Sequentrant -- With or without phosphonic acid? What's its' purpose?

[jesse-99]

Sequentrant -- With or without phosphonic acid? That is the question!

I'm not really looking to get into debating what sequestrants work best or are preferred by everyone. I have had good success with Jack's Purple Stuff so far, but it is getting really expensive for me (35,000 gallon pool), so I'm considering using Mega Maintain (Mega Maintain Metal, Stain & Scale Control - Sequestering Agent) from the people who make CuLator I had a long talk with David McLaren at Culator (for various reasons, not really about the sequestrant so much) and was really impressed with the amount of time he took on the call to answer all of my constant questions (45-60 minutes on the phone) so I'm considering the switch.

The one thing I'm not certain about is, does having phosphonic acid in a sequestrant (Jack's Purple Stuff has it, Mega Maintain doesn't have it) really matter or not?

Jack's Magic costs me about $100 per month for maintenance dosing. (contains phosphonic acid)
Mega Maintain costs me about $43 per month for maintenance dosing. (doesn't contain phosphonic acid)

So on just cost alone, I'd make the switch, but I'm unsure on the benefits of phosphonic acid or whether to believe any marketing blah-blah-blah from Jack's about it... Does phosphonic acid just mean that it's adding phosphates in as well or is there more to it? -confused-

 

[Bperry]

Sequentrant -- With or without phosphonic acid? That is the question!

I'm not really looking to get into debating what sequestrants work best or are preferred by everyone. I have had good success with Jack's Purple Stuff so far, but it is getting really expensive for me (35,000 gallon pool), so I'm considering using Mega Maintain (Mega Maintain Metal, Stain & Scale Control - Sequestering Agent) from the people who make CuLator I had a long talk with David McLaren at Culator (for various reasons, not really about the sequestrant so much) and was really impressed with the amount of time he took on the call to answer all of my constant questions (45-60 minutes on the phone) so I'm considering the switch.

The one thing I'm not certain about is, does having phosphonic acid in a sequestrant (Jack's Purple Stuff has it, Mega Maintain doesn't have it) really matter or not?

Jack's Magic costs me about $100 per month for maintenance dosing. (contains phosphonic acid)
Mega Maintain costs me about $43 per month for maintenance dosing. (doesn't contain phosphonic acid)

So on just cost alone, I'd make the switch, but I'm unsure on the benefits of phosphonic acid or whether to believe any marketing blah-blah-blah from Jack's about it... Does phosphonic acid just mean that it's adding phosphates in as well or is there more to it? -confused-

Curious why you just don’t replace the water and ditch the $100/month bill?

 

[PoolStored]

The first question is why are you using a sequestrant in the first place? Without understanding "Why" you are adding it, adding it doesn't make sense...

Second is that sequestrants with phosphonic acid are in fact the most effective, see "What are Sequestrant Products?" in this article:

Sequestrant - Further Reading

www.troublefreepool.com

 

[jesse-99]

I've read that, several times. It doesn't explain what the phosphonic acid does though or why having a phosphonic acid is supposedly better. Just saying it is better doesn't really answer my question. I'm looking for more info or details than that.

To answer your question about why I use sequestrants , it's because I have a lot of iron to deal with (and some other metals like copper, etc.) and without sequestrants, my plaster stains very quickly even when trying to keep pH low around 7.2 or 7.6 (which is extremely difficult in itself because I have far more aeration in my pool than I think -anyone- else on TFP does, or at least that I've seen so far).

I get metals from the following reasons:

• Iron and a tiny bit of copper from my well water (which is where my auto-fills get their water source), despite putting in (4) massive 13x60 filter tanks), there is still some iron that gets in regardless. And due to the crazy of amount of evaporation loss in my pool (because of all the water features and very large surface areas), I have to add more water from my auto-fills than most people are accustomed to in their pools.
• Iron/metals from the 40-50 tons of boulders/rock that make up giant waterfalls with pool water cascading over horizontally and down from (along with rainwater leeching metals from these boulders too).
• Iron/metals from the stone/granite disappearing-edge that waterfalls cascade over horizontally and down from (along with rainwater leeching metals from this stone/granite too).
• Iron/metals from the stone/granite coping pavers all along the edge of my pool that when it rains, rainwater leeches metals out of and into my pool.
• Iron/metals from the stone/granite beach area (roughly 200 square feet) that is -ALWAYS- underwater, and pool water is constantly leeching metals out of as well.
• Other minor/smaller reasons.

So, without a sequestrant, it's only a matter of time before the plaster begins to get staining. Yes I try to use polyfill in my skimmer baskets. And recently starting using Culator 4.0's in 3 of my 6 pool pumps (take help take the metals OUT of the water so long as the metals haven't oxidized first). But without sequestrant, it's a losing battle and only a matter of time (not if) that the staining starts to reoccur. And since I just paid around $35k for a full re-plaster job, and I'm tired of doing endless AA or CA treatments for stain removal, sequestrants are the biggest help to deal with my crazy pool. HTH.

edit -- One last thing to mention, I have 7 different individual bodies of water that can all operate together with my pool, but those 7 bodies of water can also remain independent from each other too. (yeah, it's complicated and hard to explain in a forum message)

 

[jesse-99]

Curious why you just don’t replace the water and ditch the $100/month bill?

-facepalm- See answer later in thread. Putting in freshly trucked water from a local municipality (at $3,500 to my pocket) isn't the answer. I just spent $3,500 to truck in water less than 1 month ago when I opened the pool. Replacing the water isn't going to help anything.

 

[Saturn94]

The first question is why are you using a sequestrant in the first place? Without understanding "Why" you are adding it, adding it doesn't make sense...

Second is that sequestrants with phosphonic acid are in fact the most effective, see "What are Sequestrant Products?" in this article:

Sequestrant - Further Reading

www.troublefreepool.com

It should be noted that regular sequestrant use can also cause false high salt readings using the recommended Taylor 1766 drop test. I learned this the hard way. I’m not sure why the article you linked doesn’t include this information.

Squeeze last bit of life out of cell?

Seems like the K-1766 is off for some reason. Maybe try a different bottle of reagent. Maybe the drop size is off for some reason? Maybe an interference, but I don't know what would interfere.

www.troublefreepool.com

(See post #112 by JoyfulNoise)

 

[Bperry]

-facepalm- See answer later in thread. Putting in freshly trucked water from a local municipality (at $3,500 to my pocket) isn't the answer. I just spent $3,500 to truck in water less than 1 month ago when I opened the pool. Replacing the water isn't going to help anything.

Sounds like you have a unique situation. Best of luck to you.

 

[Saturn94]

Btw, I can relate to Jesse-99’s need to use a sequestrant. Iron staining is also an issue with our pool (though perhaps not as much as Jesse’s). I’ve found Jack’s Magic Purple Stuff to be very effective. Fortunately, I have been pretty successful using quite a bit less than the manufacturer’s recommended dosage.

 

[jesse-99]

Btw, I can relate to Jesse-99’s need to use a sequestrant. Iron staining is also an issue with our pool (though perhaps not as much as Jesse’s). I’ve found Jack’s Magic Purple Stuff to be very effective. Fortunately, I have been pretty successful using quite a bit less than the manufacturer’s recommended dosage.

Yeah Jack's Purple Stuff has been good for me too, I'm just considering trying an alternative because the cost of it sure adds up for me. If it costs less but still works, great. If not, I'll go back to Jack's. It's just part of a cost-savings kick I'm on right now to save $ each month on overall pool costs (also just replaced 3 single speed pumps recently with VSPs to cut down on my $500+ electric bill every month (yeah, 6 pumps, fun)).

 

[Saturn94]

I'm tired of doing endless AA or CA treatments for stain removal

I did that once. Although very effective, it was a pain to do and not something I would want to do again if possible, hence my continued use of Purple Stuff.

 

[jesse-99]

Couldn't agree more. It's not that AA treatments are hard (I feel like I can do the entire treatment now without even looking up the process, lol) but sure is nicer if we can avoid them

 

[PoolStored]

@ajw22 See post #6, maybe an update with Joyfulnoise post #112 (link below) to the sequestrant wiki on high salt results with regular use?

Squeeze last bit of life out of cell?

Seems like the K-1766 is off for some reason. Maybe try a different bottle of reagent. Maybe the drop size is off for some reason? Maybe an interference, but I don't know what would interfere.

www.troublefreepool.com

 

[ajw22]

I am look at it. Never saw that discussion before.

 

[BodeFamily]

Yeah Jack's Purple Stuff has been good for me too, I'm just considering trying an alternative because the cost of it sure adds up for me. If it costs less but still works, great. If not, I'll go back to Jack's. It's just part of a cost-savings kick I'm on right now to save $ each month on overall pool costs (also just replaced 3 single speed pumps recently with VSPs to cut down on my $500+ electric bill every month (yeah, 6 pumps, fun)).

@jesse-99 I've used the Mega Maintain. It works ok, but I find that I had to add a maintenance does more than once a week in order to keep stains from returning. I'd say I had to add maintenance doses about every 4 days or the stains would reappear. And once they reappeared, additional Mega Maintain didn't do anything to lift them. I had to use Metal Magic, AA , or Purple Stuff to get the stains to lift. Feel free to DM me if you want to chat more about it. My metal issues are somewhat like yours in that they can't really be solved by replacing water.

 

[jesse-99]

@BodeFamily Very helpful, thank you. How much was your maintenance dosage for the 30k gallons when using Mega Maintain, do you recall? Did you end up stay with Mega Maintain or did you go back to a different sequestrant? So far with the Purple Stuff, I'm having to add roughly 1 quart (a whole bottle) each week (35.5k gallons) and @ $25 per bottle it's over $100/month so that's why I'm giving Mega Maintain a try. I just received 4-5 bottles of Mega Maintain in the mail yesterday and will use my first maintenance dosage on Thursday.

Really helpful info and thanks for sharing!!!

 

[BodeFamily]

@BodeFamily Very helpful, thank you. How much was your maintenance dosage for the 30k gallons when using Mega Maintain, do you recall? Did you end up stay with Mega Maintain or did you go back to a different sequestrant? So far with the Purple Stuff, I'm having to add roughly 1 quart (a whole bottle) each week (35.5k gallons) and @ $25 per bottle it's over $100/month so that's why I'm giving Mega Maintain a try. I just received 4-5 bottles of Mega Maintain in the mail yesterday and will use my first maintenance dosage on Thursday.

Really helpful info and thanks for sharing!!!

I’ll message you!