Abalone Shell Chips and Brown Stains in Diamond Brite Plaster-

[Dram414]

Moved from here... Abalone Shell Chips Causing Brown Stains in Diamond Brite Plaster-

Hi,
Hopefully I can shed some light on your issues. I am ever too familiar with abalone stains. Here is what I have gathered thus far. So, because abalone is a shell and was once alive, they contain certain amounts of protein. If at any time after the installation the water gets aggressive (acidic) the shells become compromised and start to release these proteins. Looks very unsightly, and progressively get worse. I have come across a remedy to this problem that I will be starting today on a local pool that has these stains. I will keep you posted as to how it turns out. Takes about fifteen days and I guess the trick is to not do it too early as to be sure all the proteins have been released from the shells, or the problem just comes back again..

I am having the same problem, can you help me out? My two month old pool looks like Crud, has hundred of dime sized light brown spots, many are surrounding abalone shell, other spots I am suspecting are where some of the hand tossed shell fleks came off and maybe left the protein behind. I have been keeping my PH right at 7.4 since we got it, no metal in the water, no fertilizer, leaves or anything else. The spots won’t scrape off. Oddly a few seemed to improve with muratic acid, others, nada.

My pool contractor says it’s black algae but it clearly isn’t and confirmed by a dozen other pool people.

Any ideas you have would be great!!

 

[kimkats]

One thing you can do is read over this link and follow the recommendations here Stains in Your Pool - Trouble Free Pool Let us know what happens.

 

[Dram414]

One thing you can do is read over this link and follow the recommendations here Stains in Your Pool - Trouble Free Pool Let us know what happens.

The plaster manufacturer says that the problem is as I suspected, the abalone shells in the pool or leaching proteins. They recommended adding 12 pounds of shock two times over a five day window. They recommended increasing my chlorine to 10 ppm. However, my free chlorine levels were already at 16.6 ppm .

Additionally they recommended that I turn off my system and let the chlorine soak in the pool to kill the proteins in the abalone for five days. I am about to experience freezing temperatures and do not think turning off my system for that long is a good idea.

I don’t know if super chlorination my pool is going to fix the problem. And I think I’ll wait till I have a week over 45-55

 

[Dram414]

We’ll problem solved with my pool. It wasn’t black algae which was pretty obvious. The mysterious brown spots turned out to be abalone that got troweled into the plaster about 1/2 an inch and began to rot. They then leached protein and stained the plaster. My pool builder drained my pool and chipped out a few of the spots. A lot of the exposed abalone had rings but others had no visible abalone, when chisels our, there was a nice soft center.

long story short, they are going to replaster and add glass beads for sparkle vs abalone

 

[YippeeSkippy]

Well that *is* good news! Glad they're stepping up to the plate and fixing an issue of poor materials.

I've gotta admit this is the first time I've heard of this problem

Lets hope they can do it all before summer, huh?

Maddie

 

[kimkats]

@JoyfulNoise has talked about his worry on using the shells. This is the first time I have seen where it DID cause problems I will no long even talk about them and discourage anyone thinking about using them. The glass beads are a much safer bet.

What color of beads will they be using?

 

[Dram414]

Going with a Tropics Blue quartz mini pebble and blue glass beads.

Also attached a pic of two abalone spots they chipped out. In the bottom right you can actually see the decaying shell fragment. In the pit on the left you see the abalone shell all smashed. Now multiply by 400 spots and that’s what happened.

 

[kimkats]

I have bookmarked this thread to show why not to use shells. I am glad your PB is stepping up and taking care of this for you!

 

[Dram414]

Ha, stepping up after months of fighting with me

 

[kimkats]

He knew you were not going to back down. Sad you had to fight to get him to do the right thing