When is the best time to use a sequestering agent and which one do you recommend? I have a fiberglass pool that has some stains. Do you need to get chlorine down to zero for it to work?
Sequestrant is designed to prevent stains from forming. It will occasionally remove an existing stain, but it isn't really good at that. You do not need to lower chlorine to zero for sequestrant to work, but you do lower chlorine to zero when doing an AA treatment, which is a good way to remove existing stains.
Before doing an AA treatment, test a small area by placing a vitamin C tablet on a stained area for 30 seconds. If the stain goes away around the vitamin C tablet, then an AA treatment will work.
I am still in the process of balancing my water after opening on sat. Should I wait on the AA treatment till the water is balanced and clear or let the chlorine drop to zero now and go from there?
Get it cleared first/killing algae etc. then worry about the AA treatment. Make sure algae is dead and cleared because if you don't and do it backwards you will have issues later.
So clear the pool, check for FC loss of less than 1 over night, sparkling water, and cc of .5 or less. Once you are there you can work on the metal issues.
Tackle one issue at a time
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