Can't figure out my metals(?) problem

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SteveTN

Well-known member
Aug 2, 2016
48
Lexington TN
Can't get rid of metals

I'm having a metals problem. At some point after getting my pool ready for the season (I don't close it over the winter) my pool turned yellow. I followed the acsorbic acid treatment process and it cleaned up nicely. A couple of days later, however it turned yellow again. (Clear water yellow color.) I put another bottle of sequestrant it and it cleared up but the next day the water was very cloudy. This was how we used the pool on Memorial Day.

I had trouble getting the FC up and before I did the pool turned green. (Low FC, sunny days.) I have finally cleared that up and for a few days now I've had low FC and low CC. However, when the green went away the yellow was back.

I cleaned the filter and did another acsorbic acid/sequestrant treatment. 48 hours later I cleaned the filter again. The pool looked good. That was about a week ago. Now the pool is yellow again. I have finally started getting the FC back up and hesitate to drop it down again for another treatment. I added 1.5 bottles of Metal Free this afternoon but as of now (a couple of hours later) I'm not seeing any change.

The pool store reports that I have 0.3ppm of copper. This was the same number before and after the last treatment. (I haven't used any copper-containing algaecides.) I have had the heater out of the loop since just after the Memorial Day treatments in case that is the source of the copper.

I'm at a loss on how to proceed. Continuing to do the ascorbic acid treatments seems like an exercise in futility and leads to a cloudy pool that takes days to clear up. But I don't know any other way to get my pool blue (or at least liner-colored) again.

Half of the swim season is gone and the family is getting a bit frustrated. We still swim in the cloudy (and sometimes in the yellow) water but it's not what they are looking for.

Latest readings:
FC 1.2
CC 0.4
pH 7.3
TA 100
CH 150
CYA <30 (I've got a sock in the skimmer. It's not enough but I'm going to go up slowly.)

Any suggestions?

Thanks,
Steve
 
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Re: Can't get rid of metals

First, it's perfectly safe to swim in the iron water (if your FC is in target range and you can still see the bottom of the pool), that is what you bath in after all.

Second, checkout out the link in my signature titled polyfill iron removal. Basically you bring your FC up to shock level to oxidized the iron so the polyfill can filter it out. Put polyfill in either your skimmer (contained within a hairnet) or rig up a 5 gallon bucket full of polyfill if you don't have a skimmer. I've got pics for how I did my bucket in that link.

This method will actually remove the iron from your pool, whereas most other methods just keep them in suspension so they are still in the water, but don't interact with the chlorine and don't stain.
 
Re: Can't get rid of metals

It's yellow-green. I was trying to make a distinction between the current color (with clear water) and the algae color (with cloudy water).

I use city water. This is the first time I've had trouble in the 5 years we've had the pool. The pool store reports 0 iron and 0.3 copper an the last two reports. All the other readings come from my Taylor kit.

pH is 7.3.

Steve
 
Re: Can't get rid of metals

If it is copper, it would seem to be from one of two places - pool store products (to include chlorinating products with "Blue" in it), or the heater if it has a copper core. Even though it's been closed-off, it may be worth inspecting if you can just to be sure. A low pH over time can do that to a heater. Are you seeing any staining? If so, then you could possibly pinpoint the trouble ….. Vitamin C for iron (also make copper stains worse), or dry acid for copper.
 
Re: Can't get rid of metals

7a1984bbca1c058a5adfb75417c5d1fd.jpg


To the above comment about perfectly safe to swim.. if you can’t see the swimmers, no swimming.

The photo is a liner job from 2 weeks ago, 1 gallon of chlorine did that in 5 minutes.. filled with city water.. I spoke with city & main was recently replaced in the neighborhood..

Moral of the story, despite stellar sanitation- if you can’t supervise close the pool.
 
Re: Can't get rid of metals

PoolguyinCT said:
7a1984bbca1c058a5adfb75417c5d1fd.jpg


To the above comment about perfectly safe to swim.. if you can’t see the swimmers, no swimming.

The photo is a liner job from 2 weeks ago, 1 gallon of chlorine did that in 5 minutes.. filled with city water.. I spoke with city & main was recently replaced in the neighborhood..

Moral of the story, despite stellar sanitation- if you can’t supervise close the pool.
Click to expand...

Okay, let me rephrase, if it meets all other saetfy standards (see bottom, safe level of chlorine, etc) but has a dull green/brown color of iron. It is safe to swim in. If you have more iron molecules than water molecules like that picture, you might get iron poisoning....
 
Re: Can't get rid of metals

lightmaster said:
Okay, let me rephrase, if it meets all other saetfy standards (see bottom, safe level of chlorine, etc) but has a dull green/brown color of iron. It is safe to swim in. If you have more iron molecules than water molecules like that picture, you might get iron poisoning....
Click to expand...

Or not see a swimmer in trouble..

That pool was bad, fill had zero tint to it. I dumped in one gallon. Opened junction box to wire light, when I looked over my shoulder 2 minutes later - I couldn’t believe my eyes.
 
Re: Can't get rid of metals

So I'm left with two big questions an perhaps a subquestion or two.

1. I can get the metal off of the liner with a dose of ascorbic acid. (Did it this morning.) What is the long term strategy for keeping it this way? An occasional dose of ascorbic? Sequestrant? (With the knowledge that past applications of sequestrant have caused bad cloudiness.)

2. Can I get rid of the metal? Does anyone have experience with CuLator?

At some point I'm going to get metals levels readings as a baseline then put the heater back in the loop. Then I'll get another test and see if it's the source--or a continuing source--of the problem.

Thanks for your help.
 

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Re: Can't get rid of metals

Have your tap water tested if that's where u top up from. A lot of older water lines from the city main were copper. That may be your source of copper of its coming from farther up the city line.
 
Re: Can't get rid of metals

If ascorbic acid removes the stains, its iron. I'd suggest:


  1. Stuff some Polyfill in your skimmer basket (inside a hairnet, available on Amazon if you don't have any).
  2. Raise your FC up to shock level so the iron will get oxidized and can be filtered by the polyfill (pool will probably turn at least to a dull green after raising FC).
  3. Let your pump run 24 hours a day for a couple days and you should see the polyfill starting to turn brown after a day or 2.
  4. Also, use the ascorbic acid to get the stains up so that iron can be filtered too.
  5. Replace the Polyfill if it starts to look too nasty.

This should get the iron out of your pool. Do you have a well, or use city water? If you fill your pool from a well, try not to pull too much water at a time to minimize the amount of iron that gets back in your pool. I've been lucky so far this year and every time my pool gets low, a thunderstorm refills it. Of course the same thunderstorms severely limit how much we can swim.... I've noticed with my well, I only get iron really bad if I pull a lot of water at once, so I try to top off my pool little by little.
 
To summarize a couple of my previous threads:
I have had some sort of metal problem (iron? copper?) since early this summer. The vinyl turned a color (yellowish). I did the ascorbic acid treatment and it cleaned up as advertised. Except when I added sequestrant the pool got very cloudy (white). I worked on getting the FC back up but went out of town for 10 days. When we got back I had an algae problem. I finally got the algae taken care of and pool was clear. Then I was working to get everything balanced when the pool turned its color again. More acsorbic acid, more cloudiness, more trying to get the FC up, more yellow, etc. It seems like a cycle that I can't get out of.

I've been running the SWG 100% 24/7 and putting in two chlorine tabs every 2-3 days trying to keep the FC up without jacking it up so much to get negate the acsorbic acid. My CYA has been low. I've been bringing it up slowly to find the sweet spot where it helps keep the FC up without interfering with it doing its job.

Here's the kicker. Today I got my Taylor iron and copper test kit. Both tests showed 0.0 (copper might have had a trace but it's questionable). I'm working under the assumption that the metal didn't show because of the recent acsorbic acid treatment. My plan is to test again when the color starts coming back. Any thoughts on the metal tests?

Any ideas how to get out of the cloudy, yellow, clear, cloudy again spiral?

Tonight:
FC 0.2
CC 0.4
CYA 30

Last time I tested TA and CH they were comfortably in range. (I don't have the numbers in front of me right now.) Using a Taylor FAS-DPD kit. (K-2006? 1006? I can't remember)

Thanks for any ideas you might have!

Steve
 
Re: Can't get rid of metals

10 days have passed since my last post. I have been fighting keeping the metal stains off my liner and keeping FC up for most of the summer. The stains are better after 3 or 4 rounds of acsorbic acid and sequestrant but still come back.

Today I used my Taylor-1264 for the second time and for the second time got 0.0 readings for Fe and Cu. The stains go away with addition of acsorbic acid.

Question 1: will I get a reading if the metal is on the vinyl? I would expect some to still be in the water but don't know.

I'm having trouble keeping the FC up. Friday 3.6, Saturday 2.0, Sunday 1.2. I'm afraid that my SWG is not producing. The pump's been running 16 hours per day with SWG at 85%.

Question 2: it's been ~2 weeks since last acsorbic acid. Would it still be effecting FC? That much? How do I check SWG?

I've had my heater out of the loop since all of this started. I'm thinking of putting it back in and seeing if copper goes up.

Question 3: Any thoughts on adding the heater back?

Suggestions welcome.

Today's readings:
FC 1.2
CC 0.4
pH 7.7
TA 120
CH 160
CYA 50
Cu 0.0
Fe 0.0

Thanks
Steve
 
Hi Steve! :wave: Been a while since I last replied, and you've been struggling with this for some time now. Your situation starts to get a bit more beyond more depth of experience, so I'm going to PM one of our metals experts to see if we can get more eyes on your problem.
 
Re: Can't get rid of metals

Thanks. I'm going to check levels again this evening to see if letting water run through the heater has raised the copper level. It will have only been a few hours but I won't get to check it again until Tuesday. I'll give a report.
 
When the metal has deposited on surfaces as stains, it has fallen out of solution and probably will not show up in a water test. If you are able to replace with metal free water, do an AA treatment to remove the stains from the liner and put them back into solution, then drain and replace with fresh water. You cannot replace 100% of the water in a liner pool at one time. You must leave a foot of water in the shallow end to keep the liner in place, then refill the pool. Once the pool is filled have the water tested for metals again. Hopefully one drain/refill cycle will dilute the metals enough that they will not cause problems.
 
Steve, I agree with Zea provided youre not on well water or same is lower than what has concentrated in your pool. Lift the stains one last time with AA, drain as much of the water as you safely can, add sequestrant and/or drain again.

If your problem is reoccurring to that degree, you need to reduce the concentration of metals, whether or not the test reliably identifies them. Also check your bonding, and check for corrosion, eg inside a ladder, etc.

Be certain not to run slam levels of FC or you will erode the sequestrants too quickly. Also note that you do need to maintain sequestrants weekly or monthly, depending on the produce, to keep trace metals in check.
 

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