AA treatment questions

Those items are covered here, Pool School - Pool Stains

I get that they are covered there. My concern is that people will miss the point about draining once they click the post on the AA treatment. I did and I am sure others have as well.

Maybe moving " Generally, there is no practical way to remove iron or copper from the water short of replacing the water with new water that doesn't have any iron or copper in it. You can use a sequestrant to prevent metal stains. Sequestrants bind to the metal and prevent them from depositing as stains. Sequestrants slowly break down in the pool, so you will need to continually add more sequestrant on a regular basis to maintain sufficient level to keep the iron or copper sequestered.

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."

right after this statement will help.

Inorganic Stains
Many people find out that they have metal in their water when unsightly stains appear. These stains commonly appear shortly after the PH is raised; often when adding chlorine. Fiberglass pools and plastic components are particularly prone to iron and copper stains.
 
Hi Bill. I think the reason the article is not more specific at this point is because every condition is a bit different. Let me give you an example.

If one is on well, as I am, and has a raw water concentration of 2 ppm, draining with pre-treatment (eg via water softener and filtering for ferric) will NOT mean you can go without sequestrant. With every backwash/evaporation cycle, you'd be adding trace amounts...or major amounts, of iron.

In my case, a water change with trucked water costs $1,000. That's the equivalent of 50 bottles of Metal Magic.

In terms of maintenance, at my current level, 50 bottles will maintain me for about 4.5 years.

In cases where folks are not on well, draining after AA does not necessarily prevent future accumulation (though it helps reduce concentration) if its coming from the municipal source, salt added for swg, improper bonding and resultant corrosion, inferior stainless steel components that are eroding and leaching into the water, or copper that is stripping from a heat exchanger, or high iron soil that is blown in in GA or Hawaii for example, or fertilizer drift in agricultural areas.

So, in a cost-benefit scenario, water change is not a permanent fix unless the source can be permanently eradicated. Dilution will always help, but in most cases, cannot eradicate the need for sequestrant.

I'm working on a collection of "metal treatment options/scenarios" that I will be submitting to the TFP gang for consideration for next season, so will be sure to remember your wish list in my submission, but I also wanted you to get a feel for the complexity of "what-ifs" out in the field ;)
 
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