Jacks magic #2 needed…will it work?

[AJ81]

We have a pool built and opened may 2023. Before plaster, an old irrigation line dripped through the concrete and subsequently the plaster which caused white streaks and marks in the blue plaster. Our PB told us to acid wash which we did this spring and everything looked okay (although the water marks lessened but didn’t go away. A few weeks after the acid wash we had large light streaks across entire bottom of pool. They brought the pebble rep to our home and told us it was our chemical balance that caused scale. (PB never added calcium upon startup last year or this year but manager doesn’t know that. So we got to adding calcium a few months after filling it back up this spring. Pebble guy did a test on one of the marks with jacks magic which he said worked and wants us to do a treatment of our entire pool. PB will bring a pump to run during the week-long treatment. I have an email to the guy - what if it doesn’t work? Has anyone been in this situation before? I want my beautiful blue color back.

 

[ajw22]

Jacks magic #2 is sulfamic acid for copper and scale.

Note that if you do not drain the pool and refill with fresh water after treatment you can have incorrect FC readings for a month or more.

Acid - Further Reading discusses the issues with using Sulfamic Acid.

STAIN SOLUTION #2 – The Copper & Scale Stuff | Jacks Magic

jacksmagic.com

I did the #2 treatment and now I can’t get a Chlorine reading.
With a Stain #2 treatment the chemical will cause a combined chlorine reading for as much as 30 days. You should not try to shock out the combined chlorine for two weeks following the treatment. Be sure that you are testing both free and total chlorine to avoid overchlorinating.

 

[AJ81]

Jacks magic #2 is sulfamic acid for copper and scale.

Note that if you do not drain the pool and refill with fresh water after treatment you can have incorrect FC readings for a month or more.

Acid - Further Reading discusses the issues with using Sulfamic Acid.

STAIN SOLUTION #2 – The Copper & Scale Stuff | Jacks Magic

jacksmagic.com

I did the #2 treatment and now I can’t get a Chlorine reading.
With a Stain #2 treatment the chemical will cause a combined chlorine reading for as much as 30 days. You should not try to shock out the combined chlorine for two weeks following the treatment. Be sure that you are testing both free and total chlorine to avoid overchlorinating.

Hi, I just saw your response. We never went forward with the jacks magic treatment because our sales rep for our PB said he could get us help from someone else (since the manager there who pushed us to do it and the acid wash was fired). We are still waiting for someone to get back to us, as this was a recent conversation with sales rep. FWIW, we don’t have any copper stains. We were previously led to believe we have scale, and maybe we do. But our concern is that we acid washed to remove water stains from the install and it did not remove them, so why would this? Losing faith.

 

[JoyfulNoise]

Before we go down too many rabbit trails here, we need you to post the most recent water test results for your pool. If you are not testing and caring for the water chemistry yourself using a proper test kit, then it’s going to be hard for anyone here to help. Pool store testing is notoriously inaccurate and wrong most of the time which is why TFP urges all pool owners to do it themselves. Pool service companies, even reputable ones, simply don’t take the time to test water properly and just add chemicals based on a schedule and routine rather than what the water actually needs. The chemistry of the water you use to refill and top off the pool is also important and needs to be checked as well.

There are many different reasons for the possible scale and white streaking you are seeing and, sadly, an acid wash was a very aggressive and potentially damaging thing to do to a brand new pool. No one blames you as how would you know when the so-called “experts” tell you that it is a solution. So now we have to move on from that and see if we can help but we can’t do that with out good information.

 

[AJ81]

We do our own testing. I struggle with this app because it doesn’t save my input numbers. We log our numbers in a notebook at home. My point is that the initial reason why we acid washed (irrigation water leaked into pool before and after plaster and washed the plaster color out) didn’t improve. And since then more streaking showed up. We realized after the fact that they didn’t put in calcium upon startup so we finally added it probably 2 months later.
Our current results:
FC 4.5
CC 0
PH 7.6
Alk 70
Calcium 290

 

[ajw22]

We do our own testing. I struggle with this app because it doesn’t save my input numbers.

For $7 per year PoolMath will save your numbers.

Our current results:
FC 4.5
CC 0
PH 7.6
Alk 70
Calcium 290

CYA?

 

[AJ81]

Before we go down too many rabbit trails here, we need you to post the most recent water test results for your pool. If you are not testing and caring for the water chemistry yourself using a proper test kit, then it’s going to be hard for anyone here to help. Pool store testing is notoriously inaccurate and wrong most of the time which is why TFP urges all pool owners to do it themselves. Pool service companies, even reputable ones, simply don’t take the time to test water properly and just add chemicals based on a schedule and routine rather than what the water actually needs. The chemistry of the water you use to refill and top off the pool is also important and needs to be checked as well.

There are many different reasons for the possible scale and white streaking you are seeing and, sadly, an acid wash was a very aggressive and potentially damaging thing to do to a brand new pool. No one blames you as how would you know when the so-called “experts” tell you that it is a solution. So now we have to move on from that and see if we can help but we can’t do that with out good information.

Just following up with you…we never heard back from the pool builder company. Since it’s cold out I assume we can’t do anything now. Come spring though I’d love to have these white stains gone. I wish they could just replaster

 

[JamesW]

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[AJ81]

Any other advice? I have to touch base with the PB and not sure what to do at this point.