AA treatment questions

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^Clearly the silky rooster is dumping iron into you're water to distract you so he can mess with your kids ;)

But seriously. I am completely stumped here.

There's just no way that .15 ppm at a ph of 7.5, which is really not high, in a freshwater fill should be staining that quickly.

Did it happen almost immediately, or just after you added more salt? What kind of salt are you using? Did it happen before you turned your swg back on? (Or have you yet?)

I don't recall if I asked before but is your swg bonded correctly to your system?

Is there any chance you have corroded dielectric pipes running to the exterior spigot? Was the tap water sample from the outdoor spigot, or in the house?

At this point, my hope for you is that the Jacks Purple nails it without wearing off fast. But I'd sure like to help you get to the bottom of the source ;)

Also, when you add the jacks, start out with just one bottle to see if that works, and pour it entirely on the steps.
The reason I'm suggesting this is that depending on percentage of water change, you still have some sequestrant in there...you might be able to get back to the sequestered effective level without a fresh full dose, and then use the rest for small weekly top ups.

Just trying to stretch out the $$$. 1 bottle, so a little under half dose in my case, totally nailed the steps.
 
The <.15ppm of iron was out of the spigot I use for the pool. I added salt one day, turned the swg on the next, and the following day their was staining. I didn't notice any the day of the salt or the swg. That all equated to about 4 days after I added about 1.5lbs of AA that I had left before the drain and refill. By my estimation I swapped 12k on the first pass, and 13k on the second one. The old swg wasn't bonded, so the new one is not bonded yet. It's supposed to be one continuous wire, so that's not possible. I'm gonna go lower the ph, and hopefully run a bonding jumper to the swg now. I'm using pool salt from Walmart. I've used that and some other stuff I bargained for at the pool store in the past. I think I caused the extra iron, whatever level it was before the sequestrant, last year when I removed the rust on the old ladder. It just rerusted over the summer, which I assume added the iron to the water. I hope to get to the light soon, but the total surface area that is corroded is nothing compared to the old ladder. What's the difference in the metal magic, purple stuff, and the hth brand I read a few threads about last night? Does the jack's have a proprietary special ingredient, or are they all similar compounds? The jack's mads is basically worthless compared to the hth one I found.


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According to the jack's instructions, the maintenance dose is 8oz/10k gallons per week. That's like $20/week. If that's how fast it wears off, I'm either not gonna be very happy, or I'm gonna have a stained pool. I could buy AA and dump on the steps twice a week cheaper than that if it actually restains quickly when it wears off.


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Also, while I'm willing to try just about anything at this point, what does bonding of the swg really have to do with the cell? All its receiving is a low voltage, low amperage current. It doesn't have anything that is bonded or grounded. It's just the controller that's grounded and bonded.


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So, here's a new clue I just stumbled upon. I took one of the return eyeballs off to show a friend the difference in color between the stained portion and the white it was supposed to be. When I looked inside, it was much darker, and it was darker at the bottom of the fitting like the iron was laying out all the way from the cel back to the pool. So, maybe it is the cell causing all this havoc. Maybe the jack's purple stuff has some secret ingredient that helps with the cell. Here's pictures of the fitting, and a fresh set of readings. And yes I know the cya needs to be higher. I have to wait a couple days for a reading, then get more. Based on what I could get at Walmart, I think it's about 50.
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Good morning. Things are starting to make sense now.

Re:
What's the difference in the metal magic, purple stuff, and the hth brand I read a few threads about last night
Click to expand...

Jacks purple is specifically formulated to work in the high TDS of a salt pool, and has an extra ingredient to clean the cell. I suspect your iron level s much lower now, so doubt you'd be needing a bottle a week...
Metal Magic is not formulated specifically for swg, though of course they say it works. Jacks pink, which is similar to mm, says right in instructions not recommended in high TDS conditions, aka salt...and its HEDP...so by extrapolation, its possible that other brands would not either. For this reason I'd expect the purple to outlast any other formulations, and for the few dollars difference, expect you might make it up in efficacy. But. Don't know this for a fact ;)

Re bonding and ladder corrosion...there are posters WAY more informed than me on this topic, but I know Hayward expressly trains its installers that swg must be bonded for both safety and corrosion from the electrolysis. I have witnessed a thread where staining went away after connecting a bond wire.

My electrician connected the swg to the pump motor bond wire, kind of doubling/braiding it since there wasn't enough bond wire from the pump itself to reach the swg. I suspect that both your ladder corrosion and metal management/volume of meal contamination will be improved as soon as you correct this.

Re: your readings...slightly aggressive but so is mine...lower ph for metals causes this...in theory more calcium would bring you closer to neutral...by why low on the cya or is that just because you refilled?

(For swg, believe the reccs are 70-80 cya...which reduces the run time required to extend the cell, but in your case, would hopefully also reduce the opportunity for rust production in the interim ;) )

Hope that helps. Keep us posted!
 
I kinda thought what you did about the mm and the pink stuff. It said it would work, so I rolled the $85 dice and lost that plus water, cya, salt, etc. oh well. I'll say it helped. Surely it did since I removed at least a fair portion of the iron. The cya is that low because it was 50 when I opened, then I drained all that water, and Walmart only had one bottle when I went. I still need to get another bottle. Btw, if you buy cya from Walmart, price match it with their website. The 4lb bottle was $12.77 in stores last year. It's $14.xx this year, but the buy online pick up in store price is the same as last year. They'll match it if it says pick up in store today online. If the swg is the problem, getting the cya back up where it usually runs should help as far as running less, so that's a light at the end of my tunnel. I thought about adding some calcium, but as far as I know there's no real reason too, unless it would help with the metal removal. I read somewhere that the metal bonds with the calcium. No idea if that's accurate information. I still don't understand how the bonding could affect the cell at all, but I did get the bonding corrected yesterday. Hopefully someone can shed some light on that subject. I also don't see how bonding of the swg could even be a safety issue. The cell is isolated by the transformer, so only low dc voltage is getting to it.


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Here's new numbers from yesterday. Cya was still lower than I thought it was. Added 8lbs to get it closer to 70. Probably still need some more. I'll see when I test it again. Ph is climbing faster than ever since the TA is higher than ever. Added acid and got it back to 7.2. Had some people over yesterday so I did the old vitamin c in a sock trick and got all my plastic bits sparkly white. Jack's should be here Wednesday.
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Just checked on my jack's order. It should be here tomorrow. While I was looking at it I decided to read the 9 reviews. I didn't expect anything coherent or intellectual like we usually have around here. I wasn't expecting this.
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I think I'm now dumber and sad just for reading those. Expensive testing? You can't tell that there's not a stain on your pool? Surely the other one reviewed the wrong product.


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I put two quarts of the jack's in yesterday. The steps, and the liner just under the steps, is still stain free since the sock treatment the other day. The other areas next to the stain free areas are lighter now after the jack's. I'm adding my last quart now, which technically would be the remainder of the initial dose. Depending on how long the stains stay away just with the AA, it might be cheaper just to drop a couple pounds of AA every few weeks. I'll see how well the jack's does, then make a decision from there.


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Good morning! Don't forget that the AA lifts stain but won't sequester...only sequestrant like Jacks keeps the metal in solution.

I think purple says to top up weekly at 6 ounces per 10k. That will give a clue as to how long the mfgs believe it lasts til some slowly starts to degrade.
 

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