Hi everyone,
I have been struggling with metal staining all year in my first year of pool ownership and at the advice of many I have decided to do a full water exchange as to be sure I can remove all metals from the water. I plan to document my steps here in the hopes this helps someone else as well as encouraging anyone who’s had experience with this also to chime in with any tips as I go along.
First I plan to remove all the metal stains with an Ascorbic Acid treatment after a full clean and refresh of the DE filter, this has proven successful to me already a few times this year. I won’t be using the filter during the water change process but having a fresh filter for when the process is complete will be important to avoid any added metals that might be in the DE currently.
Next, I’ll cover the 11x24 pool with a 25x36 foot tarp (pool is around 5 feet deep from coping to pool floor all around) to be able to separate the fresh water from the old pool water being removed.
To be sure no metals are entering from my water source I have tested my well water and it shows low metals, but to be extra cautious I will also attach a Metaltrap filter which should be able to filter 1ppm of metals out should any come through. My water system at home also has a whole home cartridge filter and a water softening system, and my hose spigot is connected to this system. I understand some homes have outdoor water that does not get fed through the water filter and softening system, but this is not my case. Considering my water has metals in it the source must have been the well at some point but why the well water shows low metals now is anyone’s guess. Might have been cheap algaecide with copper the old owner/ pool maintenance used, I can’t really be sure. Either way, the metals were in the water before I owned the home so regardless of the source, step 1 is removing them.
My well pump and pressure system are fairly old, so in order to be sure I don’t cause any trouble to my system, I plan to fill the pool at a significantly reduced rate, so as to not over burden the system. The outdoor spigot runs a bit over 5 gallons per minute on full, but I plan to run the water at about 1 gallon per minute for my waking hours, and turn the hose off at night to let the well water refill underground just in case. The added bonus is that the MetalTrap filter should work better at slower rates also, although it does say it can handle 4-8 gallons per minute, but slower is better.
To remove the water under the tarp, I plan to use an inline water pump water. I’ll drain close to half of the pool and turn off the pump, cover the pool and the hose to the pump with the tarp, and begin refilling. Once full again, I’ll start the inline water pump again drain the rest of the water below the tarp while simultaneously filling the pool with fresh water above the tarp. I plan to lightly secure the tarp with some small stones to keep it from blowing around in the wind but to still allow the water on top to pull the tarp down to say on top of the water below.
It should be cool enough (about 60-70F high temps, lows in the 50s) that even though I expect this process to take a number of days that I don’t have issues with algae in the new water, but just to be sure I’ll throw my floater in there and some dichlor tablets in a light effort to begin to add CYA to the water too, for when the water change is complete.
It’s definitely autumn here now so I’ll be scooping leaves out twice a day during this process.
If anyone sees any holes in my plan, let me know! Any and all feedback is welcome. I’ve read so much on TFP this year and so much here has helped me formulate this plan to be sure I do this safely without breaking anything but I certainly could be missing something.
I have been struggling with metal staining all year in my first year of pool ownership and at the advice of many I have decided to do a full water exchange as to be sure I can remove all metals from the water. I plan to document my steps here in the hopes this helps someone else as well as encouraging anyone who’s had experience with this also to chime in with any tips as I go along.
First I plan to remove all the metal stains with an Ascorbic Acid treatment after a full clean and refresh of the DE filter, this has proven successful to me already a few times this year. I won’t be using the filter during the water change process but having a fresh filter for when the process is complete will be important to avoid any added metals that might be in the DE currently.
Next, I’ll cover the 11x24 pool with a 25x36 foot tarp (pool is around 5 feet deep from coping to pool floor all around) to be able to separate the fresh water from the old pool water being removed.
To be sure no metals are entering from my water source I have tested my well water and it shows low metals, but to be extra cautious I will also attach a Metaltrap filter which should be able to filter 1ppm of metals out should any come through. My water system at home also has a whole home cartridge filter and a water softening system, and my hose spigot is connected to this system. I understand some homes have outdoor water that does not get fed through the water filter and softening system, but this is not my case. Considering my water has metals in it the source must have been the well at some point but why the well water shows low metals now is anyone’s guess. Might have been cheap algaecide with copper the old owner/ pool maintenance used, I can’t really be sure. Either way, the metals were in the water before I owned the home so regardless of the source, step 1 is removing them.
My well pump and pressure system are fairly old, so in order to be sure I don’t cause any trouble to my system, I plan to fill the pool at a significantly reduced rate, so as to not over burden the system. The outdoor spigot runs a bit over 5 gallons per minute on full, but I plan to run the water at about 1 gallon per minute for my waking hours, and turn the hose off at night to let the well water refill underground just in case. The added bonus is that the MetalTrap filter should work better at slower rates also, although it does say it can handle 4-8 gallons per minute, but slower is better.
To remove the water under the tarp, I plan to use an inline water pump water. I’ll drain close to half of the pool and turn off the pump, cover the pool and the hose to the pump with the tarp, and begin refilling. Once full again, I’ll start the inline water pump again drain the rest of the water below the tarp while simultaneously filling the pool with fresh water above the tarp. I plan to lightly secure the tarp with some small stones to keep it from blowing around in the wind but to still allow the water on top to pull the tarp down to say on top of the water below.
It should be cool enough (about 60-70F high temps, lows in the 50s) that even though I expect this process to take a number of days that I don’t have issues with algae in the new water, but just to be sure I’ll throw my floater in there and some dichlor tablets in a light effort to begin to add CYA to the water too, for when the water change is complete.
It’s definitely autumn here now so I’ll be scooping leaves out twice a day during this process.
If anyone sees any holes in my plan, let me know! Any and all feedback is welcome. I’ve read so much on TFP this year and so much here has helped me formulate this plan to be sure I do this safely without breaking anything but I certainly could be missing something.
