Hey all,
Last two years I had a company open the pool up, but they never dealt with the iron in our water. This year I'd like to do it myself to get it right. We have high iron in our pool from prior years. Last year we had it filled from a truck that supposedly has no iron, but I'm not convinced of that. So, I just want to lay out what I think the order is here. I also have some light iron staining on the white parts of the stairs, skimmer, etc. Not terrible, but now's the time to deal with it. I just want to avoid the two week fight with brown water I dealt with the last two years when the pool company added a bunch of chlorine without addressing the iron.
Open pool late April / early May while it's still cool out.
Day 1. Set up equipment, get trucked in water, start filter / circulation, vacuum, brush, etc.
Day 1. Add some polyquat to prevent algae for the first several days when there is no chlorine.
Day 1. Add salt as necessary.
Day 1. Treat with Ascorbic Acid around the stains.
Day 2. Add some sequestrant agent to lock in whatever iron is in the water.
Day 2. Watch and adjust PH.
Day 2. Adjust stabilizer as necessary.
Day 3 or 4. Once PH, ALK, CYA are good, start to very slowly add liquid chlorine upto 5 / 7 PPM per the FC/CYA chart.
Right?
Hopefully there is no algae to deal with, but if there is do I SLAM on Day 1? Then when finished drop the FC and do the acid treatment? Or SLAM once the acid and sequestrant steps are finished, wait a week or two for the sequestrant to stabilize, then very slowly raise FC to SLAM levels?
OR ....
Do I say f___ it, SLAM right away, let it turn brown, and use a filter for a couple of weeks while its still too cold to swim to try and get some of that iron out?
Last two years I had a company open the pool up, but they never dealt with the iron in our water. This year I'd like to do it myself to get it right. We have high iron in our pool from prior years. Last year we had it filled from a truck that supposedly has no iron, but I'm not convinced of that. So, I just want to lay out what I think the order is here. I also have some light iron staining on the white parts of the stairs, skimmer, etc. Not terrible, but now's the time to deal with it. I just want to avoid the two week fight with brown water I dealt with the last two years when the pool company added a bunch of chlorine without addressing the iron.
Open pool late April / early May while it's still cool out.
Day 1. Set up equipment, get trucked in water, start filter / circulation, vacuum, brush, etc.
Day 1. Add some polyquat to prevent algae for the first several days when there is no chlorine.
Day 1. Add salt as necessary.
Day 1. Treat with Ascorbic Acid around the stains.
Day 2. Add some sequestrant agent to lock in whatever iron is in the water.
Day 2. Watch and adjust PH.
Day 2. Adjust stabilizer as necessary.
Day 3 or 4. Once PH, ALK, CYA are good, start to very slowly add liquid chlorine upto 5 / 7 PPM per the FC/CYA chart.
Right?
Hopefully there is no algae to deal with, but if there is do I SLAM on Day 1? Then when finished drop the FC and do the acid treatment? Or SLAM once the acid and sequestrant steps are finished, wait a week or two for the sequestrant to stabilize, then very slowly raise FC to SLAM levels?
OR ....
Do I say f___ it, SLAM right away, let it turn brown, and use a filter for a couple of weeks while its still too cold to swim to try and get some of that iron out?