What happens if you use proteam metal magic at high FC? I have been slamming my pool for 4 days and the was surprised with how clear my water was and how high my chlorine demand was, and suddenly overnight I have a tea colored pool. I think I must have been oxidizing some sequestrant that the pool builder put in and now all my iron is back in solution. The proteam stuff say to drop FC to 1, but it will a couple of days or more before that will happen and I have no patience.
Proteam metal magic
- Thread starter Monkeylove
- Start date
The high FC will oxidize the Metal Magic. Since it is brown you can filter out the oxidized water. Lightly stuff the skimmer basket with polyfil pillow stuffing and change it out a couple of times a day. You may also need to clean the DE filter daily until all the brown is gone. You can rinse and reuse the polyfil as needed.
When your FC is low enough use the Metal Magic and follow the directions on the package.
The other solution is to drain and refill if you have iron free water available. Do you currently use well water for your pool?
When your FC is low enough use the Metal Magic and follow the directions on the package.
The other solution is to drain and refill if you have iron free water available. Do you currently use well water for your pool?
We used well water to fill, yes. My only source. I am trying to capture rain water now off cover to keep pool full. I figure it is cleaner than well! I bumped DE filter this morning and brown crud shot out, so I won't be doing that again. Just change daily i guess while I wait for FC to go down. Thanks for the pillow stuffing idea, my wife is looking for some right now for me!
You will have to open up the filter and hose off the grids to clean until all the brown is gone. Keep an eye on the filter pressure and clean the filter when there has been a 20% rise in pressure.
I don't think I will be able to filter it all out...going to have to drop fc to 1 and use the proteam metal magic and then bring FC back up...but if I understand this stuff correctly PMM will always getting oxidized by FC, so it will always seem like I have organics in the water when I really don't? So slamming again will eventually just eat up all the PMM and boom!, one night the iron will fall back into solution and I will be back to square one? My CYA is close to zero since we just refilled this pool late last summer, and fill water was super irony, so pool builder did various treatments, so we never added CYA. Can I add it now just before I use PMM, or is that doing to much stuff at once?
My numbers
pH 7.4
FC 10
CC .5
- - - Updated - - -
One other thing I forgot to mention....3 days before I closed last fall, I called PB and said I was going to close and there where still vinyl stains present, they came over and did something...can't really get the exact treatment, but when I added polyquat to close it made absolute mess of water with fine white powder everywhere. I had no choice but to close anyways and have spent 3 weeks and close to 100lbs of DE filtering it out....it was all gone last week and that is when I started slamming, simply cause I couldn't pass a ONCL test (i think do to one of the treatment using up FC?).
My numbers
pH 7.4
FC 10
CC .5
- - - Updated - - -
One other thing I forgot to mention....3 days before I closed last fall, I called PB and said I was going to close and there where still vinyl stains present, they came over and did something...can't really get the exact treatment, but when I added polyquat to close it made absolute mess of water with fine white powder everywhere. I had no choice but to close anyways and have spent 3 weeks and close to 100lbs of DE filtering it out....it was all gone last week and that is when I started slamming, simply cause I couldn't pass a ONCL test (i think do to one of the treatment using up FC?).
I added the PMM last night and....I would say about half of my iron issue resolved. Still not where I was before, but definitely better. I think I will be adding CYA today. Do you think I should go with a another dose of PMM?
Update on my issue and question. I am having to dose my pool about once every 7 to 10 to keep water from turning orange. I also have to bump or change my filter that often as my pressure slowly rises. If I bump I get a cloud of fine debris out the return, I also routinely build up debris on the edges of pool. The stuff is very fine, I can't tell if it is dead algae, earth getting through my filter, or metals bound with PMM? I slammed my pool early in the year and was consuming chlorine like crazy in a crystal clear pool, and then one day it turned orange, just like I predicted in a post above..I think all I did was eat up the PMM, and cause all the iron to fall back into solution. At that point I could pass a over night FC test. I then dosed again heavy with PMM and cleared water and kept FC at 5, CYA at 40. It will still consume some FC at night, but I am assuming from PMM? I have pulled the filter apart and went through all the fingers, changed out the worst 10, but to be honest none look bad as this is only 2 full season. I looked at all the gaskets etc, and can't find why earth would be coming out. I really think my dust problem is iron bound with PMM. Does this seem possible?
you should realize the amount of iron you got there is still the same- throughout your activities it never left the pool it just changed its form from one to another. I'd change approach if I was in your spot.
Tell me what you would do? PMM claims to bind iron AND make it filterable. I am hoping this is what is happening.
One of the recent threads describes similar problem- check it out, might get some pointers. The problem with metals TFP hasn't developed fast and sure way to deal with them yet but if you conduct your future experiments on the bucket of pool water first you'd make your life easier: practically every addition to the water tends to remain there so I'd be more careful to try things on entire pool especially taking into account you don't have abundance of water available.
If you are getting iron dust in the pool thats a problem.
First let the iron out and test the pool. Get the water tested for metals. http://www.taylortechnologies.com/product_fliers/Taylor-Metal-Tests-Kits-Pool-and-Spa.pdf or a good pool store.
Second, use the Polyfill to clean it as much as you can and also run one of these Amazon.com : Metal Trap 25 Pool Garden But understand it will not all filter out. Try different ones one may work better for your problem.
Third go back to the sequestrat -- try different ones to see which works the best.
First let the iron out and test the pool. Get the water tested for metals. http://www.taylortechnologies.com/product_fliers/Taylor-Metal-Tests-Kits-Pool-and-Spa.pdf or a good pool store.
Second, use the Polyfill to clean it as much as you can and also run one of these Amazon.com : Metal Trap 25 Pool Garden But understand it will not all filter out. Try different ones one may work better for your problem.
Third go back to the sequestrat -- try different ones to see which works the best.
Polyfill did nothing for me. All my water went murky brown, the link above is my post. The flocculant, vac to waste cleared it quite well. I ordered some .5 & 1 micron biodiesel filter bags from online. They are inexpensive and work AMAZING. Much like a slime bag. We quit vac to waste and instead put the bags on the return while recirculation the water during a vac. I didn't want to run the well dry with constant fills because with the vac to waste we were losing 6" a day.
Right now there's a light scattering of flocc/metal to vac and it gets lighter each vac. Also we have a house filter on the hose which after the filter it then goes right into the .5 micron biodiesel bag. I clean them out with a mixture of water and a filter cleaner (bioguard) I had extra of from the neighbor but I'd think iron out would work well too. I soak them for about 30m and they come out looking brand new. So whenever they look orange I exchange them. I also keep old kids cotton shirts and hand towels in the skimmer. Haven't added a sequestering agent yet, but I can finally see clearer water and the bottom of my pool! Gl!
Right now there's a light scattering of flocc/metal to vac and it gets lighter each vac. Also we have a house filter on the hose which after the filter it then goes right into the .5 micron biodiesel bag. I clean them out with a mixture of water and a filter cleaner (bioguard) I had extra of from the neighbor but I'd think iron out would work well too. I soak them for about 30m and they come out looking brand new. So whenever they look orange I exchange them. I also keep old kids cotton shirts and hand towels in the skimmer. Haven't added a sequestering agent yet, but I can finally see clearer water and the bottom of my pool! Gl!
your post is cut off at the most interesting place- could you re- post please?
Monkey love, if you visit those threads as suggested, you'll see many of the points I'd like to make for you and save me some typing on my iPad 
But what you need to understand the most is that when you have metal in your source water, you REALLY want to avoid slamming by keeping your parameters right on [fc/cya][/FC/cya]...because so long as you're working with sequestrant and a high load of metal, you will not get off the treadmill.
I used PMM for years and believe its about the best on the market for well iron in a non-swg environment. I wouldn't switch personally.
Traceing Paper as I recall did a floc treatment, which can be successful in some cases, especially when the metal is completely oxidized. Others have seen the same treatment fail completely, where the floc doesn't form...we're not sure the exact conditions that cause the failure...may be sequestrant or may be ph related But that's why we don't routinely suggest that route at this point. You may well wish to try it. Historically, TFP guides are trained to generally avoid recommending floc in other situation for two reasons -- the floc n shock approach of pool techs kinda goes against the more informed TFP management, and floc has some nasty unintended consequences if you don't have a multiport valve to vac to waste, etc., or if you have DE and don't get it out, etc etc. With that said, and taking off my guide hat for a moment, for iron removal specifically it could in fact be an excellent if experimental strategy, in whch case Leslie's Alum specifically seems to be the preferred flc product for metal. I have done two tests with it - one worked and one failed, and I cannot determine why So I leave you to arrive at your own decision tree on that one...
Since you still have some oxidized metals, do try to filter them out to reduce the load. Your subsequent sequestrant will last longer and work better that way. Also, see those threads for this on pre-filtering your fill water to help in metal management.
@traecing paper - I'm guessing you used these from Duda diesel?
Monkey love, here's a link to that site: Filter bags | Duda Diesel Alternative Energy, Chemicals & Industrial Supply Store
But what you need to understand the most is that when you have metal in your source water, you REALLY want to avoid slamming by keeping your parameters right on [fc/cya][/FC/cya]...because so long as you're working with sequestrant and a high load of metal, you will not get off the treadmill.
I used PMM for years and believe its about the best on the market for well iron in a non-swg environment. I wouldn't switch personally.
Traceing Paper as I recall did a floc treatment, which can be successful in some cases, especially when the metal is completely oxidized. Others have seen the same treatment fail completely, where the floc doesn't form...we're not sure the exact conditions that cause the failure...may be sequestrant or may be ph related
But that's why we don't routinely suggest that route at this point. You may well wish to try it. Historically, TFP guides are trained to generally avoid recommending floc in other situation for two reasons -- the floc n shock approach of pool techs kinda goes against the more informed TFP management, and floc has some nasty unintended consequences if you don't have a multiport valve to vac to waste, etc., or if you have DE and don't get it out, etc etc. With that said, and taking off my guide hat for a moment, for iron removal specifically it could in fact be an excellent if experimental strategy, in whch case Leslie's Alum specifically seems to be the preferred flc product for metal. I have done two tests with it - one worked and one failed, and I cannot determine why So I leave you to arrive at your own decision tree on that one...Since you still have some oxidized metals, do try to filter them out to reduce the load. Your subsequent sequestrant will last longer and work better that way. Also, see those threads for this on pre-filtering your fill water to help in metal management.
@traecing paper - I'm guessing you used these from Duda diesel?
Monkey love, here's a link to that site: Filter bags | Duda Diesel Alternative Energy, Chemicals & Industrial Supply Store
Thanks to all for the help and reading....I will continue the fight!!! I am currently on refilling my pool with rain water on the cover to avoid more iron water. I hope always be able to do this. My big hope is to find a good way to plug skimmer in winter so I never have to lower the pool for winter. Thanks again for help!
Monkeylove
Monkeylove