Can anyone help me with what this might be on our above ground pool liner? We have hard water from a well and cant seem to get this "stain off" for the past 2 weeks after opening and pulling the cover. the local pool store has told me to shock and brush but this is not doing anything but eating up my money and not the stain lol. The water was tested and Alkalinity is high as well as Calcium (cant change that do to well water) .My husband got in our cold pool and attempted to scrub this off with a towel and foot power and it didnt even budge. I have tried Vitamin C and it does nothing. If i brush it in some spots its like a plume appears and in some spots it looks like sand piles even after vacuuming it. The surface is rough where the color is
Help!
- Thread starter alexiscjohn
- Start date
Welcome @alexiscjohn (another KS, yay!)
Jump into Stains in Your Pool - Trouble Free Pool
Do you have a test kit? How do you chlorinate your pool? There will be lots of helpful suggestions to get your pool cleaned up!
Also when you get a chance, can you add your pool & equipment details to your signature please? Thanks!
- Jul 21, 2013
- 66,362
- Pool Size
- 35000
- Surface
- Plaster
- Chlorine
- Salt Water Generator
- SWG Type
- Pentair Intellichlor IC-60
Welcome to TFP.
Plume appears and sand piles sounds like algae, not a stain.
We need your water chemistry from your own test kit. Either a TF-100 Test Kits or a Taylor K-2006C work with the TFPC methods. See Test Kits Compared
Get a kit and then post
FC
CC
pH
TA
CH
CYA
Water temp
I suggest you review ABCs of Pool Water Chemistry and download the PoolMath app.
Plume appears and sand piles sounds like algae, not a stain.
We need your water chemistry from your own test kit. Either a TF-100 Test Kits or a Taylor K-2006C work with the TFPC methods. See Test Kits Compared
Get a kit and then post
FC
CC
pH
TA
CH
CYA
Water temp
I suggest you review ABCs of Pool Water Chemistry and download the PoolMath app.
I Have a 17,000 gallon above ground pool. Sand filter running with Natrual Zeolite sand ...
Attachments
- Jun 22, 2014
- 52,159
- Pool Size
- 17888
- Surface
- Fiberglass
- Chlorine
- Salt Water Generator
- SWG Type
- CircuPool RJ-45 Plus
Alexis, we generally don't place much merit in pool store testing. Their results are very often flawed, so it's important you try to get one of those test kits noted above. Now looking at the printout (take this with a grain of salt), it's unusual to see a CYA of zero. That means your pool's chlorine has NO protection from the sun. To see any FC level recorded at all is odd. Your CH is very high, so I suspect someone has been using a lot of Cal-Hypo bags of sanitizer. So those are a couple warning flags there.
Along with the proper test kit, switch to regular bleach - same as what you see sold as liquid pool chlorine. Each day when you need to increase the FC level a bit, just use some pool chlorine or regular bleach. Stay away from those pool store products. They are expensive and add by-products. We can't give you too much more direction chemically wihtout results from a TF-100 or Taylor K-2006C, but once you get one, post a full set of results and you'll see how easy all of this can be. In the meantime, checkout those Vital Links below in my signature so you know what to use and when. Hope that helps.
Along with the proper test kit, switch to regular bleach - same as what you see sold as liquid pool chlorine. Each day when you need to increase the FC level a bit, just use some pool chlorine or regular bleach. Stay away from those pool store products. They are expensive and add by-products. We can't give you too much more direction chemically wihtout results from a TF-100 or Taylor K-2006C, but once you get one, post a full set of results and you'll see how easy all of this can be. In the meantime, checkout those Vital Links below in my signature so you know what to use and when. Hope that helps.
That sounds to me like algae embedded in Calcium Scale. If you run a negative CSI you can soften it up so it will scrub away. Be aware that it happens at a glacial pace. Also be aware that it will be impossible to do without your own test kit. And if the CH is really really high, you'll need a speedstir so your wrist doesn't give out before the CH testing is done. It really makes a difference. My Ch dropped 200 ppm just by switching to a speedstir!
Second item: I'm betting the algae part that got embedded in the Calcium is because the CYA level is too high. That's cause by using pucks. Every 10 ppm free chlorine you add also adds 6 ppm CYA. Typical FC use is 2-3 per day. So you're adding 1-2 CYA every single day. The chlorine gets used up and goes away. The CYA does not. Then you get so much CYA protecting the chlorine that it can't work -- what the pool stores call "chlorine lock." What's their fix? A weekly "shock" with dichlor or Cal-hypo. either of which will make your particular problem worse! One adds yet more CYA and the other more Calcium you don't need!
The cure for it all is knowledge, because knowledge is power. Get a test kit and a speedstir. Read pool school. Ask questions. We will get you through.
Just to give you an idea on how flawed pool store testing is: like Richard said, every 3 inch puck of 8oz trichlor is adding 2 parts per million cyanuric acid. If you have used tabs your CYA cannot be zero. I also would not recommend placing the tabs in the skimmer. Stop using pucks or put them in a floating chlorinator.