Phosphates.....are they worth removing??

[Saturn94]

Yeah, always good to run the tap a bit. That's what they would do if you asked a pro to take a sample.

Better yet, can you get a sample from the main input? In my house, the incoming water main is setup with a pressure regulator, backflow preventer, a spigot and a service loop for the irrigation system. So I can get a water sample from before it enters my home.

I don't have access to the water before it enters our house. Next time I'll let the tap run a bit first.

 

[Swampwoman]

PaGirl, re:

I may have missed it, but what is the reason you are changing out your sand? Generally a deep cleaning solves any issues, as sand doesn't get "old"? Just curious.....

Our sand filter is now inside the pool house, that since our moving here, is full of furniture, with the former bay door blocked off etc. We'd have to move it outside to deep clean, and h just wasn't up to it with his arm from surgery last year. So we decided since it hadn't been cleaned since our swamp recovery in 2012, we'd just pay the techs to come change the sand instead when we have them plumb the swg

In other news, psi has now risen to 20 from 17 and shallow end has cleared some more. The white spots you see are drifts of coagulated stuff near bottom.

 

[Swampwoman]

First day out (technically, more like 21 hours)

- PSI is at 21 (started at 17)
-FC is 4...bumped up 2 ppm
- PH is alarmingly 7 or lower, will repeat with base demand test...don't wanna adjust without speaking with tech first
(Dang, I am out of R006!)
- Top few feet of water have cleared considerably
- I can now see "mats" of flocked white and apparently viscous material covering side of shallow end, slope, and all f deep end diving well (hard to show in picture)

Under "normal conditions" -- which these aren't -- the product requires filtering for 24 hours. I suspect that in my situation, the pump psi did not go up 10 in part because so much has flocced to the bottom

Since I'm working from the home studio today, my plan is on lunch hour to make the first attempt to vacuum to waste. I expect this will disturb/cloud up things again, in which case I'll filter for another day and repeat. I've given myself the week to get sorted, and have another 16 oz clarifier if needed

Its probably too early to tell, but one interesting note is that it seems as if my historic swath of discoloration (tan) that didn't repond to AA when everything else did may be gone. Looks that way from the side. If this is true, it corroborates a poster's experience back in 2013 where a heavy duty phosphate floc (using phosfloc) eradicated a stain area the didn't repond to AA, or rather, kept coming back. May have been a case of iron phosphate scale or some such.

Here's pics from this am:

 

[JoyfulNoise]

Probably best that it settled to the bottom or else you'd be backwashing your filter every hour I had my suction-side cleaner running at the time so I have no idea if anything "flocced" as it all would have been sucked up anyway. My pool returned to full clarity within ~12 hours or so. But I was also 37X lower in PO4 !! This is a great experimental thread.

Do you have any DE for the filter or is your front-up approach to use clarifier if/when needed?

 

[Swampwoman]

No, I didn't think to pick up any DE...I do have the DE you use for pest control, food grade. Is that the same?

I do, however, have another 16 oz of the clarifier left if needed. I've written to the SK tech to update him on progress and ask about te low ph...and to check m reasoning re vacuuming to waste in a few hours. My plan is to see how much I can get up/out first, then determine whether to use extra clarifier. My idea is that it may take a few rounds of vacuum-then-settle to get the floc matter out. More clarifier prior might be kinda a waste

 

[JoyfulNoise]

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! to food-grade DE!!

That will make a yuuuuuge mess in your pool. Pool grade DE is heat treated to crystallize the silica and remove impurities.

Let us know what SK tech says.

 

[Swampwoman]

^no worries. Didn't go off af-cocked on the DE

SK is pacific time.

In the mean time, its vacuuming up fairly nicely, but I will run out of water before my helper gets the deep end



After partial vacuum:

 

[Swampwoman]

Update: 2 rounds of vacuuming (my poor well has been pumping water all day) and I'm finally back to filtering. Just some fainter cloudy goo on deep end diving well now, main drain seems to be pulling it in. We'll see what the morning brings

 

[JoyfulNoise]

Any updated info on the SeaKlear tech?

How's the filter pressure doing?

 

[Swampwoman]

Nothing yet. Psi is a 22 -- didn't backwash when I vacuumed to waste.

 

[AUSpool]

Time for numbers, or hopefully a lack of them.

 

[Swampwoman]

^i am at 48 hours post treatment now (which is the recommended retest time) but don't wanna test until I've cleared the last of the floc material and cleared the water completely as I don't want to burn through reagent in the aquarium kit over a small clump of phosgoo caught in the sample

I admit the suspense is killing me, but I'm likely another 48 out...

In other news, I'm going to have to carefully consider any more water additions and what swg-friendly sequestrant I'll be switching to ;(. (I've now used clarifier, so a wee bit concerned about anion action of jack's magenta...might start with purple instead.)

Despite the dual softer that is supposed to have enough regen time to not let any the softener tap out, my iron today is .4 versus and earlier .3.

I tested because I noticed overnight the toilet bowl showed slight discoloration -- just a hint, but it was enough to make me check. A small faint line of goo is also turning tan-colored in the shallow end of the pool. Makes me wonder if now iron is coming out of solution...that would make sense.

My ph, unaided, has risen slightly to a little over 7.1...not quite 7.2...just enough warmth to the yellow/tan that I'm now comfortable that I'm not under 7 for sure.

FC was 4.5, or used roughly 2 ppm in full sun/24 hr period.

 

[Swampwoman]

Ps.
Hey Joyful, you have a better handle on chemical reaction than I. Chitosan is cationic and jack's magenta is anionic, right? Ergo never the two in a pool?

 

[JoyfulNoise]

Ps.
Hey Joyful, you have a better handle on chemical reaction than I. Chitosan is cationic and jack's magenta is anionic, right? Ergo never the two in a pool?

Jack's Magenta Stuff is polyacrylic acid copolymer. It is an anionic compound in neutral pH (7's) pool water. It has a pKa of ~4.2 and will partially deprotonate (lose H+) and present itself as a poly-anion (multiple negatively charged side-chains).

Chitosan is a water-soluble, linear polysaccharide (long chained sugar molecule) composed of randomly linked acetylated and deacetylated glucosamine units. It has a pKa of ~6.5 and, in neutral pH pool water, it will partially deprotonate making it a poly-anion as well.

The two should be compatible with one another. I believe what you are thinking of is polyquat-60 (alkyldimethylbenzylammonium chloride) which acts as a cationic surfactant due to the positive charge on the nitrogen atom in the dimethyl ammonium side-group. Because Polyquat has a positive charge, it will be attracted to negative charges on the clarifiers and cause a precipitated mess. I suspect you will be fine because most of the chitosan should be gone before you are ready to deploy Jack's Magenta Stuff.

Matt

 

[Swampwoman]

Thanks! Good to know because I'd rather i think use magenta and I need to get some on order...it has a phosphate control element in it apparently, or so it claims. I might check in with Jacks tech on that so m clear on how it works before I try it.

 

[JoyfulNoise]

Thanks! Good to know because I'd rather i think use magenta and I need to get some on order...it has a phosphate control element in it apparently, or so it claims. I might check in with Jacks tech on that so m clear on how it works before I try it.

Yes, always good to ask the tech folks (assuming you can actual talk to a tech not just some random customer service person). The only clarifiers that I've ever read about in pools that are cationic (positively charged) are based on polyDADMAC (Poly-diallyldimethylammonium chloride). There are probably others out there, I've just not come across them. Like Polyquat, they have a methyl ammonium group that has a slight positive charge on the nitrogen atom. It is usually in the form of a chloride salt (negatively charged chloride ion is attracted to the positive charges on the the methyl ammonium groups). Once it hits the water though, the chloride dissociates and you're left with a very positively charge ion in water. Mix that with something like Jack's Magic products (all anionic clarifiers or sequestrants) and you will get a milky, clouded mess.

One reason why Polyquat-60 and polyDADMAC are used as biological control agents is that most algae cell walls are negatively charged. Therefore, the positively charged clarifiers will cause algae to clump together and make it much easier to filter out. Polyquat also has antiseptic properties as well as coagulation effects. By contrast, metal sequestrants need to be negatively charged in order to capture and hold positively charged metal ions.

 

[Swampwoman]

Hi there. Just finishing up lunch and had a good chat with a true tech at Jack's. in my situation, he's recommending I start with the purple first anyway, not because of the possible cloud factor, but because its more aggressive on iron and he's not loving my .4 ppm rate. Said the magenta was specifically designed for plaster start up and to clean cells, but not as aggressive on sequestering metals.

We discussed long term phosphate loading via purple, and he's heard of some users who build up approx 1,000 ppb in 4-6 weeks, which would actually corroborate my 2-year, 2-season change from 25,000 to 37,000.

He discussed his belief that without calcium (due to my soft water) to bind with metal plus sequestrant, the phosphate would not be as likely to in part be carried to filter -- he thinks for those with higher calcium, they're carrying some of the phosphate out and ergo lower readings.

He shares the suspicion that real world phosphate levels can get quite high before interfering with swg production at the plate level, but has seen the phosphate scale situation once or twice in 5 years as a tech, so knows its a real thing.

He personally suggests I raise my calcium to 200 not to protect liner, but to protect my heater from negative csi aggressiveness depending on other parameters, and also in an effort to get my .4 ppm iron down closer to .1 ppm via sequestrant filtering. I will give these thoughts a chew

 

[JoyfulNoise]

Hi there. Just finishing up lunch and had a good chat with a true tech at Jack's. in my situation, he's recommending I start with the purple first anyway, not because of the possible cloud factor, but because its more aggressive on iron and he's not loving my .4 ppm rate. Said the magenta was specifically designed for plaster start up and to clean cells, but not as aggressive on sequestering metals.

We discussed long term phosphate loading via purple, and he's heard of some users who build up approx 1,000 ppb in 4-6 weeks, which would actually corroborate my 2-year, 2-season change from 25,000 to 37,000.

He discussed his belief that without calcium (due to my soft water) to bind with metal plus sequestrant, the phosphate would not be as likely to in part be carried to filter -- he thinks for those with higher calcium, they're carrying some of the phosphate out and ergo lower readings.

He shares the suspicion that real world phosphate levels can get quite high before interfering with swg production at the plate level, but has seen the phosphate scale situation once or twice in 5 years as a tech, so knows its a real thing.

He personally suggests I raise my calcium to 200 not to protect liner, but to protect my heater from negative csi aggressiveness depending on other parameters, and also in an effort to get my .4 ppm iron down closer to .1 ppm via sequestrant filtering. I will give these thoughts a chew

SW,

This PDF has a lot of good info on the precipitation of calcium-inhibitor salts - https://www.lubrizol.com/DispersantsWaterTreatment/TechPapers/Factors-Influencing-the-Precipitation-of-Calcium-Inhibitor-Salts.pdf

As you can see from the charts, HEDP and phosphonate based inhibitors have fairly low tolerance for calcium hardness as compared to the polymeric type inhibitors (PAA). So what the tech is saying makes sense in light of your low calcium (soft) water. If you want to co-precipitate metals and calcium, then you need to raise your CH to do that or add much higher concentrations of inhibitor.

 

[MarianParoo]

SW: I know you have probably tried everything with your iron issues... Did you ever try cal-hypo direct to the skimmer while you had DE in the filter? If so, what were your results?

 

[Swampwoman]

Actually, that's one I didn't try, but debated, and read Ben's instructions several times I've pretty much been afraid to open the filter since I broke the multiport last time I tried...I'm a little bit left-handed...and as hubby is quick to point out, ham-fisted

I'd actually been pretty happy with my "under .5" level, compared to the raw 2 ppm of my well, with the soft water, so in my mind, I'd reduced it "enough -- and the constant source of lower-iron fill water seemed more permanent than constantly dumping cal hypo into the skimmer. I was surprised that Jack's was concerned about the .4 actually!

But with the swg coming, maybe I should give the cal hypo a rethink...a bit more ch in my pool wouldn't hurt anyway.

Pool is clearing quite well, gonna give it one more day, then backwash and test. Psi in the neighborhood of 24 after running all day with fresh application of seaklears chitosan clarifier.