Stuck in a loop: Metal Stains, AA Treatment, Cloudy, Metal Stains!

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M

MT

0
Jun 27, 2013
52
Orange County, NY
I've been through 2 cycles of this over the past month. I have metal stains on my vinyl liner, very uniform over the entire surface. I treat with Polyquat60. I dump 1 lb of Ascorbic Acid into the pool, the stains are lifted. I put a LOT of metal sequestration into the pool. I put a CuLator in the pump basket. The pool becomes cloudy for several days. I keep the PH at or lower than 7.2, I only add enough bleach to raise FC to 2 ppm. As the pool starts to clear, over the course of 1-2 weeks, the stains start working their way back onto the liner. And then I repeat the whole cycle again. I either have a clear pool with a tinged liner, or a blue pool with cloudy water. I can't win!

Can anyone give me advice to help break this cycle?
 
Fill water is coming from our well. So yeah, I'm sure that's where the metals are coming from. I'm sure that's a big reason for the cycle starting all over. I just thought between the CuLater and Jack's Pink Stuff, the stains would not re-appear.

Last time the stains were on the liner I tested the water and was told I had 0.1 ppm of iron and 0.1 ppm of copper. I think I may have precipitaed the problem this time, I think I was adding too much bleach at once. But it is such a battle it seems. Using muriatic acid to lower PH, adding bleach will raise it again, more MA to bring PH down, which seems to lower the FC. Finding a balance is difficult.
 
I presume you are adding a maintenance dose of metal sequestrant every week, correct? Metal sequestrant slowly breaks down from chlorine so you need to replenish it. Otherwise, the metals the sequestrant holds will be released back into the water and can stain.
 
Maybe this thread will help you out: http://www.troublefreepool.com/threads/75280-Switching-Sequestrate-from-EDTA-to-HEDP

I switched to Metal Magic this year, and did the 5-bottle treatment mentioned in the sponge test instead of the AA treatment and cycle because it was easier to not drop chlorine so much or fight to bring it back up. (I am on well like you are.) I maintain the sequestrant weekly, and have not so far gotten stains back touch wood ;))

While AA is sure fire on most stains, like you, i found the cycle frustrating, and am really enjoying this new approach, for which I'm really grateful to Jim for posting!

Btw, when you add water, are you using a hose filter? I do believe that helps.
 
I probably slacked on adding the sequestrant every week, but I have put a lot of it in over the past two months. Never going more than 2 weeks without. IN any case, I think I figured out the cloudy water. This time it was really bad, usually it clears up in a couple days after AA treatment. It has been milky blue for over 1 week. I also started to see a lot of pink slimy stuff on a lot of the plastic fixtures. That told me it was more than the AA treatment causing the problem.

Here is what I did... First I put a lot of muriatic acid in to lower the PH to 6.8 or even lower. Then I SLAMMED. I have been slamming for 3 days, brushing the sides and bottom twice per day, and the water is almost clear now. I will keep slamming until the water is crystal clear, then will add baking soda if the PH is still low.

I know the AA treatment plan is clear about NOT slamming the pool for two weeks. But with visual evidence of slime and possible algae, I figure it would be best to kill that off first. Now if the metal stains re-appear when the PH goes back up, I hope that doesn't happen, cause it'll be back to square one. I'm thinking of keeping the PH low, closer to 7. Cause when I keep it at 7.2 it always ends up creeping to 7.4 and that's when the staining starts again.
 
That makes perfect sense.

Except citric acid is used in meat packing to kill bacteria...and AA is essentially citric acid...and pink slime is bacteria...so I guess I thought the AA would fight the bacteria while the chlorine was low...and then as the chlorine busted the AA, that it too would fight the bacteria. It seems somehow the pink is "slipping through" the two things i thought were known to kill it ;)

I hear it likes the dark....maybe keeping filter running throughout process would help avoid it?
 

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AA is ascorbic acid. However, at concentrations used in the swimming pool it's not going to kill bacteria. The mode of action for citric acid requires higher concentrations such as 1%.

The Polyquat is intended to slow down algae growth during the AA procedure. Pink slime isn't that common, but it does look there's a "hole" during the AA procedure since there's nothing significantly preventing such bacterial growth (Polyquat has some effect, but not enough, apparently). The good news is that chlorinating after the AA procedure is done should kill off the pink slime though once it forms slime layers it's harder to kill (similar to how black algae and biofilm are more resistant to chlorine).
 
Swampwoman said:
I switched to Metal Magic this year, and did the 5-bottle treatment mentioned in the sponge test instead of the AA treatment and cycle because it was easier to not drop chlorine so much or fight to bring it back up.
Click to expand...

Thank you!!! I used Metal Magic this week. I only used 1/2 dose (1 bottle in my 20k gallon pool). It worked great! It totally cleared the metal stains and there was no cloudy water at all. And only $16 per bottle. I'm sold on this stuff!
 
Glad the tip helped you out, Max. Even though is says a lower amount of maintenance, eg monthly, I add a little every week and have had a trouble free summer in terms of stains ;) My pool specs are very similar to yours. So maybe vinyl pools just like this product :)
 
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