Jack's Magic Treatment - What to do after?

[joesc230]

Hi all,

Using the Jack's Magic stain ID kit, I identified that their "O2 & Stain #2 Treatment" will (hopefully) remove staining I have in my pool. I started the treatment yesterday. It was a very large amount of chemicals to add to the water (you can view the chemicals involved here).

I want to make sure I handle things correctly following the treatment, as didn't see certain things addressed in their instructions. Figured I'd check on this site as so many of you are great resources. My questions are:

- Does anyone know if it would be safe to put my Dolphin cleaner in the pool? The treatment instructions say the process can take up to a few weeks, depending on the stain. I don't think it will end up being that long for me, but regardless I'd like to have the cleaner running in the pool every now and then. The pH level is below 7 (see below) so I was thinking not to risk putting it in.

- I understand that if the staining is copper, the treatment's purpose is to lift the copper off the plaster and suspend it in the water using the Purple Stuff. Would I be able to actually remove the copper from the water by any means other than dumping out the water? I'd rather not be stuck having the use the Purple Stuff indefinitely, as I found that the phosphate levels that it adds messes with my ORP sensor (when I remove phosphate from the water, the ORP works great). If I do remove the phosphate, will the copper stains return if I don't dump the water? Or is there a way to remove the phosphate and the copper once the copper is in suspension? (other than dumping the water)

- Item #1 in the instructions lists the way that they want the pool balanced prior to treatment. I wish they were a bit clearer with what to do after treatment though. I see it says to add chlorine/sanitizer as required once a week, but I went ahead (after less than 1 day) and found big changes in the readings.

Prior to treatment I was at:
FC = 2.5
TC = 2.6
pH = 7.4
TA = 80
CH = 350

Now (after less than a day) I'm at:
FC = 0
TC = 0
pH = less than 6.8 (6.6 or 6.7 if I had to guess)
TA = 30
CH = 350

After getting the above readings today, I added bleach immediately, to get back up to 2.5. Should I be adjusting anything else yet? The instructions say I shouldn't worry about the TA until the stains are removed (which can take several weeks). I'm assuming I shouldn't do anything to raise the pH level as I was thinking having an acidic environment in the water is a good thing for this treatment - am I right?

 

[JoyfulNoise]

If you use the robot, run it for the shortest time period possible and then immediately remove it and rinse it down thoroughly. The acidic water conditions are not good.

I’m assuming you took your heater out of service and have it bypassed, correct?

The sulfamic acid used in this treatment is going to screw up your FC/CC testing. It will typically cause your CC’s to falsely measure high.

The only way to be rid of the copper is to dump the water. There’s no other method. I suggest you do the treatment, get the stains lifted, add the sequestering agent and then rent a very high rate trash/submersible pump from Home Depot and drain the pool if you can (do you have high groundwater issues?). Draining will not only get rid of the copper but also all of the stain treatment chemicals which will make rebalancing the water easier.

 

[joesc230]

If you use the robot, run it for the shortest time period possible and then immediately remove it and rinse it down thoroughly. The acidic water conditions are not good.

I’m assuming you took your heater out of service and have it bypassed, correct?

The sulfamic acid used in this treatment is going to screw up your FC/CC testing. It will typically cause your CC’s to falsely measure high.

The only way to be rid of the copper is to dump the water. There’s no other method. I suggest you do the treatment, get the stains lifted, add the sequestering agent and then rent a very high rate trash/submersible pump from Home Depot and drain the pool if you can (do you have high groundwater issues?). Draining will not only get rid of the copper but also all of the stain treatment chemicals which will make rebalancing the water easier.

Yes, I bypassed the heater. I redid the plumbing last year in anticipation of this treatment.

No, I don't have groundwater issues.

Bummer regarding having to drain the water - is there any concern I should have as far as the pool popping out of the ground? Would that just apply if the soil around the pool was very wet? I was thinking in normal circumstances it wouldn't be an issue with a gunite pool, right?

 

[ajw22]

Pool popping should not be an issue if you are immediately filling after draining.

What is the quality of your fill water?

 

[mattchase00]

I totally disagree the pool needs to be drained of it's water??? If sequestering with purple and coating cartridge or sand with cellulose fiber copper is easily removed from solution.??

 

[mknauss]

DE filter. And we have never seen any data on what you say will work. Only known way to get rid of the copper once you get it back into the water is to drain that water.

I totally disagree the pool needs to be drained of it's water??? If sequestering with purple and coating cartridge or sand with cellulose fiber copper is easily removed from solution.??

 

[mattchase00]

We agree to disagree Try fiber and phosphonic on the next one.. worth a shot to save the H2O..

 

[JoyfulNoise]

Jacks Purple is a mixture of HEDP, tri-carboxylic acid chelators, phosphoric acid and maleic acid polymers. The intent is for the copper to go back into solution, get captured by the maleic acid polymers and then those polymers drop out of solution. Then the filter is supposed to capture the debris.

The problem is that process does not discriminate between any specific di-valent or tri-valent metal including calcium (Ca2+). The cloudiness (precipitates) it will form are, for the most part, calcium scale with very little copper co-deposited into the dispersion. So, even if the end user can get the chemical balance right to make the process work, it’s inefficient at best. As well, The Purple Stuff plus Filter Fiber Stuff is expensive as is the on-going maintenance doses of scale inhibitor.

It’s cheaper, faster and easier to simply dump the water after the copper has been lifted.

 

[mattchase00]

So he refills the pool with metal free source water hopefully?, fires up the pump and starts stripping copper again due to his 2hp pump slamming water into the heater and re-stains in 6 mos because sequestering agents are too expensive.. I'm ok with that too

 

[JamesW]

If the heater is getting excessive flow, that needs to be addressed with an external bypass, which it seems they have.

Flow to the heater should be kept near the low end of the range specified in the manual.