Help me with these stains on 1 year old Pebble, please!

[Flowersga]

Hi all,
My PebbleTec pool is almost exactly one year old. I’ve been following the TFP method since minute one. My chemicals balance has been easy since the beginning thanks to you all!

Yesterday, I noticed a bunch of brownish spots that seemed to happen overnight. They wouldn’t brush off. I dumped a gallon of chlorine in and today they are much better, but not gone. I happened to be at the pool store to get acid and they thought it might be metal staining and sold me some stain remover. Before I put it in, I thought I’d seek your advice because I’ve never put anything other than Chlorine, acid, CYA and calcium (in the beginning).

If you can tell from the pictures, is this normal? I feel like I’ve been extremely on top of all this so I’m perplexed. Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[needsajet]

Good to see you again

The first step is to identify the stains, so hang onto the metal sequestrant for now. You'll need to go and buy some trichlor pucks. You should be able to get a small container of 4 or 5 8-ounce pucks. You'll also need some vitamin C if you don't already have some. Take a look at this article: Pool School - Metals in the Water and Metal Stains which describes how to identify both organic and metal stains.

What is your fill water source? Is it water company water or a well? By the way, good idea putting the extra chlorine in. You could do that again and brush the spots a bit before continuing as well. If it's organic, a light brushing just helps the chlorine get to the algae.

 

[Flowersga]

Thanks for your reply. My water is from the water company. Since the stains were remarkably less after dumping chlorine over the spot, so you think they are organic? I can get trichlor as well. I think I'll go out another gallon of chlorine in because the FC is only at 5.

 

[needsajet]

Yep, I think there's a fair chance they're just organic, given that the chlorine helped.

 

[Flowersga]

If organic, is that just sometimes unavoidable, or is it from low chlorine or? Things we're going so well, just a little shocking when something like that shows up.

 

[needsajet]

I wouldn't say it's unavoidable, because there are certainly people here that never see it. For me, I've seen it twice. Once I got slack on brushing, and it showed up in on a ledge right by the wall in the shade where the suction cleaner never goes. Another time it was after an extended family day, lots of swimming and in my late evening inebriated state I decided not to mess with chlorine (or maybe just forgot, I can't remember, haha). Same spot, on the ledge by the wall. So I SLAMed, brushed the spots a couple times a day, and passed OCLT on the second night.

- - - Updated - - -

Oh yeh, twice I had a single spot. I brushed it and it didn't seem to change. After about 4 hours, the spot was gone. Didn't SLAM those times and the spots didn't come back.

 

[Flowersga]

Cool, thanks! I'll check the spots tomorrow.

 

[mknauss]

A flock of birds or visiting ducks can create spots with their droppings. You are best to do a quick SLAM Process. Follow the [FC/CYA][/FC/CYA].

Take care.