New member with a few questions

[jkdbjj]

Hi everyone. I am a new member and am running in circles to get my pool up and running. I'll start with some background info.

Bought house in Nov 2006. It came with an 18'x36' pool that was already painted with a rubber base paint.

This year I decided to repaint the pool so I did the acid wash cleaning and painting.

Refilled the pool with well water, and it is apparent it has iron in it.

Had the local pool store give me a treatment package, I used Pool Stain Remover that lifted the iron, then used Pool Magnet to collect the iron. After that I used Sparkle_Up that added help in the sand filter to catch the metal. I then had the Sand changed.

So here we are today, water changing to that brown again.

First idea I had was the pool company waited 3 weeks to come change my sand, from the time of the initial iron treatment, I thought that was not good.

So now the pool is actually staining, but for about 3 weeks, it was pristine and beautiful. I feel like I am going to have to do it all over again, stain remover, pool magnet, Sparkle UP and change the sand. Very depressing.

The pool company said I should just try the stain remover to lift it and then bring in the water for them to test it.

Looking for advice. Thanks...

 

[duraleigh]

Hey, jk,

Welcome to the forum. The pool can be managed but I want to try to change your approach a little bit.

Iron is not removed from the water by what you used (or by any other additive) What you did was put the iron in a soluble state but it was still in your pool. That's what you must do again and then you must keep it in a soluble state by careful control of pH, TA and even CH.

I would suggest you start by reading in Pool School everything you can about metals and staining. Then plan on posting a full set of test results like this...

pH
FC
TC
TA
CH
CYA

Everyone hear will walk you through learning how to deal with metals. It's a hassle but can be done.

As an alternative, you can have metal-free water trucked in and then refill through softened water.

 

[jkdbjj]

Hey, jk,

Iron is not removed from the water by what you used (or by any other additive) What you did was put the iron in a soluble state but it was still in your pool.

Hi, thanks for the welcome, and if you don't mind I will ask you a question about this comment, so I can begin to understand. As well I will study in the pool school section as you requested.

Specifically about your comment, I was told that the Stain Remover would allow the iron to change state so that the next chemical "Pool Magnet" would collect this iron, and then the "Sparkle_Up" product would hold all that collection n the filter, so that I can change the sand and be rid of the metals.

With that said, from your comment above, you are saying that is not what really happens or happened? Please explain so I can make sure I am following along.

Hopefully I explained that clearly enough.

Thanks again.

 

[PaulR]

With iron, there are a couple things that can happen.
It can precipitate out into particles big enough to catch with the filter, or vaccuum out, or otherwise physically remove from the pool. That iron is permanently gone.
Or it can be chemically bound up by a sequestrant, so that it doesn't cause stains or visibly color the water. That iron stays in the pool.

I don't know enough about the underlying chemistry, or the particulars of the products you used, to say what should or should not have happened. It sounds like what you were told was what I described first; but whether the 3 week delay in replacing the sand caused any issues, I don't know.

I would not expect any chemical treatment to get all the iron out, so you'd have to keep up with the sequestrant. It seems that chlorine will break down the sequestrant over time so you need to add more periodically. That's probably what happened most recently; the sequestrant broke down, iron was unbound and discolored the pool, you need more sequestrant. Or possibly repeating the first treatment will help, if it did precipitate out some of the iron.
--paulr

 

[duraleigh]

Specifically about your comment, I was told that the Stain Remover would allow the iron to change state so that the next chemical "Pool Magnet" would collect this iron, and then the "Sparkle_Up" product would hold all that collection n the filter, so that I can change the sand and be rid of the metals.

I'm getting somewhat above my pay grade, but while that sounds like it might work, it can also precipitate onto your walls and pool floor and become stains. That seems to happen more often than the path you are describing.

I may be a little technically innaccurate above, but if iron could be removed that easily, no pool would have iron in it and jack's magic and all the others wouldn't exist.

If you live in Southern California, AZ or NV, you may have access to a method by which it really can be removed but it is a much more involved process....I'll look for the link and post it here.

 

[JasonLion]

There are a number of products that claim that they will allow the metals to be filtered out. None of them do that consistently. A few of them will remove the metals once in a while, but that isn't something you can count on.

 

[jkdbjj]

OK everyone, I think I understand now. The method I described above might work, and even if it did partially, I will always need to keep adding some kind of sequestrant. That makes sense.

The products I used were all from BioGuard, and seemed quite unique compared to some of the other offerings I found on the market.

The Jack products you are referring too, seems to get accolades for stain removal, but obvious doesn't do anything about collecting and filtering the metals.

I suppose what I will do, is do the stain remover again, which I am sure will lift the stain, and then take your all advice and make sure the chem levels are as perfect as can be, and just monitor it. I'll report back, and hopefully it will work out.

I am glad I realized there is no one shot technique, but it will be something I will have to baby sit once in a while. Could be worse I suppose