Cloudy water after stain treatment

[DJP303]

Hi All- this year I finally tried the Jack's Magic stain program, which included their stain solution 1 and 2. It took much longer than expected, worked somewhat, but certainly did not remove everything I was hoping for. As part of their program, my final step I needed to drop FC to below 1ppm. I slowly started to rebalance the water using sodium bicarbonate and got my alkalinity and ph back in order. Then I slowly started to re-chlorinate the pool, but their plan stated that I may receive false FC readings for up to a month after the treatment. Ever since, I have been battling varying levels of cloudy water from being slightly cloudy to not being able to see the floor. I would love to be able to slam the pool to see if it cures it, but with the false FC readings I do not think I can do it now. Last weekend it finally started to clear up, I added some liquid chlorine, then all of the cloudiness came back and has not gone away. Yesterday I decided to bring the TC chlorine up to slam level of 20 and let the filter run overnight, this morning the cloudiness is the worst I have seen yet. Any ideas or suggestions? This morning's readings below, thanks!

TC: 20
FC: 1
CYA: 50
PH: 7.6
TA: 70
CH: 325

 

[DJP303]

Anyone have any ideas? Please and thank you!

 

[Mdragger88]

What kind of metals were u trying to deal with? Did u take steps to filter or replace the metal laden water & prevent more metals from getting in the water before using the Jack’s stuff?
Those products don’t remove the metals, they just sequester them & possibly remove some stains.

Metals - Further Reading

www.troublefreepool.com

Stains in Your Pool

The stained pool is beyond embarrassing. Our in-depth Guide to remove stains in your pool will help you to remove the stains and prevent them in the future.

www.troublefreepool.com

 

[DJP303]

What kind of metals were u trying to deal with? Did u take steps to filter or replace the metal laden water & prevent more metals from getting in the water before using the Jack’s stuff?
Those products don’t remove the metals, they just sequester them & possibly remove some stains.

Metals - Further Reading

www.troublefreepool.com

Stains in Your Pool

The stained pool is beyond embarrassing. Our in-depth Guide to remove stains in your pool will help you to remove the stains and prevent them in the future.

www.troublefreepool.com

Thanks for your reply. There was copper in the water which was lowered down to .2 with the last test. I have not had it retested since adding a culator metal remover. My understanding from Jack's was the the blue and magenta stuff would sequester it, take it to the filter, and help remove them once the filter was backwashed and cleaned, which I have done.

 

[Mdragger88]

Sequestrant - Further Reading

www.troublefreepool.com

The only way to actually remove the copper from the water is to replace the copper laden water with fresh

 

[Mdragger88]

Do u know how the copper got in the water? Do u have a heat exchanger?

Have u used copper containing products like algeacides that aren’t polyquat 60 or dichlor/trichlor with the words “blue” in the name?
Ideally you don’t want any copper in your water.
The pool store cant test for the sequestered copper, only whats in solution currently.
What was the copper level before?
Raising the fc level degrades the sequestrant & will bring that copper back into solution which may make more stains or turn the water very green.

 

[DJP303]

Do u know how the copper got in the water? Do u have a heat exchanger?

Have u used copper containing products like algeacides that aren’t polyquat 60 or dichlor/trichlor with the words “blue” in the name?
Ideally you don’t want any copper in your water.
The pool store cant test for the sequestered copper, only whats in solution currently.
What was the copper level before?
Raising the fc level degrades the sequestrant & will bring that copper back into solution which may make more stains or turn the water very green.

I do have a heat pump now, but that was just installed last year and the copper/stain issues were there prior to that.

I do think maybe 4+ years ago, some yellow out was put into the pool for mustard algae, before I came across the forum here. I just got off the phone with Jack's and they said with my filter and their filter fiber stuff, that it should take out the sequestered metals, which is what the prior link on sequestrants stated as well but the source was Jacks. I do recall having a copper reading at .4 at some point last year, and the most recent test was at .2

 

[Mdragger88]

Doing the SLAM Process just degrades the sequestrant so if u begin dosing & the water immediately changes color u will know you have to do an exchange to get the copper level down. The fact that it didn’t go emerald green with the 1st dose of lc is a good sign.
As far as the readings go - I believe u are just supposed to just use TC for the 1st 30 days- which looks pretty accurate according to your stated dose.
Has it been 30 days?
As u go along w/ slam the odd tc reading will likely get more normal as the sequestrant is degraded.
Hopefully it will be normal when u get to the Overnight Chlorine Loss Test part of the slam.
I wouldn’t wait around for those products to reduce the metals before dealing with the algae.
In the future- use polyquat60 before letting fc fall to do that type of treatment & reapply as needed so u have some insurance to prevent algae growth with low fc.
The clouding is likely dying algae , that’s to be expected. Backwash when pressure rises 25% over clean pressure.

 

[DJP303]

Doing the SLAM Process just degrades the sequestrant so if u begin dosing & the water immediately changes color u will know you have to do an exchange to get the copper level down. The fact that it didn’t go emerald green with the 1st dose of lc is a good sign.
As far as the readings go - I believe u are just supposed to just use TC for the 1st 30 days- which looks pretty accurate according to your stated dose.
Has it been 30 days?
As u go along w/ slam the odd tc reading will likely get more normal as the sequestrant is degraded.
Hopefully it will be normal when u get to the Overnight Chlorine Loss Test part of the slam.
I wouldn’t wait around for those products to reduce the metals before dealing with the algae.
In the future- use polyquat60 before letting fc fall to do that type of treatment & reapply as needed so u have some insurance to prevent algae growth with low fc.
The clouding is likely dying algae , that’s to be expected. Backwash when pressure rises 25% over clean pressure.

Yes, they said only go off of the TC reading as the FC will be a false reading. It has only been about 20 days so far, and luckily the color of the water has remained blue, just cloudy. Jacks recommended to bring the pH down from my 7.6 to 7.2-7.4 so the chlorine that is in there is more effective so maybe I will give that a try with some MA. Thanks, I will look into the polyquat60 in the event I do this again. Thanks for your responses and advice.