Recurring Metal Stains... worse than ever...

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Swampwoman, and other members... your knowledge and support are greatly appreciated. There's no way I could easily make sense of what sometimes feels like a 23k gallon chemistry set without your help and support.

It's still way too early to tell if MM is a long term solution for my stain problems but so far, so good. It's been almost 2 weeks since the MM treatment and I've seen no trace of staining. My previous stain treatment (Using AA or GLB Stain Magnet with Jacks Purple Stuff) was only lasting about a week at best.

I'm hoping that the weekly maintenance dose of MM will keep the stains away.
 
Swampwoman said:
Excellent news....slow flow is the way to go ;) The organic clarifier will also be breaking down from the FC so I bet you get there sooner rather than later.

I am happy to hear that maintenance levels of MM are working for you. I am actually thinking I should call their tech and offer up my pool as a swg experiment for them since I'm in their city. Except my iron is presently completely sequestered and reading zero, and my source water is now down to .347 ppm (softener and Pentek filter). I kinda missed my chance to do a clean experiment of MM in swg when I'd ad fresh water trucked last year ;)
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That iron level seems high after a softener and filter. Curious if you've ever done a bucket test with any positive results?
 
Pool still not clear but looking better. Yesterday I swam in it and noticed that when wearing a scuba mask, I can barely see from end to end (36 ft) under water. Normally, the water looks like glass underwater so I know I still have a ways to go.

I also drained some water yesterday to help things along. I had 2 water hoses in the deep end and a up-to 5 thousand gallon an hour pump in the shallow end. I doubt it really does 5k per hour but I was draining and filling at the same time partly to save time refilling and avoid any issues with the vinyl liner since I already had a liner scare earlier this season. Anyway, I ran this pump for about 2 or so hours and refilled.

Started everything back up and added my maintenance dosage of Metal Magic for the week. It looked like not long after adding the MM, the water looked a little more cloudy so I may drop the amount of MM I'm adding weekly.

Did a full water test about an hour later and it looks like my CYA dropped from 60-50 and CH also dropped from 110 to 100. Seems to imply a net replacement/dilution of around 15-16% if my pre-morning-coffee math is right..

Hope to get there soon. Looks like we have a solid week of rain in the forecast so I'm sure that won't help.

This morning, the water looked improved from last night so the filter is working, just veeeeeeryyyyyyy slowly.

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Ugh... I swear I can't win. The pool is beating me down this season. Since I replaced some water this weekend, I needed to add salt to the pool.

According to the pool calculator I need around 6 bags of salt. I added 5 bags in the shallow end and used the brush to dissolve. The salt is high quality (supposedly 99.99% pure salt). The brand is AquaSalt from Houston, TX.

Much to my dismay, the water turned cloudy again. My pool chemistry looks fine otherwise. Have any of you had this problem before? Here are my water test results:

FC: 7
CC: 0
pH: 7.2
TA: 90
CH: 100
CYA: 50
Salt: Was 2570 before adding 5 bags (SWG calls for 4000 ppm - I usually run around 3700 or so).



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I can't give any insight on the salt clouding, but curious if this is the first time using a claimed UHP salt?
read an article recently that discussed staining in SWG pools and the possible correlation to 99% pure salt IIRC it gave an example of a 23kgal pool needing 580lbs of salt with 1% impurities that's 5.8lbs or ~93oz. If you assumed only 1-2% of that was iron that's .93-1.86 oz of iron added to your water to put into further physical perspective a 16d 3.5" nail weighs ~.34oz. So consider ~3 nails were dissolved in your pool to start with. who knows how many since then....

I found 1 similar sized nail lodged in my sand filter that likely fell in during removal of the stair treads above it. When I cut a small section of return line out to install a sidestream filtration unit the inside of PVC was solid red with iron scale. And the nail was not completely dissolved. I deal with similar staining issues to yours with low iron fill water.

If you're inclined to try a non-profit iron testing I plan on buying some reagents for a Hach analyzer I have but you pay shipping, being close in GA shouldn't cost too much.
 
No,it's not the first time I've used this salt. My pool has been a salt pool from day one. This salt is supposed to be one of the purest salts you can buy, even purer than Morton Pool Salt. It's supposed to be 99.9% pure... food grade and medical grade according to their literature..

Salt Water Swimming Pool Salt - Product Datasheet | AQUASALT

I'm familiar with the article you speak of.

Anyway, the good news is that the water seems to be clearing up rather quickly. I just don't recall seeing that reaction before.

Thanks for the offer of an iron test. I've actually had my water tested several times and it never comes back positive for iron. I own a Hanna iron tester myself and the only time I've had it register any iron was when I tested a bucket of water I used to remove the stains from all my pool fittings.
 

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Sometimes a high TDS load (salt) can cause certain polymeric metal sequestrants to cloud up as the sodium (Na+) ions get captured by the anionic end members (carboxylate, phosphonate or sulfonate end groups). The sodium gets re-released over time in favor for other higher oxidation state cations (Ca2+, Fe2+/3+, etc) and clarity comes back slowly. That's a possible cause of the temporary water cloudiness.
 
JoyfulNoise said:
Sometimes a high TDS load (salt) can cause certain polymeric metal sequestrants to cloud up as the sodium (Na+) ions get captured by the anionic end members (carboxylate, phosphonate or sulfonate end groups). The sodium gets re-released over time in favor for other higher oxidation state cations (Ca2+, Fe2+/3+, etc) and clarity comes back slowly. That's a possible cause of the temporary water cloudiness.
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Thank you for your helpful and thorough responses.
 
Originally Posted by JoyfulNoise
Sometimes a high TDS load (salt) can cause certain polymeric metal sequestrants to cloud up as the sodium (Na+) ions get captured by the anionic end members (carboxylate, phosphonate or sulfonate end groups). The sodium gets re-released over time in favor for other higher oxidation state cations (Ca2+, Fe2+/3+, etc) and clarity comes back slowly. That's a possible cause of the temporary water cloudiness.
Thank you for your helpful and thorough responses.
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Hey, Matt, MM is HEDP, and Jacks Magic Purple is HEDP. Can you think of any reason JM didn't cloud but MM did for Carlos? (Though its notably also holding better, and lifted stains...;) )

Hubby and I were talking last night about switching back to MM as it always seemed to hold better for us too, but we can't figure out the difference or the whyfores for the difference ;) MM seems inclined to lift stains in a way that JMP does not. MM instructs use at a ph at or above 7.6, whereas JM suggests lower (7.2).

Just curious as to whether you had a theory!
 
Swampwoman said:
Hey, Matt, MM is HEDP, and Jacks Magic Purple is HEDP. Can you think of any reason JM didn't cloud but MM did for Carlos? (Though its notably also holding better, and lifted stains...;) )

Hubby and I were talking last night about switching back to MM as it always seemed to hold better for us too, but we can't figure out the difference or the whyfores for the difference ;) MM seems inclined to lift stains in a way that JMP does not. MM instructs use at a ph at or above 7.6, whereas JM suggests lower (7.2).

Just curious as to whether you had a theory!
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I have been wondering this myself. I guess every pool is different but on my pool it just seemed like Jacks Purple just didn't work. Even with a maintenance dose of a quart per week which seems nuts.

One thing about MM is that it's formula is HIGHLY acidic. I spilled a bit of it on my garage floor while soaking the sponge for the MM sponge test and the MM started foaming and etching the concrete floor much like muriatic acid does. This explains why they prefer the higher pH for MM.

It seemed like I saw a hint of stains yesterday evening so I added 8 oz of MM and this morning, I could not really see anything. Sometimes it feels like I'm imagining the stains.

I'm sure my MM concentration was diluted last weekend when I drained some water to help with the cloudiness so I still need to figure out what my weekly MM dose needs to be.
 
MM is only HEDP while Jack's is a formulation (no idea what the other ingredients are). And yes, MM at 2% concentration with water has a pH < 2 so it is very acidic stuff. Depending on the application rate and overall product concentration, MM may use a higher baseline phosphonate concentration.

Why did MM cloud but Jacks did not? Unsure. Perhaps it's concentration dependent. There's always a bit of voodoo involved when it comes to using metal sequestrants.
 

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