.3ppm of iron in water.

[JoeyV]

I have .3ppm of iron in water. I don't know if this is relatively high or low. My water turned green a few weeks back. I did the aa treatment and sequestrant and fixed the color issue. It now seems only my white stairs start to slightly stain. I did a localized aa treatment on them today to remove the stains but now wondering if I'm going to need to either do this on a regular basis, continue to add sequestrant or will partial drain and refill/natural evaporation/refill will remove the rest of the iron in the water. I don't know how it got in the water the first place since I tested my source water (City) and there is no iron in it.

 

[JoeyV]

Sorry. My questions aren't very clear on my first post. Is 3 ppm of iron in water a lot or a little? What do you reccomend for treatment? Is there a way to avoid continued treatment without staining?

 

[duraleigh]

.3 ppm is generally thought of as the beginning of staining levels. (you can attest to that)

The iron is coming from your source and cannot be removed unless you refill from a whole house water softener or change your source.

Doing neither of the above means you will have to keep sequestrants in the pool FOREVER to keep the stains at bay.

Literally nothing else works.

 

[Bama Rambler]

As Dave eluded to, if your source water has iron, you'll either have to replace it with iron free water or you'll have to maintain a level of sequestrant pretty much permanently.

 

[JoeyV]

Thanks for the replies. I had my source water tested and it showed 0 iron in it. Assuming my source water truly does not have iron in it, how much would i have to replace to get to below staining levels?

 

[pooldv]

I'd do about half the pool. If your source water doesnt have iron then how did the iron get in the pool?

 

[Bama Rambler]

Don't trust the testing. Get a water report from the utility and see if it lists any metals in the water. They have to give you one if you ask for it, and a lot of places have them online.

I looked at a few water reports for your area and it doesn't look like you have iron, but it does say that the area has .3 ppm of copper, so maybe that's your problem.

 

[JoeyV]

Thank you all for the info. It is much appreciated. I will have the utility company give a water report. In the event I do have .3ppm of copper in water, what is the best product to use regularly to keep the metal at bay and the stains from forming?

 

[pooldv]

Sequestrants based on HEDP, phosphonic acid, or phosphonic acid derivatives are the most effective. ProTeam's Metal Magic and Jack's Magic The Pink Stuff (regular), The Blue Stuff (fresh plaster), and The Purple Stuff (salt) are some of the top brand sequestrants. There are also other brands with similar active ingredients, some of which are noticeably less expensive.

 

[JoeyV]

Walmart has a Product called HTH metal and stain defense. It's 32oz for around 12-13 bucks. Would this do the trick?

 

[pooldv]

I don't know, check the ingredients to see if they match.

 

[JoeyV]

Jacks and pro team have diphosphonic acid and hth has etidronic acid. Any idea if similar or a derivative?

 

[JoeyV]

Nevermind. Got it. Thank you for the help.

 

[JoeyV]

Quick question. I added the sequestrant last night along with 1/2 cup of de to sand filter. Staring Psi was around 15. It's now hovering around 19. Since I added both, i think 1psi is attributed from the de but since it went up 3 additional psi, is that normal for sequestrants? Also how long should I let it run like this prior to back washing ?

 

[duraleigh]

The sequestrant stays in soluition and has no bearing on your filter/pump pressure.

 

[JoeyV]

Ok. Is ok to backwash now being I put the sequestrant in last night and pump has been on for approx 8 hrs total?

 

[duraleigh]

Sure. The sequestrant is suspended in your pool equally throughout. You will have very little loss.

 

[JoeyV]

Thank you. Maybe for another discussion another time. I've read on here that it may be possible to purposely bring the metal out of solution, possibly by raising ph (putting soda ash) directly into skimmer and create clumping so the filter can actually rid the water of the metal itself? I did read that it's not, for lack of better word, reliable and results can vary greatly. But was thinking of attempting maybe next year when opening pool.

 

[JoeyV]

Hi all. So i received my test kit the other day and was doing some research on this forum. In regards to the staining discussed above, I followed the instructions pretty well. Did an AA treatment, added more than the recommended amount of HEDP based sequestrant, and am finding that my stairs continue to lightly stain. I've been doing local aa treatments on them and it works immediately but the stains return within a day or two. I decided to test my CH levels and results are between 100-125. I am wondering if the stains are reaccuring due to the low ch level. I believe I read somewhere on this site that low ch levels can stain fiberglass pools and since i think my stairs are fiberglass, maybe this is what is contributing to the staining on the stairs? If the answer is yes, the two or three follow up questions are... 1. Can stains on fiberglass caused by low ch levels be removed with AA just as metals stains? 2. Having a vinyl liner, is it recommended that I raise the CH levels and will it help eliminate the staining on the stairs? Thank you all in advance for your help.

 

[JoeyV]

Just went and did a local cleaning on stairs and found staining on plastic return eyeball and skimmer as well so maybe that shoots my theory out the window.