious how long it's effectiveness is until it needs to be dosed again? Reason for adding the Polyquat is due to some light iron staining. Verified with Vitamin C tablets on my stairs and it came right off. Thus I have some Metal Magic coming and if I understand correctly, I'll need to drop FC for it's use, hence the PolyQuat dosage. Just curious if it will last until the end of Metal Magic treatment while I am unable to bump FC back up. It's kind of a mystery why I have iron in my pool, I'm not on a well. My only guess is that I we have iron in our municipal water and over many years it's built up.

According to this link of our 2017 water quality test, it looks to me that there were some traces of iron in the water. https://www.vbgov.com/government/departments/public-utilities/water-quality/Documents/Water%20Quality%20Report%202017.pdf

kimkats · May 21, 2018

How long do you need the FC to be low? I would think if your pool is sparkly clean when you start the poly should last for a good while as it will not really need to do anything.

I will ping someone who many know. Hold on a bit while they get back with us.

Swampwoman · May 21, 2018

Greetings, Linux, and welcome.
I haven’t bothered with polyquat the last few times I did a treatment, and if you’re doing strictly Metal Magic, I don’t feel you need to lower FC to zero, though it’s best to let it dip a bit below normal.

I did some experiments last year to see how long it would take to develop algae in a 5 gal bucket of pool water in different conditions and I feel you’d be safe for a good few days. You don’t need low chlorine for more than a day treating...you just don’t want to bring it to SLAM Process level or anything as that would oxidize the Metal Magic and wear it right down.

When someone is doing the Ascorbic Acid treatment followed by Metal Magic, that’s when they can go several days with zero chlorine. But IME that’s not necessary either, in that case you just bring up FC a bit at a time until it holds at the correct level per [FC/CYA][/FC/CYA]. That means testing it every few hours because any left over AA will consume the chlorine and vice versa until the AA is gone.

linuxninja00 · May 21, 2018

kimkats said:
How long do you need the FC to be low? I would think if your pool is sparkly clean when you start the poly should last for a good while as it will not really need to do anything.

I will ping someone who many know. Hold on a bit while they get back with us.

Pool is opened, sparkly and passes OCLT. In fact it even got a few swimming hours from my son before the east coast monsoon of last week

Swampwoman said:
Greetings, Linux, and welcome.
I haven’t bothered with polyquat the last few times I did a treatment, and if you’re doing strictly Metal Magic, I don’t feel you need to lower FC to zero, though it’s best to let it dip a bit below normal.

I did some experiments last year to see how long it would take to develop algae in a 5 gal bucket of pool water in different conditions and I feel you’d be safe for a good few days. You don’t need low chlorine for more than a day treating...you just don’t want to bring it to SLAM Process level or anything as that would oxidize the Metal Magic and wear it right down.

When someone is doing the Ascorbic Acid treatment followed by Metal Magic, that’s when they can go several days with zero chlorine. But IME that’s not necessary either, in that case you just bring up FC a bit at a time until it holds at the correct level per [FC/CYA][/FC/CYA]. That means testing it every few hours because any left over AA will consume the chlorine and vice versa until the AA is gone.

Well, I was hoping Swampwoman would reply, LOL. The Poly is already on the way, so perhaps I can use it as insurance. Given that my pool is already clear and balanced, could I get away with less than the initial dosing of Poly, which works out to about the whole quart for my size pool? Thanks for the info on the FC too, I've currently got my SWG off to start the FC dip. She's still coming down from SLAM levels of a week ago (don't get full sun with all my trees). My CYA is 80 with the SWG and last evening FC was at 12.5 so I assume I'd want that to drop below my 6 FC target right? Oh and I'm just doing Metal Magic based on the info from your previous posts. The stains were not there last season and at closing. I just noticed them this season when opening.

Swampwoman · May 21, 2018

No harm in keping the poly on hand for closing, or usung it now anyway.

Officially, MM would tell you to drop the FC lower than 6. However, I did not and it worked. The tech at mm barely believes me on this

But I don’t want you to waste the magic either, so if you have the poly and are confortable down in the 2 range for a day, go for it

The reason they want you to have FC super low is because it can oxidize/wear down the mm.

linuxninja00 · May 21, 2018

Swampwoman said:
No harm in keping the poly on hand for closing, or usung it now anyway.

Officially, MM would tell you to drop the FC lower than 6. However, I did not and it worked. The tech at mm barely believes me on this
But I don’t want you to waste the magic either, so if you have the poly and are confortable down in the 2 range for a day, go for it The reason they want you to have FC super low is because it can oxidize/wear down the mm.

Thank you for the help! I'll report back once the MM is in.

linuxninja00 · May 26, 2018

Ok, the Polyquat went in Friday as well as the Metal Magic. This afternoon after working in the yard I noticed the stains are lifting off the steps! Good news! I didn't let my FC drop down too low either. My CYA is 80 and I let FC fall to 7. Tomorrow is the 48 hour period indicated on the bottle, so I imagine I can check FC, bump up if needed and turn on the SWG. I did notice under the solar cover that the water is a little cloudy now. I wouldn't say very cloudy, just ever so slightly. Before I started it was crystal as in you could make out head or tails of a coin in the 8ft deep end kinda clear. I found a few posts that state some cloudiness is expected with sequestrates. Is some cloudiness expected?