Salt Staining

[gordoben]

Hey all,

I have a 40,000L pool.
We have had a massive shortage of pool salt in my town and we have all had to use liquid chlorine for a while now due to major flooding causing damage to a local factory that bags it.

I added 50kg last week, and needed another 50kg this week.
The salt i got was from a local pool shop, not the best salt (medium grade) but that is all they had and they seemed okay to sell it.
I threw it in the pool and the pool went green. I have use the robot clearer and had the pump on for 24 hours and it is nice and clear, but i now have light what i assume is salt staining. The pool surface area is pebblecrete.

I have seen a few salt stain removers in the market, annoyingly it says i need to drop the chlorine level to use it, are these effective?

Feel very frustrated as paid a fortune finally for salt and now i have this issue.

 

[ajw22]

Welcome to TFP.

I suspect the salt had iron in it that turned the pool green and then the iron caused the staining.

Smash up some vitamin C tablets into a paste and apply it to a stained area. If it lifts the stains then it confirms it is iron staining.

The AA treatments is used to remove iron staining...

Ascorbic Acid Treatment - Further Reading

www.troublefreepool.com

 

[gordoben]

Welcome to TFP.

I suspect the salt had iron in it that turned the pool green and then the iron caused the staining.

Smash up some vitamin C tablets into a paste and apply it to a stained area. If it lifts the stains then it confirms it is iron staining.

The AA treatments is used to remove iron staining...

Ascorbic Acid Treatment - Further Reading

www.troublefreepool.com

Thanks mate,

It is near the deep end of the pool, what is the best way to do the vitamin c method underwater ?

 

[CRAD_oz]

Yes there is a pool salt shortage here in Sydney as well especially for the good quality salt. My salt levels fell below what my Chlorinator liked and so I used Liquid Chlorine until I could pick up some decent salt bags.
Plenty of LC around.
When will this rain stop?

 

[ajw22]

Thanks mate,

It is near the deep end of the pool, what is the best way to do the vitamin c method underwater ?

Put Vitamin C tablets in a thin sock. Crush them up a bit. Hold it on the stain using your pool brush and pole..

 

[mgtfp]

I have seen a few salt stain removers in the market, annoyingly it says i need to drop the chlorine level to use it, are these effective?

I think these "salt stain removers" are just citric acid. Not sure if they also contain a sequestrant. The use of different acids and why chlorine needs to be dropped first is discussed in Allen's link.

 

[heckofagator]

Does this salt stain look like small round spots of rust? We just had the pool equipment replaced and a new swg put in and now I see a bunch of rust colored small spots around the pool. Maybe the size of a pencil eraser, perhaps a bit bigger.

 

[AUSpool]

Hey all,

I have a 40,000L pool.
We have had a massive shortage of pool salt in my town and we have all had to use liquid chlorine for a while now due to major flooding causing damage to a local factory that bags it.

I added 50kg last week, and needed another 50kg this week.
The salt i got was from a local pool shop, not the best salt (medium grade) but that is all they had and they seemed okay to sell it.
I threw it in the pool and the pool went green. I have use the robot clearer and had the pump on for 24 hours and it is nice and clear, but i now have light what i assume is salt staining. The pool surface area is pebblecrete.

I have seen a few salt stain removers in the market, annoyingly it says i need to drop the chlorine level to use it, are these effective?

Feel very frustrated as paid a fortune finally for salt and now i have this issue.

Geday gordoben and welcome to the forums.

We certainly had some crasy weather, Brisbane was shut down for a week due to flooding, I lost ~70% of my salt, Ca and CYA. Salt was sold out within a day, some stores selling ~10 pallets in a day.

Hopefully you didn’t just throw it in, it needs to be brushed around until it is fully dissolved.

Was it a magnesium salt at three times the price? These have more impurities, they are only ~95% pure as compared the regular salt at 99.4%. Ive never had regular salt discolour my water but have heard that Mag salts do.

We have a large salt supplier who supply salt for several industries and applications. In the pool industry they supply our Bunnings hardware chain with a premium and budget salt, and many of our pool stores with a premium salt. They are quite responsible in that they have SDS sheets or product information, including testing methods, readily available on their web site - unlike the smoke and mirrors from the mag salt suppliers.

It turns out the premium and the budget salts are identical other then grain size. They are all 99.4% pure NaCl. The main ingredients for the remaining 0.6% is calcium, sulphate, magnesium and 10mg/kg of iron. At a dollar more I use the premium which dissolves quicker but it’s nice to know that the budget if needed is the same in terms of purity. They have an ultra fine which has sodium ferrocyanide added as an anti caking agent - I’ll pass on that one.