Remove slight off color - dingy Surface

[jwm64]

New pool owner here, well new to me anyway, as of last July. We purchased a home with a pool, and dove right in, so to speak, with the maintenance. After several failed attempts at trying to find a good pool maintenance company, I decided to give it a go.

When we moved into the home the pool looked really nice, with just a couple of small rust looking spots, but nothing alarming. As I mentioned, we initially had a couple of different companies begin maintenance, and the common thing I heard was that the CYA level was off the chart. The would be pool maint. folks, gave differing opinions on whether to drain the pool, or replace the water. Things started to make sense, as the previous owner, on his way out the door, essentially said just load up the dispenser and feed the pool Tri-chlor tablets like candy.

Starting to feel overwhelmed, I found this website and began studying the in's and out's of chemistry and slowly gained some confidence that I could handle the job. My plan was to run the pool fill for a few hours every week, and maybe by the time the Spring rolled around I would be in a position to make some final adjustments.

So far that plan has worked, my CYA is now sitting at about 50, as of this weekend. However, I think I was too focused on the water replacement, and keeping leaves and other debris out of the pool over the winter by regularly netting and using a robot. I didn't test a lot this winter, but I did add a little shock now and again whenever I saw a tinge of green. Obviously, I need to focus more on the whole package over the winter months next year.

I've been adjusting and testing like crazy the past several weeks and here are a couple of my results using LaMotte's Color CQ2:
4-15-22 5-6-22
Free Chlorine 0.18 ppm 2.81 ppm
Total Chlorine 0.23 ppm
Combined Chlorine 0.05 ppm
pH 7.9 7.6
Alkalinity 191 ppm 134 ppm
Adjusted Alkalinity 175 ppm
Calcium Hardness 334 ppm
Cyanuric Acid 54 ppm

I skipped a few tests over the weekend, as everything seems fairly stable except Chlorine, pH, and Alkalinity, where adjustments using liquid chlorine and MA have been very effective.

So, now to the question...
From above, the pool surface looks good and the water is really clean, but inspecting the surface up close, it looks dingy and I feel like I need to take some action, chemical, or scrubbing, or both to get rid of the slight off greenish-brown tinge. I've read about the no-drain acid wash, but that seems kind drastic for my situation. Is there any advice on what I could or should do to clean this up? Drop the pH down, 7.00 to 7.2, and scrub?

Thanks in advance for the help!

 

[Orion7319]

LaMotte's Color CQ2:

Seriously, I have one of those and it’s not accurate at all (except for the PH)! Mine is so bad I can run the tests 5 times in a row back to back and get different results each time. You need an accurate test kit like the TF-100 or the Taylor K2006c. I have all three kits myself, and the Lamotte was the first one I bought. It would be great if it actually worked right. When folks here know you have accurate test results they can provide great advice and get your pool looking great.

 

[duraleigh]

Orion is correct. All of our advice depends on really good test results. .......... found just about exclusively in the K-2006C, The TF-100 and the TFPro

 

[mknauss]

to get rid of the slight off greenish-brown tinge

Welcome to the forum.

First, I would suggest getting a handful of vitamin C tablets, put them in a thin sock, crush them up a bit, and hold the sock against the stain for a few minutes. If it clears, it is iron.

 

[jwm64]

Thanks for the input! Orion, just don't taunt me a second time!
When I first found TFP last summer, I saw the recommendations for the TF-100, and considered it before buying the CQ2. I guess I am/was partial to the LaMotte brand, as they are huge in the brewing industry, and I'm a bit of a home brewer. That said, I've not seen inconsistent results in back to back tests, but my "universe" of testing is admittedly small.

I will try the vitamin C / sock test, on both the dingy areas, and the dime sized rusty looking spots (3 or 4), and report back. In the meantime, I'll consider getting one of the recommended test kits, and keep working to gain confidence in applying MA and liquid chlorine. I have a decent stockpile of liquid chlorine (most of which is less than 60 days old) and so far, MA seems easier to find.

 

[jwm64]

What a difference a few days makes. I was able to perform the sock / vitamin C test over the weekend and for the small rusty looking spots it does lessen the appearance of the "spot". I was unsure of how long to leave it, so I went the conservative route and backed off. I'll need to study the next steps more to fully address these stains, especially the few in the deep end. If vitamin C is the answer to these stains, I thought of using an old pool pole and stuffing a sock in the end to reach and hold it on the stain. Is this the best (only?) method of reducing or removing these types of stains?

As to the dingy part, starting Thursday night, I did take the pH down a bit to about 7.5 and targeted free chlorine at 6.5. Over the remainder of the weekend I tested at least twice daily (morning and evening) and let the pH come back up on its own and held it at about 7.7, while aiming at 6.5 FC. That, and a healthy dose of scrubbing seems to have taken care of the dingy part. The pool gets lots of sun, so I think I'm going to bump CYA up a tad to 60 and continue following the FC loss closely to see if daily losses drop. Right now, I'm not sure what to expect for a daily chlorine "consumption" level??

I know this is obvious to most here, but the take away for me is that scrubbing efforts are ultimately fruitless without maintaining the proper levels of FC and pH. Over the past few weeks I have become much more comfortable with testing, and handling liquid chlorine and MA...oh yeah, and Pool Math is awesome! Thanks to the moderators and contributors of TFP!

Not sure if this warrants a new thread, but this is related to chemical levels...
To raise the pool water level, the old home owner had the builder run PVC to a location near a hose bibb and he would hook it up when needed...and he used rain water diverted from the gutters (but that's a different story). The house water is on a whole house water conditioner / filter, so up until now this has been the fill water for me, and I have not tested the house water. I recently added a zone to my sprinkler system, primarily as a drip system for my garden. While doing that I added a diverter and rerouted the pool fill so I could use the irrigation system zone timer (controlled by an app...easy peasy). The upside is that the fill runs much quicker now, and if I forget that it's on...no worries, the timer will turn it off. Last night, I tested the fill water to check the calcium hardness. The result was 140 ish, does that seem high? I can't find it right now, but I think Pool Math asks for the hardness of the fill water and defaults to 40.

 

[jwm64]

What a difference a few days makes. I was able to perform the sock / vitamin C test over the weekend and for the small rusty looking spots it does lessen the appearance of the "spot". I was unsure of how long to leave it, so I went the conservative route and backed off. I'll need to study the next steps more to fully address these stains, especially the few in the deep end. If vitamin C is the answer to these stains, I thought of using an old pool pole and stuffing a sock in the end to reach and hold it on the stain. Is this the best (only?) method of reducing or removing these types of stains?

As to the dingy part, starting Thursday night, I did take the pH down a bit to about 7.5 and targeted free chlorine at 6.5. Over the remainder of the weekend I tested at least twice daily (morning and evening) and let the pH come back up on its own and held it at about 7.7, while aiming at 6.5 FC. That, and a healthy dose of scrubbing seems to have taken care of the dingy part. The pool gets lots of sun, so I think I'm going to bump CYA up a tad to 60 and continue following the FC loss closely to see if daily losses drop. Right now, I'm not sure what to expect for a daily chlorine "consumption" level??

I know this is obvious to most here, but the take away for me is that scrubbing efforts are ultimately fruitless without maintaining the proper levels of FC and pH. Over the past few weeks I have become much more comfortable with testing, and handling liquid chlorine and MA...oh yeah, and Pool Math is awesome! Thanks to the moderators and contributors of TFP!

Not sure if this warrants a new thread, but this is related to chemical levels...
To raise the pool water level, the old home owner had the builder run PVC to a location near a hose bibb and he would hook it up when needed...and he used rain water diverted from the gutters (but that's a different story). The house water is on a whole house water conditioner / filter, so up until now this has been the fill water for me, and I have not tested the house water. I recently added a zone to my sprinkler system, primarily as a drip system for my garden. While doing that I added a diverter and rerouted the pool fill so I could use the irrigation system zone timer (controlled by an app...easy peasy). The upside is that the fill runs much quicker now, and if I forget that it's on...no worries, the timer will turn it off. Last night, I tested the fill water to check the calcium hardness. The result was 140 ish, does that seem high? I can't find it right now, but I think Pool Math asks for the hardness of the fill water and defaults to 40.

Any thoughts on this?

Iron stains? I suppose I have some time to study this, because the small rusty spots haven't changed appreciably in the 9+ months I been observing. Thanks for the suggestion MKnauss.

Related to discoloration, algae, and dingyness...thanks to TFP, I purchased a Dolphin S200 from Margaret at Marina Pools and Spas last fall. Once I got it up and running I stopped my booster and Kreepy Krauly. A couple of months later, with lots of leaves falling, I was testing to see the results of Kreepy vs. S200, but apparently not running the booster pump consistently caused it to die very quickly upon restart. How likely is it that there is a build-up of algae in that unused line? Would that algae would pose an issue as a "starter" for an algae "bloom"? What to do? Repair / replace the pump? Cap off the line?

I found several other posts here that discussed chlorine consumption. For my area and sunlight hitting the pool 4 ppm seems like a good consumption to start with. For my pool size (16613) I'm looking at replacement of about 0.8 gallon a day (10%). I have about 24 gallons (recent dated) on hand. I also have a chiller I'll need to restart soon, so I'm hoping that will help. Any idea what to expect there?

Looking more at the fill water CH again, other posts have given me the impression that 140 ppm is probably in range for central Texas. It'll be interesting to see how the water change from conditioned with a salt-less Aquasana Rhino to straight City water will affect the chemistry after a fill.

If I knew how to add a video clip I would include the Monty Python clip "taunt you a second time"...oh well.

Thanks in advance for any help.