Chemgeek,
Thank you for the advice.
And
hdjii,
Below is the Method I would now use if I were to repeat it. I did not cover phosphate testing but it is a good idea to do before the method and interesting after the second Phosfree removal at the end. Nor did I cover TDS but I will insert that later, as a TDS reading is only really needed at the end, and for interests sake at the beginning.
THE HP WITH AA METHOD
(Completely Revised as of 2-22-2014)
THIS IS EXPERIMENTAL AND NOT INEXPENSIVE.
But it worked for me and is not aggressive.
Please remember this may take 1, 2, or 3 treatments before all is done. It will not get rid of underlying organic stains (organic staining underneath scale) for this you will have to wait 4 to preferably 6 weeks to shock your pool for 1 to as long as 5 to 7 days if they are bad. Personally I use the mustard level shocking levels as my starting point as it seems to do a better job, and is not that much higher than the regular shock levels. It will make a noticeable improvement to an old pool that has been neglected, or had large amounts of scale.
All calculations are for a 10,000 gallon pool of plaster construction, it has not been tested in any other type of pool.
1. The colder the better, anything under 77F should work, under 70F will be much better. If you pool heater, or solar panel, has a copper coil it must be isolated from the pool water with bypass valves, titanium are fine.
2. You will need one bottle of "Jack's Magic Purple Stuff" per 10,000 gal. I do not know the quantity for "Metal Magic".
3. You will need Ascorbic Acid (AA) (1 1/2 lb per treatment/2 lb for heavily stained pools) for better results make sure the pH is set at 7.2 - 7.3 before adding the AA.
4. You will need the following amounts 3% Hydrogen Peroxide. The amount is 1152 ozs for each 10,000 gallons, plus a pre-treatment amount to remove chlorine ppm to zero at 21 oz HP per 1 ppm of chlorine. If you are using 27% HP then divide these number by 9. Pour this around the pool, not through the skimmer. Preferably allow your pool cleaner to mix it. 27% is available from Hydroponic Stores, or some Garden Nursery Stores, it saves time opening 40 plus bottles of 3% HP. Or the Baquacil Oxidizer, chemgeek refers to above.
Why so much HP: The amount of HP is far higher than I originally used, but is far more effective; as I discovered, by experimentation, a swimming pool is not a sanitized boiler.
Note 1: Do not use Thiotrine to lower your chlorine levels the HP does that and also acts as a sanitizer, albeit not as good as chlorine.
Note 2. The higher the Hydrogen Peroxide % the faster it loses its effectiveness over time, so check the "good by date" or "expiration date" do not use old bottles, or ones that have been sitting in the store collecting dust.
5. Do not use Algaecide 60, make sure you Free Chlorine is holding with less than 0.5 difference, before effecting the treatment. Well you could use Algaecide 60 but I think it might interfere with the HP and you will need more chlorine later to get your pool back to the right level of Free Chlorine.
6. First put the filter on bypass.
(Very Important) First add the HP in darkness, sunlight destroys it, even light from a room and moonlight can more quickly reduce it strength. Allow it to mix in your pool for two hours (it takes that 2 hours before it will start to work in the water) before adding Ascorbic Acid. Remove pool cleaner before adding Ascorbic Acid. Add Ascorbic Acid (AA) After 2 hours at a rate of 1 1/2 lb minimum (for heavily stained pools 2 lbs would be good) for 10,000 gals. Again make sure you removed pool cleaner before adding Ascorbic Acid, and have bypassed your heater if necessary.
7. The HP only is effective for up to 7 hours after that it stops doing it's job so (Very Important) before sunrise add 931 oz of Walmart's Plain Extra Strength Bleach (8.25% Chlorine), this is equal to to 7.7 "121 oz jugs" to get your chlorine levels up to about 10 ppm. Then check your chlorine levels after 4 hours to adjust, if too high they will go down. This amount is very important as it will avoid low chlorine, which is sometimes an issue with the AA method.
And immediately add 110 oz of Muriatic Acid to control the pH to a level of 7.2, and avoid it riding above that.
8. NEVER EVER NEVER continue the treatment into the next day after Sunrise as Hydrogen Peroxide is destroyed by sunlight and you do not want to get an algae bloom.
9. Turn the pool filter back to filter. Than check the pH and Chlorine levels, and adjust the pH to 7.2 - 7.3, and the Chlorine to around 9 or 10 ppm, this should be checked every 2 hours, for the first 6 hours. After the first 2 hours vacuum the pool, and then back wash you may need to repeat this process over 3 times in a matter of 8 hours.
10. If you live in say West Texas, Central Valley CA, parts of Florida and have really, really bad scaling issues you may be looking at 2, 3, or possibly 4 repeat treatments, but I would still prefer this over an acid wash any day as this is far less damaging to the pool finish. And yes I have had an acid wash, and never ever again will I do that.
11. Once ALL 1, 2, 3, or 4 of your treatments are done, and backwashes, keep your pH at around 7.2 or 7.3, then pour 52 oz of the very expensive "PHOSfree Commercial Strength", manufactured by "Natural Chemistry" into the skimmer after very, very, very strongly shaking it (it is a poor mixer). Do not use the regular stuff as it is not Aluminium based and will not remove scale or iron, only phosphates, we are after removing iron and scale from the water. The pool will become very cloudy for 1 to 2 days. Run the pump and cleaner for 48 hours, then backwash.
Repeat one more time, adding 52 oz of "PHOSfree Commercial Strength". The pool will become less cloudy for 1 to 2 days. Run the pump and cleaner for 48 hours, then backwash. This should have removed most of your scale in the water and iron, manganese, phosphates and other contaminates. Once every month add 4 oz of PHOSfree Commercial Strength to your skimmer, more often if you have heavy duty iron in your fill water.
12. Then add one bottle of "Jack's Magic Magenta Stuff", and 4 -5 oz a week for normal iron and scale control, more if necessary. Set the pH at 7.5, and re-balance.
Note: I stopped using Jack's Purple Stuff and use the Magenta, with more success. I ran the pool at a pH of 7.7, but went back to 7.5 for sanitation reasons, with no staining issues at the higher pH whatsoever for about 2 to 3 months. The "Magenta" is a Copolymer and so binds up scale and metals for removal to the filter. The Purple stuff, keeps then in solution at a pH below 7.4 in the pool, but does not trap them in the filter for removal. However please note water treatment plants use both chemicals, so one can use both if that works better for you. This might be especially true if you are in an area where the fill water is heavily contaminated with iron, then a pH of 7.4 or 7.3 might be appropriate. If scale is more the issue then 7.5 or 7.6 might be OK.
My personal experience is that the Magenta stuff continued to remove scale from the walls over a period of many months (plus 4), you might also notice your calcium levels increasing as this de-scaling is going on. The calcium levels will eventually stop increasing, I think that is because most of scale has been removed. I also have/had a small manganese stain from construction, about the size of a half dollar, that is slowly but surely being removed. Just a few match stick size heads are remaining.
13. Wait 4 days after treatment to check your CyA reading as it may give you a false low reading, by this I mean 80 ppm may only read 50 ppm for a few days, and 50 will be 30, although you actually have 80 ppm or 50 ppm, of which 30 ppm, or 20 ppm, went dormant but will return.
Warning: Never add water to acid only acid to water
My experience is that if you have heavy scaling over a number of years, above 6, 2 if you live in Texas or California's Central Valley, and if you have been using an HEDP sequestrant for a long time you probably have fairly high orthophosphate levels, over 7000 ppm, so the first treatment will work primarily on getting these levels down with some effect on the of iron, manganese, scale, and copper stains. The use of ascorbic acid will help a lot in the removal of metal stains more so than just HP alone, these will then either oxidize or be removed by the filter backwash.
The second treatment, if necessary, will do the same again but this time it will work more on the scaling issues, and the third treatment (if necessary) should have gotten rid of most if not all the calcium, calcium phosphate, or iron phosphate scaling. And it seems to me that the iron is gone and I do mean gone I do not think it is even in solution in the sequestrant, or if present there is very little there.
If you have not been using an HEDP sequestrant for a long time then maybe 1 or 2 treatments might work.
hdjii,
I will post some minor recommendations over the next few days in this post via editing, on phosphates and TDS, but the above is really all you need.
Hope this helps, and good luck if you do it.
Please, please let us know if it worked for you. As you can see from some posts on this subject this method is viewed in the same light as heliocentrism was in the early 17th century, you may or may not be able to dispel this theory. Fortunately we live in the 21st century and I cannot be burned at the stake, just anonymously humiliated on the net. And then I will have to "abjure, curse and detest" my opinions. However I am a great believer in Einstein's words, "The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education."
