So I come home yesterday and find my pool covered with a layer of tree stuff. Both floating and on the bottom. I do some basic detective work and see that during the day a tree company took down a 3' in diameter tree just on the other side of my fence. I had a 1/4" layer of sawdust everywhere. My filter baskets (skimmer and pump) were nearly clogged. I cleaned all the filters, skimmed all the stuff off the surface, backflushed the filter, had the change pool vac bags every 30 mins, and checked on the pool after a couple of hours. Most of the loose stuff came up, but the whole bottom of the pool was "stained". Scrubbing with a brush didn't remove it. I don't know if it was tree sap or what. I did a chlorine drop test and had 3.5, and I'm running a SWG with CYA of 55. The water was looking yellow. I started a SLAM process and ran chlorine up to 24 last night and left the pump on. This morning I'm still at 24 (SWG is in BOOST mode). The bottom looks 95% better, but still not fully clean. What else can I do?
Pool full of sawdust from cut down tree- bottom stained
- Thread starter zimm
- Start date
With organics, higher chlorine levels will bleach them out. That's about all you can do assuming there was not metal staining (seems unlikely if it was just sawdust). With constant exposure to chlorine, the stains may continue to fade over time. You could test an isolated area with different techniques just to see -- a Trichlor puck or some ascorbic acid (just in case).
Since your FC was consumed overnight (swg was on and producing chlorine) and your water is not clear, both are indications that you need to continue to do the SLAM process until you pass all three criteria simultaneously. When you do the OCLT, make sure the swg is off.
I agree that it is unlikely the stains are metal...more likely they are tannins from the wood and if they are, a trichlor tab should lighten the area it is applied.
I agree that it is unlikely the stains are metal...more likely they are tannins from the wood and if they are, a trichlor tab should lighten the area it is applied.
I would agree, and also add that the results so far are very good news. It could be so much worse if the color/staining didn't react to the elevated Chlorine. I hate it happened, and would feel no differently, but it may not be too bad of an ordeal in the end.
Thanks for the inputs. I bet they were tanins. I was actually suprised the chlorine actually fixed the stains. I'll do an OCLT tonight with the SWG on 0. I think with all those organics in the water, it ate up my chlorine. I filled my huge leaf net 4 times with stuff from the water and that's not counting the small dust stuff that went into the filter. I should have taken pictures, but I was in such a hurry to save my "baby" that I got too busy with the leaf blower and the cleaning process!