Removing metal with flocculant

[dbalzan]

I live in the Netherlands and our town's water supply is provided from a ground source. It contains unusually visible amounts of metal straight from the tap which makes even taking a bath unpleasant.

This is my third year of managing this amount of metal in a pool. I've read countless threads on how others manage metal. It can take a week or two of constant filtering with both the sand filter and polyfill (in the skimmers) to get enough of the oxidised metal out the pool to restore it to blue. Sequestrant seems to be a bit hit and miss and expensive. Performing a SLAM is impossible without causing more oxidation.

Last weeked I added a gallon of chlorine after topping up the pool with fresh water. Within ten minutes the chlorine had oxidised the metal and the pool had the tell-tale green tinge. Clearing the pool was an emergency as we had a couple of parties planned this week (public holiday in Netherlands) and I had no time to filter the pool clear.

So after some reading (and experimenting) I decided to floc the pool for the first time. I've never used floc before and didn't know whether it would work for oxidised metal. However at this point I was desparate, so it was worth a shot.

The results were immediate and amazing. Within thirty minutes of adding the floc, whilst it was still mixing (multiport valve on recirculate), I could already see oxidised metal dropping to the botton of the pool . Once mixed, I switched off the pump and left overnight. After vacuuming to waste this morning my water is perfectly blue and crystal clear!

I know that floc is generally frowned upon within TFP. However in my circumstances, with limited time to fix the pool, it did a great job and will now be part of my armoury against metals in the future.

 

[Mdragger88]

I live in the Netherlands and our town's water supply is provided from a ground source. It contains unusually visible amounts of metal straight from the tap which makes even taking a bath unpleasant.

This is my third year of managing this amount of metal in a pool. I've read countless threads on how others manage metal. It can take a week or two of constant filtering with both the sand filter and polyfill (in the skimmers) to get enough of the oxidised metal out the pool to restore it to blue. Sequestrant seems to be a bit hit and miss and expensive. Performing a SLAM is impossible without causing more oxidation.

Last weeked I added a gallon of chlorine after topping up the pool with fresh water. Within ten minutes the chlorine had oxidised the metal and the pool had the tell-tale green tinge. Clearing the pool was an emergency as we had a couple of parties planned this week (public holiday in Netherlands) and I had no time to filter the pool clear.

So after some reading (and experimenting) I decided to floc the pool for the first time. I've never used floc before and didn't know whether it would work for oxidised metal. However at this point I was desparate, so it was worth a shot.

The results were immediate and amazing. Within thirty minutes of adding the floc, whilst it was still mixing (multiport valve on recirculate), I could already see oxidised metal dropping to the botton of the pool . Once mixed, I switched off the pump and left overnight. After vacuuming to waste this morning my water is perfectly blue and crystal clear!

I know that floc is generally frowned upon within TFP. However in my circumstances, with limited time to fix the pool, it did a great job and will now be part of my armoury against metals in the future.

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This is interesting. I would be more interested to see metals test results from before & after to really understand the effectiveness & to have some data on the subject . Basically to see if there’s a specific level in which this method should be considered. Floc often causes more issues than it solves. Hopefully that won’t be the case for u. A deep cleaning of your sand may be a good idea though.
Have u ever tried rigging up a bucket filled w/polyfill & submersible pump in addition to polyfill in the skimmers to make things goba little faster? There are also filters u can put on the hose end for top offs that can mitigate some as well.

 

[Dirk]

There are also filters u can put on the hose end for top offs that can mitigate some as well.

I know almost nothing about this subject, but I had a similar thought. Is there no way to pre-filter your water, and solve for this before it gets to your pool? Or is the metal at a molecular level? I have a whole house filter, which helps dramatically with the chlorine the city injects into my water. That would seem to me to be pretty "molecular." A whole house filter, if something like that can work for your particular contaminate, would solve for your baths, too.

I use this for my irrigation system, though it is also suitable for a whole-house installation. It comes with two different sizes of mesh filters:

https://www.amazon.com/SimPure-Sediment-Reusable-Spindown-Pre-Filter/dp/B082174CB9

And something like this for the water that goes to my house and pool:

https://www.amazon.com/Whirlpool-Central-Filtration-System-WHEJL1/dp/B003WKVAFO

I realize that these particular products might not be available to you, but maybe you can get something equivalent.

I bet @JoyfulNoise could offer some insight.

@kimkats, who was the member that was our go-to for metal in pool water? I also have a vague recollection of someone that had built a simple gizmo through which he ran his pool water. It might have used flocculent, but he had figured out how to get the benefits of the filtering without putting the flocculent (or whatever media he was using) directly into the pool, which kept it out of his filter. Something like that. Sorry, the ol' memory machine is faulty...

 

[Mdragger88]

Here are all the options

Iron Fill Water Filter - Further Reading

www.troublefreepool.com

 

[Dirk]

Here are all the options

Iron Fill Water Filter - Further Reading

www.troublefreepool.com

Yah, that's a good read. It contains the "simple gizmo" I referred to above, along with some other good ideas. It certainly sounds like trying to capture as much of the metal (or whatever it is) before it gets into the pool would be worth the effort.