Phos-Floc Journal

[bassadict69]

After struggling with high phosphates & a constant green tint (regardless of ch levels) I decided that since I already have 2 tubs of the phos floc I would do it now rather than try the Borates method first. I am definately NOT looking forward to this, it is a major pain, but I have to do it every summer. Once it is done, all my pool problems disappear for the remainder of the season.

I decided that someone may be interested to see pics as we progress with this treatment. If nothing else, maybe it will persuade those who are thinking about doing this, to try everything they can first to avoid the Phos-Floc.

Here are a couple of pics from before we added the Floc...Cl levels have been about 20ppm for several days but the green still lingers. You can see where we are making it cloud up by brushing it.

This one was taken about 2 hours after adding the floc. Pump has been running on recirculate...You can't hardly tell but the water is now a cloudy white color.

 

[Guest]

There ARE occasions when lowering phosphates can help. IF the phosphates are the limiting factor in algae growth then removing them removes one of the sources of algae food. You might want to test your water for nitrates also since that is the other algae food. Unfortunately, the only way to lower nitrates is to replace the water with nitrate free water.

 

[bassadict69]

Pump was turned off after recirculating for about 4 hours... I will let it settle overnight & all day tomorrow & get some more pics before we start vac'ing to waste.

 

[bassadict69]

I don't think I have ever had the nitrates tested...I may do that once we get up & running again.

 

[ktdave]

Just curious, high were your phosphates before you added the phos-floc?

 

[bassadict69]

Not real sure...the test ended up alot darker blue than the darkest blue on the comparator chart.

 

[bassadict69]

The water settled allnight & all day today. Got home this evening & was ready to vacuum to waste. Here are a couple of pics before we started. You can already see the difference.

Here you can see the cotton candy looking stuff that has settled to the bottom...

Here are a couple after half the pool had been vac'd...

Got almost all the way done & ran the water below the skimmer so had to stop. I checked the pH also & found it below 6.8 by a good bit so I started the pump back up on recirc & added one box of Borax to bring it up a little. Quite a bit of the floc got stirred up while vacuuming so it needs to settle back anyway. I plan to turn the pump off when we go to bed & hopefully finish up tomorrow evening.

 

[NWMNMom]

Are phosphate problems indemic to that area of the country? I have never even had that brought up around our neck of the woods. We don't have issues, but I thought this was interesting to know about.

 

[Ohm_Boy]

I'd be curious about all the numbers. 'Specially CYA, if the chlorine is 20 or higher.

 

[bassadict69]

At the moment, CYA is about 50.

Ohm Boy, do a search for posts by bassadict69 & you should find recent posts with my numbers before starting this treatment. There should be at least a couple of posts.

We are on a community water system & from what I understand after researching our water a couple of years ago, is that the water from our water system is originally high in metals, the system add something to the water to bring down those metals. Whatever they add for metals is high in phosphates, so the fill water I use is already sky high.

 

[NWMNMom]

Wow. I thought the Environmental Community has worked for many years to eliminate introducing phosphates into our water supplies (natural and otherwise) for years - yours is putting it in to deal with metal issues? Interesting info - thanks for sharing that.

 

[Ohm_Boy]

Holy bat, Crud man!

>1500 phosphates? Where's your pool, at a pesticide plant?

 

[chem geek]

If one accidentally dumps some plant fertilizer into their pool, I'm sure the nitrates and phosphates would both be through the roof. So I can imagine if a pool is near anything that gets fertilized regularly, it could get high values of both. I'll have to look at a package of fertilizer and do the math to see how much it would take, but remember that phosphates are generally measured in parts-per-billion, not parts-per-million. So 1500 ppb is 1.5 ppm. It's considered high in phosphates, but it's not a lot of physical material (i.e. by weight).

Richard

 

[Guest]

A couple of things...
Your water treatment company is adding a phosphonic acid derivative to sequester the metals, possibly HEDP or one of it's related compounds. This is EXACTLY the same thing in the majority of metal sequesterants used in pool. They can and do break down into orthophosphates but this alone is NOT enough to cause algae outbreaks. My own pool has orthophosphate readings greater than 3000 ppb and has never had an algae outbreak! Usually maintaining adequate chlorine levels for the amount of CYA in the water is sufficient. The problem starts because the high phosphate levels might allow nascent algae blooms on a regular basis and create a much higher chlorine demand than usual and that would require more attention to you FC levels to make sure they were always high enough. Either checking and adding chlorine daily or running your FC slightly higher or both might solve the problem. If there is also nitrates present then you have two sources of algae food and lowering one of them MIGHT prove helpful. Phosphates are much easier to lower than nitrates, which require a water change with nitrate free water. You might want to consider using a lanthanum chloride based phosphate remover on a weekly basis if the lanthanum carbonate product you are currently using does help. This will keep the phosphates in check as you add water to make up for evaporation, splashout, backwashing, etc. and might eliminate the need for going through the floc process.
If I had a choice between high metal content and phosphates in my water I would take the phosphates any day since they are MUCH less of a problem!

 

[bassadict69]

No fertilizer or crop fields around or anything that would mean fertilizer. Nothing but woods & scattered homes. It is a small community water system & as far as the metals thing in the water, that is how they explained it to me.

Ch levels are kept high...even when at shock level for several days (according to Ben's chart) there is still a light green tint to the water. It is NEVER clear & blue! The high FC levels just aren't cutting it...at least not with my pool!

I also use Phos Free once a week, not sure if that is the kind you are referring to or not. High FC levels may work for most but for some reason, not mine. I do this Floc every year & it always helps for the remainder of the summer or at least most of it...until the summer evaporation forces me to top off the pool every couple of days with the community water, driving the phosphates in the pool right back up...then this cycle starts all over again...Close up for winter before it gets too bad, open next year, fight it for a brief time, use the Floc, ok for rest of summer, then all over again.

 

[poolio]

There ARE occasions when lowering phosphates can help. IF the phosphates are the limiting factor in algae growth then removing them removes one of the sources of algae food. You might want to test your water for nitrates also since that is the other algae food. Unfortunately, the only way to lower nitrates is to replace the water with nitrate free water.

There are also machines that can remove nitrates from the water.

 

[Guest]

There ARE occasions when lowering phosphates can help. IF the phosphates are the limiting factor in algae growth then removing them removes one of the sources of algae food. You might want to test your water for nitrates also since that is the other algae food. Unfortunately, the only way to lower nitrates is to replace the water with nitrate free water.

There are also machines that can remove nitrates from the water.

The only way to remove nitrates from water is by dilution (the only practical, cost effective way for swimming pools), anerobic denitrification (a very slow bacterial process that will not work in chlorinated water), reverse osmosis (just not applicable to a pool) or ion exchange (not practical for pools either because of the amount of water and the need to regenerate the resin bed, would be very expensive and would not work at all in a salt pool).

I suggest that before posting blanket statements like you just did you either provide links to explain what you are talking about and whether they are applicable to pools or research the subject a bit more and get your facts straight.