SWG and Green Hair??

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wksparrow

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Aug 10, 2009
2
We have a 16,000 gallon AG pool with a DuoClear/Nature 2 mineral cartridge SWG... It has performed very well for the last 2 years. Current testing shows the pool within the parameters listed under SWG water balance on this forum... however...

We had an algae problem several weeks ago, which was cured by shocking the pool with bleach for several days, and letting the pool pump (and SWG) run for several days... at no time did I ever put ANY algaecide in the pool... in five days it was clear again...

but,

this weekend my daughters' hair turned a bit green! This has never happened before, and my research tells me that Copper causes green hair.

What gives??? How did the copper get in there when I never put any in, and our well has never shown any signs of having any copper??

My only thought is this: did running the SWG/Mineral cartridge for that length of time somehow introduce extra copper into the system??

Thanks in advance for your thoughts...

WAK
 
wksparrow said:
What gives??? How did the copper get in there when I never put any in, and our well has never shown any signs of having any copper??
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Welcome to TFP.

The Nature 2 always adds copper to the pool, and it builds up over time. High chlorine levels may have made the effects worse.
 
JohnT said:
wksparrow said:
What gives??? How did the copper get in there when I never put any in, and our well has never shown any signs of having any copper??
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Welcome to TFP.

The Nature 2 always adds copper to the pool, and it builds up over time. High chlorine levels may have made the effects worse.
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Thanks Mod Squad... so the 64K question is this:

Can I use a metal remover to take out some of the copper without screwing up the Nature 2 cartridge??
 
wksparrow said:
Can I use a metal remover to take out some of the copper without screwing up the Nature 2 cartridge??
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In order to use copper, you need to keep an eye on its level in the water, so you need to have a water sample tested at a couple of pool stores. Find out where you are, then you can decide what to do. Nothing but replacing water removes metal from the pool, but there are products that can temporarily bind the metal in a form that prevents staining.
 
As long as you have the mineral cartridge in the N2, you're adding more copper and silver to the water. BTW, copper is forever - you can't really remove it using a sequestrant, all you do is keep it in solution.
 
waterbear said:
Sequestrants and N2 are not compatible. Sorry! Also, sequestrants do not remove the copper, only deactivate it chemically for a short period of time.
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So... it follows that green hair is a certainty if one ever has to shock a pool that uses N2? Assuming a blonde swimmer, of course, since brunettes won't notice the green.
 
Don't need to shock for it to happen. I have cautioned about copper more times than I care to think about. It WILL stain and it WILL turn hair green. Period! Also, brunettes CAN notice the green cast. It makes the hair look drab in mild cases and has a definite green highlight in severe ones.
 

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I recall that this shampoo contains sodium thiosulphate -- which is the dechlorinator that I used on my fish tanks.

At one point I had a source for dry sodium thiosulphate and it was super cheap. I think I sold off baggies of it that would make 10 gallons of dechlorinator (used at maybe 1 drop per gallon of fish tank volume) for $8 or something. Treated something like 50,000 gallons of water, can't recall exactly but it was in the high 10K gallon range.

So, the point is, that particular chemical can be had super super cheap..... so is there any way to find out how much of the dry (or mixed solution) one might add to regular shampoo to accomplish the same thing?

Or, with less effort, I wonder how much simple dechlorinator one might buy at a pet store and add to shampoo to get the same effect. The cheapest dechlorinators at the pet store are just sodium thiosulphate.
 
mickey4paws said:
I'm just curious, but what is this Nature 2 mineral cartridge? What benefits is it supposed to have, if any? Seems to me that if you're using a SWG, you don't need anything else?
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Nature 2 is made by Zodiac as is the Duo Clear SWG (a combo Nature 2 and undersized SWG). The beneifts that they claim are of lower chlorine. Depending on which country it is as low as .5 ppm (here in the US, Canada says .6 ppm -1 ppm


The unit is basically an erosion feeder much like a trichlor feeder and the cartridges have ceramiic beads that contain copper sulfate and silver nitrate.
 
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