Removing Iron

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This just occurred to me. I was looking up test kits so I can test my well water for iron when I remembered.... i had the concrete decking around my pool replaced last summer. They cut a strip 1 foot wide around the pool to use a skid steer to remove most of the concrete, then came back and removed the 1 foot section by hand. Then they formed and repoured my new deck. In this process, lots of concrete dust from cutting was added to the water. Then the guy pouring my new concrete was careless and dumped about a gallon of wet concrete into my pool. This was just before the end of the swim season last year. Could the iron have came from this instead of my well water as I have never had an issue in the past? Maybe this is what put it "over the top"? I know concrete has high amount of metals. I still want to test my well water regardless but thought this could ultimately be my issue.
 
joshua5438 said:
Could the iron have came from this instead of my well water as I have never had an issue in the past?
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I personally couldn't confirm. Too many variables there. It's so common for wells to have "some" iron, it could be a coincidence that your iron level simply hit a threshold and is now reacting. I'm sure that tech did you no favors though with that accident. :brickwall:
 
I decided to raise my FC to above slam to see if I could oxidize the iron. My goal was to raise it from 5 to 15 (12 is my slam level with a CYA of 30), somehow two gallons raised it to 23! I am using the same calculator I have used for seven years and it's always been spot on. Not sure what happened this time unless the chlorine was double the 12.5% it claimed. Anyway.. my water is now more clear than it was and the polyfil in my skimmer is still white. Stains are still as they were before the slam. So this leads me to believe that any iron I currently have is what is attached to the sides, steps, etc.. With my PH of 7.8 and FC at 23, I would think it would have oxidized the iron. I also noticed as I was vacuuming a few piles of leaves out from a storm earlier this week, that anywhere the leaves had been lying on the floor, is now a clean spot (no longer stained yellow). Does that sound true for iron stains? I guess I am still not 100% on this being iron but then again, it wipes off very easily with Vitamin C. So I am sure an AA treatment will clean it all off.

So my next plan is to drop my FC to zero, add Polyquat60, keep the polyfil in the skimmer, then perform the AA treatment. Once all the stains have lifted I will lower my water level to the bottom step and then refill. I will then adjust my parameters as normal except FC. From what I have read, I should bring it up to 2, wait an hour to confirm no new staining, then I can bring it up to my desired level. By doing the water change I believe a sequestrant is not needed, correct?

Am I missing anything?
 
joshua5438 said:
Does that sound true for iron stains?
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Perhaps there was some from of acid that neutralized the iron stain below it, or just shaded the floor from potential staining.

But yes, you have the right idea above. I think your plan looks good.
 
Just FYI in case you want to do some more reading! I did a post (#19 in the linked thread) about my experience removing iron

Help!!! Iron stains from what??

I'm so demoralized. We opened our pool a week ago. It was green but not too bad it seemed. This is our third year of pool ownership by the way. Previous years we SLAMed and then had pretty low maintenance seasons with our swg. This year its been staying green looking due to staining on the vinyl...
www.troublefreepool.com www.troublefreepool.com
And that whole thread is about iron removal.
 
joshua5438 said:
By doing the water change I believe a sequestrant is not needed, correct?

Am I missing anything?
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While the water coming in will have less iron than what is currently in the pool, you will still have some iron. So what is your plan to remove the iron if you are not going to dump in sequestrant? Again, I am never able to rid myself of iron stains but minimize them and over a few months will start seeing some staining return.

Not suggesting you do this but I have also done AA spot treatments every couple weeks which I don't change anything with the FC and put some AA on just the fiberglass steps and edges of the shallow end. The shallow end is certainly more noticeable when stained so the thought is "why not just move the stains to the deep end where they are less noticeable?" There is no risk of an algae bloom in this scenario because I still maintain normal FC and the small amount of AA added barely impacts the existing FC in the water. If this current attempt doesn't work out well, you may just try this approach until the end of summer.
 
AndyTN said:
While the water coming in will have less iron than what is currently in the pool, you will still have some iron. So what is your plan to remove the iron if you are not going to dump in sequestrant?
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My thoughts are that I will perform the AA treatment a few more time if needed while attempting to remove as much iron as possible each time. I honestly feel a big part of my issue was with the concrete renovation as I have never had this issue in the past. Time will tell. A sequestrant will be my last plan of attack if I cannot get it under control. I also have plans to install a "whole house" water filter that will help for any large metals I may have in my well water.
 
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