Sequestrant HEDP Photodegradation, Iron Copper Scale Removal

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The reasons I called, and I debated about whether to call or not was, 1) to find a local, really close by, source for Magenta as I only have one bottle left and 2) advice on easing back a bit so I could more afford the treatment, even if it took a longer time to see results. (I'm certainly seeing results.)

I just came in after backwashing to cool off a bit. I'm not going to do anything drastic except maybe bring the TA up a little bit. This and the fountain will raise the pH over the next three days. I'm only adding 6 lbs baking soda a day to bring it up to 80 as it will probably go back down with so much Magenta in there and the low pH. I normally keep it a little lower than that. And keep backwashing. I'm certainly no stranger to what happens when released calcium scale hits the filter. :roll: It was I who used at least three Aquabot fine filter bags a day (I actually use after market Nasty Bags, that filter almost as fine as the cloth Aquabot bag - until the dogs ate a few I had about 12 of them and one Aquabot fine bag - the Aquabot refurb kit I have coming in includes a cloth after market fine filter bag too), usually more when I was waiting to put the big new filter in. That's when I was running the Aquabot many hours a day, two submersible pumps, 24/7, water going through two big Slime Bags (filter to 1 micron or close), for two months when my old pump and filter were out of the system. One gets pretty intimate with dust/silt and calcium scale and the differences when cleaning out many, many Aquabot bags and big Slime Bags for two months. This was done using HTH Metal Control all winter into spring in larger than maintenance dose. AND the truth to be believed is seeing the white scale released from blue plaster. It took me two weeks to filter out the rest of the released calcium when the new Quad 80 was installed, using Fiber Clear, which filters finer than DE. BTW.... this is the second backwash using Aqua Pearl. It backwashes out quickly and almost completely but, again, I haven't tested it with the "cementous" dust being the predominate dirt, so time will tell.

I thought maybe I was talking to a different John. From my research and the great information you have provided it appeared to me that Magenta was THE ticket. And he kept pushing me to do everything possible to get all the Magenta out as fast as possible. I didn't argue. I did offer to him what I've learned in the past year at TFP and some of my pool background AND that I have a strong physical/chemical sciences and mathematics background (although I've forgotten just about everything I once knew) so the concepts aren't foreign to me.

The TDS thing was a shocker to me. Again, I didn't argue. I did tell him that phosphates didn't matter in the method I use to manage the pool; not that I should have high levels. Nor should I have any significant level of TDS as my fill water is not in the extreme in any way, and much of my water gets replaced pretty frequently nor do I have or have I had any extreme amounts of organics that can't be dealt with without shocking; only daily (I usually do every other day) additions of liquid chlorine.

He did remark that I was dissolving my plaster doing what I'm doing. :roll:

So on and so forth. Maybe John was in the mind set of talking to your average, non TFP, non BBB, "little woman". I'm surprised he didn't ask me to have my husband call. :rant: "Now little lady, don't you do anything, except what I tell you to do." is what I kept "hearing".

John has my name and hopefully will remember me when he and Jack talk about all this. He should as what I'm doing is so "shocking".

Maybe he was having a bad day. I'm really anxious to hear what Jack says.

Thanks for your involvement in this. Our experiences should be beneficial to many people down the road.

gg=alice
 
I think I may have worked this out.

I filled a bucket with fresh water and no sequestrant (not pool water), then measured the baseline was 3 ppm. I then put a tiny drop of sequestrant in the "Magenta Stuff" in the bucket and stirred, it measured 6 ppm. I then put in 1/4 fluid oz of the sequestrant and it measured well over 20 ppm.

So it seems the metal sequestrant portion of the "Magenta Stuff" is lower than "The Purple Stuff". This means that the scale removal portion is higher. So John is correct and not correct at the same time. Although for the purposes of the measuring the "Magenta Stuff" concentration he is correct, but one can measure the sequestrant amount.

As I still have a scale issue he suggested adding 6 oz of the "Magenta Stuff" per week until satisfied and then switching to the "Purple Stuff", "Blue Stuff" in your case. As I have added more in PPMs of the "Magenta Stuff" and ran it at a lower pH, during the "Copper and Scale Stuff" treatment, in a pool that does not get the cement type dust that you get, with no ill affects to the pool, in fact to the contrary, I believe that the relatively little ppms you have added compared to the amount that I have added should not be an issue. I am continuing my treatment as before as I am having such good results.

When I did drain the pool, as you are aware I also removed a fair amount of scale from the steps using an angle grinderand a cement finishing/smoothing blade/attachment, the scale was still hard. So this to points to the fact that the "Magenta Stuff" is not too aggresive.

One thing I have noticed is that when I first purchased my salt cell about 3 years ago I used to be able to run it at 36% max in the summer, I then after 2 years had to run it at 50% to acheive the same results, since the treatment, I lowered it to 43%, and have again lowered it to 36% as in the days when it was new. Why I do not know.

I think the great thing about John, as I said before, is that he is very upfront about what he does and does not know. When I explained to him the experiences I had he did not say that it is wrong or untrue but stated that it is interesting and let me get Jack to call you as he, John, stated his chemical knowledge was not that strong. I really like dealing with John, he like us is more interested in getting to the heart of the matter and doing the best thing, than who is wrong or right, and always goes the extra mile be it time or effort, a great guy in my book.

For interests sake the large replacement purple liquid for the test kit bottle (TK-020) costs $60+ plus shipping, directly from Jack's.

Hope this helps.
 
To be sure I was not removing too much calcium, I just backwashed my filter to check the pressure loading since I last backwashed it last weekend, the pressure difference was 0.5 lbs per square inch (psi). Therefore negligible despite my heavy usage of the "Magenta Stuff". It seems therefore that the ingredient in the "Magenta Stuff" that does remove the scale is quite mild in its method. Touching the walls and floor of the pool it now feels much smoother than it was before.

Here is someting I pulled up on its effect on concrete, I do not think it is exactly the same but is used in water treatment where concrete is involved and it seems is somewhat similar to Jack's Magenta ingredient of Acrylic Acid Copolymer. Of course it could be something completely different.

http://www.thwater.net/03-TH-928.htm

Maybe Chem Geek can enlighten us.

Hope this helps.
 
As the "Magenta Stuff" also removes phosphates, the exact ingredient is unknown, I thought I might also test for this sequestrant normally a derivative of Lanthanum, I used Natural Chemistry's Phosfree for the test, of which I have a little, see MSDS here:

http://www.lesliesmsds.com/DocumentCenter.aspx?did=7b6aa4a6-8168-4ade-9ce2-7fa992c31851

It took quite a bit, a lot more than a few ounces before it showed up as a sequestrant, so that sequestrant is not the one affecting the test I think it is still HEDP mixed in or a member of that family of phosphonic acids that I am seeing in the tests.

In other words I think the phosphate remover portion is quite a small dosage.

I think the important thing that I am learning from all of this is that current standard remedies or guidelines do not always work as recommended. If you go back and do search on "Google" for the Borax treatment you will note that not that many years ago it was recommended to put the powder in the pool and add the appropriate amount of acid, well we now know that is not the way to add Borax as it can cause staining in certain areas of the pool, there is now an improved method for doing that thanks to people such as Waterbear. The Ascorbic acid method was recommended for iron, which while perfectly acceptable for iron could cause copper stains to become worse, we now know that and when it is now being recommended by more knowledable persons they are saying to be careful and test for copper, and if that is present use Citric acid for both. Even Jack's Magic recommended 4 lbs of Baking Soda every 8 hours to raise alkalinity per 10,000 gallon pool, they now recommend 3 lbs of Baking Soda once every 24 hour period, so that metals do not fall out of solution. It was, and still is, commonly stated by many pool web sites that metals cannot be chelated away to the filter, despite Taylor Technologies, most chemical companies when discussing HEDP, and Jack's saying that they can. It is true that a lot of other chemicals that are not Phosphonic based cannot chelate. I have, by using both the "Purple Stuff" and the "Magenta Stuff", proved to myself that metals are chelated to the filter after my unfortunate experience with shocking the pool and releasing copper back onto my steps, with a little iron, as I had not backwashed.

While it seems that Jack's Tech staff sincerely believe by their current standards and supplied knowledge that too much "Magenta Stuff" is not good for the pool I have purely by accident shown at least to myself that this is not an issue and that maintaing the level at about 3 to 4 times the recommended dose for a period of time until I am satisfied with both the scale and copper stain removal has done no damage and may indeed have speeded it up, or made it a more effective treatment, as no harm has come to the pool. I am not clever I did this by accident and had Jack's team told me to stop and drain some off I would have done it but I am beyond that now.

Would I recommend everyone doing this method no, I think we still need to see the long-term effects, and if I am still alive will report back yearly. But one quote I got from the local pool tile man that came yesterday to look at replacing my tile line says it all, "I don't beleive that this pool was not re-plastered recently and you should sue them for the tile job". Oh how that made me happy with my 15 year or so old previously mistreated pool. Admittedly he was nearly as old as I am and did wear glasses but still. A number of tiles are cracked due I think mostly to ground shifting and a fairly strong earthquake a few years ago.

As they say "We live and learn".

Jack has not called me, so I suppose we will not know till Monday.

Have a good weekend.
 
You have quite a few incorrect assumptions and are making generalizations here that are leading you to incorrect conclusions. Chelation has nothing whatsoever to do with something being filtered out or not. The specific procedures recommended for your pool in one particular case aren't necessarily likely to apply to another pool, or even to your own pool at a different time. The differences between ascorbic acid and citric acid have nothing to do with the presence of copper, both will make copper worse. Your experience with shocking doesn't prove anything about metals being filtered out or not. There are many ways to add borates, and each has advantages and disadvantages depending on the situation. And several others.
 
JasonLion,

Thank you for your post.

I do have a few questions which I will list below.

1) As we no longer have a dog, he passed away from old age, I was planning on adding borates at some time in the future. As I understand it from Waterbear's posts the safest way is to lower the pH to 7.2 then to mix the Borax in a bucket of water in small doses and then pour through the skimmer (preferred yes/no?) or pour directly into the pool. Adjusting the pH down to 7.2 each time one adds some more diluted Borax. You mentioned there were other ways to do this; other than the more riskier way of adding the powder directly to the pool, if one might have metals in the pool, what other methods would you recommend? If you could list the advantages and disadvantages that you mentioned it would be easier for me to make a choice when the time comes. I understand that Boric Acid treatment and that it is easier to do, but am solely referring to Borax.

2. I was under the impression that Citric Acid removed both Iron Oxide and Copper Oxide putting it into a liquid state that the sequestrant could then take care of it, but does not remove Copper which has not oxidized. Would the Citric acid treatrment not then be useful if one has Copper Oxide stains in the pool. In your post you wrote that "both will make the Copper worse". This seems contrary to what I have read and would like to understand why this would be so with Citric acid. Does it not change the Copper Oxide into a different liquid form and what process might makes it worse? I do know that cleaning copper cooking pots with lemon juice which contains Citric Acid does a good job of removing what I think is Copper Oxide.

3. You mention " Chelation has nothing whatsoever to do with something being filtered out or not.", again I was under the impression when a metal is chelated it can then be discounted as a contributing factor to stain or scaling. Jack's Tech team told me these metals and scale which when chelated then go through the filter as they are now sequestered, are trapped by the filter medium, and can then be removed by backwashing. So as you can see I am getting two seamingly opposite opinions. I will ask Jack on Monday what his Tech team means by this in more detail, but could you clarify your statement as I am a little confused?

I realize that you must be very busy, so I hope you will be able to respond when you have time and would appreciate if you could clear up my misunderstandings, as I am only interested in having good results and straightening out my understandings of how these mechanisms work.

Thank you for your time.
 
If you are worried about aggravating metal stains you simply should not use borax and acid when adding bortates. Adding borax and acid will cause large PH swings, which is something you totally don't want when you are worrying about metal stains. Instead use boric acid, which will have hardly any effect on the PH, lowering it just slightly, which will not aggravate metal stains. Yes, there are complicated, time consuming, ways to add borax and acid in endlessly repeated very small steps, similar to what you describe, but odds are you will cause the metals stains to reappear anyway and end up spending way more money removing the metals stains again than buying boric acid would have cost in the first place.

Copper reacts differently when it is in different oxidation states. In one state it behaves much like iron, and can be removed with ascorbic acid/citric acid/oxalic acid. If it is in another state, any of those three will move it to a third oxidation state from which it is extremely difficult to remove. Some of the copper removal procedures go through several steps attempting to get all of the copper into the correct oxidation state so that it can be removed the same way iron is removed. Once it is in the correct state, any of those three will work. It doesn't matter which chemical you use (ascorbic/citric/oxalic) it matters what state the copper is in (which can usually be told from the color of the stains).

Chelation means that the sequestrant binds to the metal. That bound combination is still in the water, it just can't cause stains as long as it remains bound. There is a separate step, clumping into larger particles, which needs to happen before the metals can be filtered out. One sequestrant bound to one metal isn't large enough to be caught by the filter. They will only be caught if they clump into significantly larger particles that can be caught by the filter. Traditional swimming pool sequestrants will clump under some conditions, but not reliably enough to count on it. Jack's Magenta Stuff is new. It may cause lots of clumping, leading to efficient metal removal. But I haven't seen that proven yet, and none of the others do that reliably, so I have my doubts.
 
JasonLion,

Very clear thank you.

Well I am going to have to wait a little to get the Boric Acid as our local chemical company needs a minimum order before I can buy it at a fair price, I will combine it with my garden order when I ready to lay down soil amendments and manure.

Yes even Jack's states I may need to do the "Copper and Scale Stuff" a few times before the Copper stains are completely gone, but it is expensive and time consuming to do. Well I will have to weigh that against a re-plastering as the pool is now 15+ years old.

On Jack's "Magenta Stuff" as I clean out my suction side canister with micron bag and pool sock I do notice that there are salt like crystals in the bag each night, about 1/2 fl oz. They are not calcium but more clear like salt or quartz with a yellow tinge so those might be chelated metals. Probably more are passing through to the filter.

Well at least I understand all this now.

Thank you.
 
Thanks for continuing to discuss this. I'm pretty bound up by tax stuff and I have a deadline so I'll probably be doing an all nighter tonight. I do have to take time out to watch the Cowboys' first preseason game but won't be enjoying beer with the pizza. :(

I'm keeping some notes.

I'm definitely having some calcium scale removed as evidenced by just looking and by the loading of the filter. Once a day backwash and I haven't even been vacuuming. Not as much dust entering pool because of lowered winds and a couple of rain showers to keep it down.

The water cleared up considerably Saturday as I only had one bottle of Magenta left. I put in 16 oz Sat and will put in 16 oz today. I've ordered three bottles of Magenta from eBay seller, $19.99/bottle and free shipping, super price!!!!

I mixed baking soda with water, two separate additions, for a total of 6 lbs which should bring my TA up to about 48. I'm not going to bring it up any higher until I hear more from Dad after he talks to Jack's team.

I haven't drained any water other than back washing.

It appears that the copper staining has lightened some. It is much easier to see in late afternoon with pump off so I'll know better then.

I haven't been able to brush anymore due to time but hoping I'll have the Aquabot tracks (big rubber, nubby tracks) in Monday so I can let it do a little bit of that for me and reduce the amount of stuff making it to filter. Actually a whole Aquabot refresh kit, including fine bag, for $114, free shipping, great deal, eBay.

I'm not going to do anything else to bring pH up for the mean time. I was going to add more baking soda today which would move it up slightly but I'm wanting to wait on that.

I might go out to a local place and pick up a couple of bottles of blue to hold me over until the Magenta comes in.

I think I might go with additions of Magenta 8 oz a day for a couple of weeks and then ease off to less per day after that. This amount is based solely on what I can afford to do and I figure that amount is better than none and/or the Jack's Blue for long term. We'll see.

I'm not testing sequestrant after yesterday as there's not really enough Magenta in there to test.

I'm going to run the vac cleaner today which will mean probably two backwashes today. Luckily whats going in the filter and using the Aqua Pearl it backwashes out pretty quickly so not nearly as much water lost as when I was using the Fiber Clear. Today's vacuuming will give me a better perspective on that as I haven't used a cleaner in several days so some of the particles will be our "cementous" dust. (I normally run any cleaner many hours a day.)

That's all for now.

Thank you guys for your work on this. Dad, I really appreciate your taking over the management of our situation. Our pools and environments are so similar in addition to the long term abuse that both of us subjected our pools to.

BTW... Dad, I don't know if you've seen it in my previous posts but I, too, took an angle grinder to my steps to grind the calcium scale off. It was the safest way to release the scale without damaging the underlying plaster. I used coarse concrete grinding discs. I only completed one, the bottom one, as I slipped in the pool, during the acid wash and tore a shoulder rotator cuff tendon. The scale has been lifting off the steps very slowly since the AA treatment in fall 09, using HTH sequestrant and keeping pH around 7.2

Later and THANKS :goodjob:
gg=alice
 
smallpooldad said:
I would also ask JasonLion or ChemGeek at what level TDS becomes a serious issue. My pH when I did the treatment would go a little lower in the morning and rises a little in the afternoon.
Click to expand...
TDS is not an issue for metal staining, per se. However, higher salt levels could potentially interfere with some metal sequestratants which is why, I presume, that Jack's has some different ones for use in SWG pools -- though the other reason might be a product that doesn't break down as much from the higher chlorine and low and high pH levels in the SWG cell. So you should talk to Jack about this as any impact of TDS would be a product-specific one.

As for your low acid experience, this is perfectly understandable since brief "few days" exposure to lower pH isn't going to cause immediate damage and it depends also on how low the pH gets. There are pools using Trichlor that "crash" below a pH of 4.5, but damage still takes more than a few days.
 

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Very quick update. The copper staining has lightened considerably. I mentioned picking up some Jack's Blue; Blue only because I haven't located a place near here that has Magenta. Well there may be one but I'm not going to have time to go to any place so I'm not going to put any in until the Magenta gets here. The eBay seller is in Texas so it shouldn't take too long. And for sure there's enough in there for preventive for now, maybe even some continuation of scale lifting and copper lightening. I've used twelve 32 oz bottles in the past five days or so.

Backing off on the amounts added will be a good test, I think, to see if it will continue to lighten the copper staining, at a reasonable speed. Reasonable speed can be weeks to months. A month of smaller additions, keeping pH 7-7.2 will be a good trial.

I'm happy with the point it's reached now. If it didn't lighten much more (but I'll bet it does) I can live with this much better than with what it looked like last week before I started the treatment.

gg=alice
 
Geekgranny, JasonLion, and Chem Geek,

Alice glad to here all is going well. As I stated before I think the most effective treatment (heavy lifting) is to do the "Copper and Scale Stuff" first but as you could not it seems that the large amount of "Magenta Stuff" is working for you.

Jack has not called yet, spoke with John their Tech, he was happy to here that Alice's pool had not turned into Swiss cheese and that the Copper stains and scale were being removed despite the lack of brushing with the "Magenta Stuff". Alice I asked him if you could get a tanker discount if Exxon was willing to deliver it to your house in one of their gas tankers, he will look into it!

As regards whether or not the pH being low or high, and whether or not they (Magenta, Purple, Blue Stuffs) are affected by chlorine this is what he stated, the pH should be below 7.6 (not too effective), ideal at 7.2 -7.4 (I keep mine at 7.4), and at 7.0 fairly aggressive, the chlorine is ok at any level below shock level and will not affect the performance. I find that keeping the chlorine at 5 -6, if the CyA is 35 - 40, helps to bleach out the walls, albeit slowly. If the CyA is above 35 photodegradation is minimal of the sequestrant, they will not tell me what type it is, a trade secret he said, but I think HEDP as that is what my test kit tests for. I am maintaining a level of 20 ppm and it seems to be holding there, if I add 6 oz to 8 oz of the "Magenta Stuff" weekly to my 10,000 gallon pool.

The "Pink Stuff", he said is affected by chlorine, so best not to use in our cases and the Magenta is OK in both SWG and Non-SWG pools, as is the Purple, Blue in non-SWG pools only.

Alkalinity is only an issue with the "Copper and Scale Stuff", otherwise 50/60-80 ppm is an ideal range, 80 ppm max, as John says, "You do want to swim in it don't you?"

My pool's few faint remaining pool stains, which I think are Copper, are slowly but surely going away, brushing with a stainless steel brush would make this happen faster John states, but I have not had much time recently. The only issue I am now having with my pool is that it is so bright, if the sun is out, I need to wear sunglasses between 10:00 am and 4:00 pm, if I am outside next to it as I was on Sunday. Next time I re-plaster I am going for a darker color.

One last point of interest, as I stated earlier during this process is that after I angle grinded off the scale when I drained the pool, the salt level rose too high, as this salt must have been in the scale. Well I checked for phosphates, this Saturday morning, and guess what these to were over 1000+ ppm, despite my fill water being only 200 ppm. I think these phosphates were also in the scale and then released back. I have treated for them and despite only running the pool at 8 hours a day for two days, up from 6 hours a day, they are now back to 200 ppm. The fast removal, normally takes a week, may have been due to the "Magenta Stuff" also sequesting and chelating. The reason I removed the phosphates is that I wanted a true baseline to work from. They did not affect the level of the sequestrant it still register 20 ppm.

Additionaly after dropping my SWG % from 50%, then, to 43%, then to 36%, it is still overproducing so I think I will try 32%. And yes I did compensate for the 2 days of the extra 2 hours. I had it turned off for those extra 2 hours. So the "Magenta" process also seems to help the salt cell in some way, or reduce chlorine usage, why I have no idea.

One last observation, even though the pool is crystal clear, when adding the "Magenta Stuff" it does cause clouding for a short period of time, 7 oz the last time.

Will ask Jack about TDS question when he calls.

Hope this helps.
 
Called Jack's to speak with Jack as no call yet, they informed me he had already left for the day. But I can reach him tomorrow before 9 am our time. I have an early morning meeting and will try to call him after at 8 am.

Alice how is the pool looking?

Have a good day.
 
smallpooldad said:
Called Jack's to speak with Jack as no call yet, they informed me he had already left for the day. But I can reach him tomorrow before 9 am our time. I have an early morning meeting and will try to call him after at 8 am.

Great, thanks.

Alice how is the pool looking?

Have a good day.
Click to expand...

Pool is looking very good. Thanks. Minimal clouding; probably clearer than most non-TFP pools but slightly cloudy for my pool. Copper is continuing to lighten. I haven't brushed since first time. Calcium is still releasing in quantity. My filter pressure rises enough in less than 48 hours that VF pump quadruples in speed to keep same flow. 80 sq ft Quad using Aqua Pearl. It really needs daily backwash. I haven't added any Magenta or anything else since, I think, Sunday 16 oz; before that Sat 16 oz.

I was hoping to have the Magenta in by today but it is not here yet which tells me I need to order some more right now. $20 a bottle, free shipping, is a great price.

From the results that are continuing, even without additions for a couple of days, I'm still considering whether to add 8 oz or more daily for a week and then go from there. If a bottle a week works that would be a good quantity to settle on for a while then lower some more.

gg=alice
 
Apologies, meeting ran much longer than anticipated yesterday. Called earlier this morning but Jack was gone. left a message, this time with my number, which I believer he has and will try again in the morning.

Glad to hear everything is going reasonably well.

Thank you.
 
Spoke with Jack today, he is very pleasant, very open with information, humble and very very funny. I had quite a long conversation with him but I had to cut it short at the end as I got a call from someone I had been trying to reach for two weeks over an an important subject and was in fear of not reaching them for another two weeks. I got the impression from his employees that they really like him and now after talking with him I see why.

The answers to our questions are as follows;

Question: Will the "Magenta, Purple, and Blue Stuffs" completely remove metals from the pool?
Answer: They will remove about 90%, per maintenance treatment to the filter so long as the filter is allowed to run for at least a minimum of 48 hours, or at 6 hours per day for 8 days. Backwashing before 48 hours would give poorer results, and much poorer if say done in 6 or 12 hours. Ideally it would be best to backwash just slightly earlier than you would backwash normally. Backwashing later than you would normally do would result in metals slowly but surely re-entering the pool, instead of being flushed out by the backwash. He stated that the common beleive that metals stay in solution in the pool is no longer valid with the newer chemicals they are using. That is one reason why they no longer register in tests. He said they look like little salt crytals in the filter (that is maybe why I am seeing crystals in my micron bags).

Question: What is the best "Stuff" to use if the TDS is high, with a salt water pool or as in Alice's case with West Texas Dust?
Answer: "The Magenta Stuff if very high TDS and/or Purple Stuffs if just SWG TDS level" would be best. The "Blue Stuff" is good for low TDS pools, such as non-salt water and pools with little dust blown into them. If a lot of scale or lots and lots of dust then "The Magenta Stuff".

Question: I was able to measure sequestrant in the "Magenta Stuff" is this correct? If I am showing 20 ppm will that hurt the pool?
Answer: Yes there is sequestrant in the Magenta Stuff, it is approximately 1/4 the amount of "The Purple Stuff". So if you measure 5 ppm, after the fill water allowance test (of 2ppm in my case), then the right maintenance dosage is in there (7 ppm in my case). Doubleing it (as I do), tripling it, or quadrupling it for in-pool acid wash will not hurt the pool, So a measure of 20 ppm will not hurt, but a normal dosage of 6 oz to 8 oz per week for a 10,000 gallon pool is normally adequate, or one could use the Sequstrant Test Kit to bring it up to 10 ppm to maintain the same dosage as "The Purple Stuff".

Question: Will chlorine hurt the performance?
Answer: Yes if it is over the Target FC level (see the Chlorine/CYA charts), keeping it halfway between the minimum FC and Target FC is the ideal number. Shock level will release the metals from the filter back into the pool, and higher than Target FC changes the chemical nature of the metal stain and makes it harder to remove.

Question: Which is better for a SWG pool, "The Magenta Stuff or The Purple Stuff"?
Answer: For most pools he likes "The Magenta Stuff", and even the "The Magenta Stuff" for non-SWG pools with scale issues. He feels that unless the Iron problem is really serious, such as with fill water supplies, it is the best overall solution. But if metals are a big problem, or your pool is perfectly balanced and has no scale then "The Purple Stuff" for SWG or "The Blue Stuff" for non-SWG pools.

Question: Why does "The Magenta Stuff" cloud the pool when you pour it in?
Answer: It clouds when there are Phosphates present as it has Phosphate remover in it.

Question: Any thing else you would like to add?
Answers;

Yes, we are keeping "The Purple Stuff" in our line up as many pools do not require "The Magenta Stuff" which is geared towards scale and metals.

We are re-formulating "The Magenta Stuff" to be stronger at removing Iron, both stuffs are excellent for Copper.

He says higher than 80 ppm of CyA can reduce the effect of his chemicals, and many pools in Florida are over 100 ppm, and has personally seen quite a few pools with over 800 ppm, if using pucks.

He says the best way to keep your pool in check is to use a sequestrant test kit as this measures the true amount of sequestrant in the pool, he stated that many pool treatments, but not all, that do use sequestrants, such as HEDP use it in such a diluted form that it will not do the job and one would need to add anywhere from 4 to 10 times the recommended dosage to acheive the proper result.

As regards removing stains quickly I got the strong impression from Jack that the "The Copper and Scale Stuff" was really the best way to go, possibly the only way although he did not state that, if one uses Jack's chemicals, there are other methods. Using the "The Magenta, Purple, or Blue Stuffs" would take one a long time, from many months and possibly up to 2 years and that is if one is willing to maintain the CSI at -0.70 to -1.00, and scrub twice daily.

And finally to scrub, scrub, scrub with a stainless steel brush if you have stains, regardless of the treatment.

In my own case my chlorine loss per day is now down to about 1.12 ppm including the overnight loss, if I maintain 4 ppm at a CyA of 35, it seems that "The Magenta Stuff" helps in some way. This despite strong winds and pollen blowing into the pool, which I have not covered for many weeks. On the Pool Pilot SC-60 cell at Power Level 2 it is now set at 24%, with pump running 6 hours per day. The Combined Chlorine measure zero using the FAS-DPD 0.50 measure method.

Hope this helps.
 
Oh, yes Dad. That really helps. I haven't been able to get out this week so nothing has been added except to keep pH lower than 7.2 Today I ordered 10 bottles Magenta from Pool Plaza which is here in Dallas area. I, also ordered 5 lbs #2 to play with hanging some, in stocking or such, down the wall in deep end and maybe rig up something that will hold some and scrub some areas. Just trying some things.

The three bottles of Magenta, from eBay, still haven't arrived and they have no more listed last time I checkd.

I'm going to pick up a couple of bottles of Blue at Leslies when I go out tomorrow just to hold me over.

From what Jack says Magenta is the product to keep using. My pool could be a "Poster Child" for Magenta.

I got the refresh kit in and put on old Aquabot so using it will take a considerable load off of the filter so I can go 48 hours without backwashing when the scale is releasing en mass. I really love that geriatric "guy".

The Aqua Pearl is really continuing to be the media I hoped it would be backwashing out well with minimal water waste compared to cellulose that just won't backwash out of my filter. Problem is finding it and waiting so long for delivery.

Did you, by any chance, direct Jack to TFP?

You've done good. :-D :goodjob:

gg=alice
 
Alice,

Thank you. #2 might work but you might have to lower the pH to 6.4 and Alk to 20, I think that was important if I understood John correctly but as you are doing a localized treatment that may not be necessary. You might want to call John for guidance.

I did tell Jack about TFP but he said he had looked at many forums that relate to pools and he felt that the persons on these forums do a good enough job explaining his product. I think that it would demand too much time of his already busy Tech Team, that was my impression although he not state that.

And yes 48 hours or more so long as your pressure does not run over safe maximum levels would be good, but if you run over safe maximum PSI levels you could damage your filter, each filter is different so you should check with your manufacturer what is the most PSI it can rise over its clean level before you MUST backwash it.

Call Jack's to see who in your local area carries "The Magenta Stuff", you might find it cheaper. In our case, apart from the pool stores, I discovered from Jack a local plumbing company uses it, why I do not know as they are primarily a plumbing supply house and not a vendor of pool products. Ask them if any water treatment or plumbing supply houses carry it, not just pool suppliers.

"Poster Child", if I were Jack I would have 60 ft billboards all over Texas with a picture of you and your pool saying "Look What We Did To Alice".

I went into your issues about West Texas Dust and he knew all about it, he got very technical and I have to admit I understood very little of what he explained to me other than it is really really nasty stuff. So if you can solve the West Texas Dust issue maybe you might want to open a business selling the stuff; you could help a lot of fellow Texan pool owners.

Good Luck and have a nice weekend, by the way you are famous at Jack's, in a nice way that is, even Jack knows who you are.
 
Alice,

A thought, as you have so much more scale than me and some copper staining you might want to look at soda blasting, you could do it yourself or hire a local company that renovates monuments to do it for you.

The method is similar to sand or glass blasting but far less corrosive, it uses baking soda and so long as the pressure is around the 30 PSI mark it strips quite slowly, above 50 PSI it strips quickly but could be too aggressive as I understand it. It does take longer at 30-35 PSI but you could insist on it being done at that 30-35 pressure. They even use it on glass.

You really need a large commercial machine to do it relatively quickly, something with truck mounted pressure tanks and large nozzles.

This would then get you back to a near original baseline pool and you could maintain it with Jack's stuff. Google "Blasting with baking soda".

It might save you time, labor, and the expense of the chemicals. Well it could be a little more expensive but you might get to "Pool Nirvana" a lot faster. The pool of course would need to be drained.

Hope this helps.
 
Well two weeks have come and gone and I used "The Magenta Stuff" for 10 days and it moved a lot of scale to the filter and even blocked up my SWG cell as I forgot how much scale it removes. The sensor said clean the cell and when I took it off it looked like a block of chalk. After shooting it down with the hose for about 1/2 hour I got rid of most of the chalk/scale and the gave an acid wash (1 part muriatic to 5 parts water) for 20 minutes, and it looked like new. But I have got to give it to PoolPilot cells it kept on going right up till I cleaned it still producing chlorine, well it actually slowed down that day as I got to it in the evening.

I then switched to "The Purple Stuff" as there was little to no scale in the "Micron Bags", "The Purple Stuff" is definetly better at stains and my white "Pool Socks" went from cream colored back to white and what very little stains remain are slowly but surely going away.

Normally after one and a half to two weeks the iron/copper stains, or whatever they are, start to reappear, not this time.

So I am a very happy camper. Great Grandma thinks I am a genius and I think I will leave it that way.

In retrospect I think one is best off using "The Copper and Scale Stuff" first as this did 95% of the cleaning in conjunction with a lot of stainless stell scrubbing, "The Magenta Stuff" if one has a lot of scale, I quadrupuled my dose to have a high enough metal sequestrant with no ill effects. If one has no or very little scale using either the "The Purple Stuff", if a salt water pool, or "The Blue Stuff" if non-SWG would just as effective and far less expensive. But without the sequestrant test kit one is walking in the dark if one needs to maintain 20 ppm metal sequestrant while treating, and 10 ppm for maintenance, so I think that item too is a definite must have.

Alice, I hope all is well with you, and once you have got rid of your scale issues will you stick with "The Magenta Stuff", or "The Blue Stuff", or "The Purple Stuff, or a combination? I would be interested to know.

Final Numbers that I have settled on:

pH 7.4 (To control metal staining)
Alk 60 (This where it naturally settles)
FC 4.0 to 4.5
CC 0.00 (Measured using 0.50 FAS_DPD Method - Taylor kit)
Calcium Hardness 600 (To keep CSI around -0.24)
CyA 35 (Do not need higher as pool is only 4 1/2 feet deep)
Salt 3300 (Pool Pilot SC-60 Cell at Power level 2 at 36%)
Borates 0
Temp (Avg. 80)
CSI -0.24

I will write no more on this subject as I have accomplished what I set out to do, that being no more re-occuring stains. The pool looks close to new.

Aloha from Hawaii
 

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