Iron staining help

[dayhiker]

Each year I fight iron staining. This year has been exceptional. When I uncovered the pool in mid April, it was pretty bad. I put in 1 qt of polyquat 60 and maybe 2#'s of citric acid. It looked great. A week later, I started trying to pull up the chlorine level. The pool turned green. I added maybe 6 qt's of sequestrant and still green. I gave up, added maybe half a qt of polyquat, another 1.5# or so of citric and it looked good again. Another week goes by, same loop, etc. I maybe have done one more iteration again. Finally, I remembered that it sometimes takes 2 weeks to be able to pull up the chlorine. 2 weeks ago yesterday, I add 1qt of poly, maybe 1# of citric, and it looks good. Each iteration, it had looked very cloudy to the point of not being able to see the bottom. I felt like I was this "ll" close to an algae bloom. 1 week passed and I added another bottle of poly. This past Monday, I decided it was time to start pulling up the chlorine (2 weeks from citric treatment). I ran my SWG at about 50% (I had been doing it at 25%) for maybe 10 hours. Last night I added maybe 1/3 of a gallon of bleach in 8 oz increments maybe every 30 minutes. I also added 1qt of sequestrant. This morning things looked good so I turned on the pump about 6 am and added maybe 8oz of bleach over 1 return jet and another 8 oz over another jet. It's been running all day. My wife just texted me that the pool was green.

I took readings maybe Saturday or so. I"m going from memory, but:

FC - 0
CC - 0 - but I could see a small patch of algae on the steps
pH - 7.2
Alkalinity - 80
CYA - 70

What in the world am I doing wrong and what should I do to fix it? I'm inclined to just shock the heck out of it, add 3# of citric, wait until the FC drops close to 0 and then add polyquat. WHat really stinks is I'm about to leave town for 10 days and my sister is my kids at my house. Not having a pool to play in will be an obstacle.

I'll test my levels when I get home this evening and post them here. The first iteration when the pool turned green, FC was 3. The others, maybe 0.5. Within 6 hours of adding the citric, it's been blue again. Normally, citric or abscorbic turns it blue within 30 minutes, but this year it has taken longer.

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She just texted a photo. It is a pale green, but green. The other times it has almost gone deep green then towards the color of tea. SHe's adding a bottle of sequestrant now.

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One more comment, when I bought muriatic this year, it was a "less fumes," formula. Could something in the muriatic be reacting?

 

[JasonLion]

It is very common for a pool to cloud up for several days after using citric acid.

You are either not using enough sequestrant, or you are using the wrong kind of sequestrant.

When you say "green" do you mean algae, or clear transparent green water, or green stains on the walls/floor of the pool?

 

[dayhiker]

It is very common for a pool to cloud up for several days after using citric acid.

You are either not using enough sequestrant, or you are using the wrong kind of sequestrant.

When you say "green" do you mean algae, or clear transparent green water, or green stains on the walls/floor of the pool?

It's clear, transparent green, then will darken to tea colored. The 2nd go around I thought maybe it was algae. I dumped in the citric and got blue again in a few hours, so I ruled out algae. I have just never had it act like this before. Buying 6 bottles of the stuff stunk. The kind I buy is actually from Walmart. The first time I went through this, I sent you a photo of the label because you were concerned that it wasn't the correct kind. The label confirmed that it was. I'll look at the label when I get home tonight. Maybe they've changed their formaula to the cheaper, less effective chemical. What is the magic ingredient that I'm looking for.

Thanks for the quick reply too.

 

[JasonLion]

HEDP, phosphonic acid, or phosphonic acid derivatives are the recommended chemicals.

 

[dayhiker]

I'll look for them. She said that there are no ingredients listed and their website is useless. I bet they changed the formula. I'm going to order 4qt of proteam metal magic and see what that does for me. Thanks a bunch.

 

[dayhiker]

CC was 2.0, so that chlorine I added is fighting off something for sure. 2 bottles of the aquachem stain stuff has it looking better, but not great. I had 1 bottle of polyquat on hand, so I put that in there. I may have to get a bottle or two of stain stuff from a pool store until my metal magic shows up. It's around $30/bottle in the local stores. I bet I've spent $200 on stain stuff so far this year. I am convinced that the aquachem changed their formula. It has worked really well in the past.