So I have iron stains … 😩

[Mdragger88]

I have suspected a problem for a couple seasons. Initially just my pump basket & inside my skimmer have the wonderful yellow hue.
At the beginning of last season I got a replacement pump & it wasn’t long before the new basket looked the same.
At the end of last year I noticed my steps looked dingy & clorox cleanup didn’t remedy that so upon opening this year I pulled them out & used bar keepers friend More spray which is a mix of oxalic acid & citric acid - as the spray ran down they turned white before my eyes. They were much more yellow/orange than I realized!
I have noticed a couple obvious yellow areas on the liner where there’s wrinkles or it’s more stretched & lighter. So today I got a few vitamin c pills in a little sock to try on the stained areas. Once again it was like magic. It didn’t take long to realize that the whole pool has a yellow hue.
I wrote my initial “M” in an area I initially thought was fine!

I can only assume that my fill water is the culprit & possibly some of the dust from my crushed concrete that surrounds the pool (it is not grey but orangy brown because something “happened” to it that turned it that color - we got it from the airport off a construction site so no telling).
My white bath tub has some stains but my other fixtures are fine. To be fair my other tub & sink is a light brown so hard to tell. I initially blamed my old water heater for that but it turned out to be rust free.
I brought my pool to slam level at opening & the water never changed color so I don’t think polyfill will be of use to actually rid myself of the iron.
The thought of lowering fc to zero to do an aa treatment freaks me out but so do these stains. I don’t know whether to do the aa before closing or after opening.
Also, should I begin using a sequesterant now to prevent it from getting worse?

 

[duraleigh]

The sequestrant doesn't help much right now...........maybe later.

The AA treatment is miraculous and not difficult, Plenty of folks here who have done it (easy for me to say, I haven't done it )

I would confirm the source before you start and then decide how are you gonna combat it. Are you on a well?

 

[Mdragger88]

City water - it comes from a well that draws from the Sparta Sand Aquifers. The same aquifers as Memphis City water draws from. I live about 2000 feet away from the well. That means when there’s well maintenance or whatever my water gets funky.

Here’s our latest report- the copper level has me a little concerned but they don’t report iron.

I have never had my pool or fill water tested for metals at the pool store. I may do that before closing as I will need to go buy more liquid chlorine anyway. I have an unused bottle of polyquat I can put into use when the time comes. I have just been letting the stains ride and avoiding it because my pool stays so easy to care for (ph & ta never move) but now that I have cleaned them I can see how dingy the rest is!
I remember one instance right after I moved here 13 years ago where I was pouring bleach into the washing machine & the water turned orange momentarily. I think I was washing diapers & they still came out white but I thought it was strange. Now I realize it was probably iron.

 

[Mdragger88]

Can I assume by the pretty much instant removal of the stains with vitamin C that I won’t need to use much Ascorbic acid when I decide to tackle this?
I’m thinking doing it before closing would be better than after opening due to the fact that the water should only get colder thus less risk of algae. I have stayed running until Christmas before with my smaller pools although I prefer to cover the pool before the leaf drop happens.

 

[markayash]

The advantage of doing it at opening is you need your FC to be at zero and it’s probably low anyway.

Last one I did I opened the pool early and just had liquid chlorine on standby because you can’t bring it up too fast

I have done it both ways, it’s neat watching the stains vanish in a few minutes

 

[Texas Splash]

That's a bummer, but should be manageable. Hopefully once you do the AA treatment when the water is cold, there iron level won't be too high and revert back. If you can't ID the source of the iron, something else you might consider before the AA is to try and manipulate the iron. Take the FC to SLAM level and let the pH stay elevated for a couple days and see if you can get the iron to precipitate out for filtering in the polyfill. This can also cause staining, but since you're going to do an AA anyways it shouldn't be a big deal.

 

[duraleigh]

Can the source be any other than your water supply? Doesn't seem like it.

So, it would seem you have two decent choices. AA treatments (perhaps as far spaced as 10 years if the first accumulation is any indicator) or a whole house softener.

Left alone, the iron will continue to accumulate but perhaps at an inconsequential rate. The softener eliminates the problem but you pay a hefty price.

A poor third option is to AA the stains and then apply a year round dosage of sequestrant which keeps the iron in solution but is a nuisance to do and to pay for.

I think I would choose AA and see what happens.

 

[jgofnj]

If you do it at closing, you run the risk of having a pond if you open too late when it gets warmer. Closing with no chlorine (even if cold) is not a good idea in my opinion.

 

[Mdragger88]

I would still close at slam level after wrapping up the aa treatment. I expect it to take me a while to ease into that so I figured cooler winter temps would help there. I intend to get a skimmer plate/plug this year so I don’t need to lower the water level- this will reduce my need for adding fill water in the spring.
Upon opening I generally have higher than target fc levels remaining so I am never really “close to zero” at any point in time it can also heat up quickly here in the spring so I feel like trying to do it then is a risk. Generally I close around halloween & open around the beginning of April. Water temps for both are always low 60’s or lower.
My ch is 25-50 so a water softener is really not something I need otherwise - we also don’t have a basement or anywhere to put one. I thought about a hose end filter but since it’s not visible iron I don’t think it would be that useful?
When I rose to slam level upon opening my ph was 7.8 & there was no color change to the water.
I do think my crushed concrete dust is a contributor to the staining. It is possible that its a mixture of slag & crushed concrete. It was originally used as a temporary material on a construction site. When I cleaned the steps with the barkeepers friend spray I also cleaned my dolpin pleated filter - it went back white but now it is stained again a month or so later. My robot picks up the orange dust every day.

 

[jesse-99]

If you want to verify if iron is in your fill/auto-fill water, try the bucket test (How to test for Iron without sending out water to testing lab or pool store! (pics included)) . It's NOT scientific, but so far no one has stated the test is inaccurate or a bad way to check for iron...?

"My ch is 25-50 so a water softener is really not something I need otherwise - we also don’t have a basement or anywhere to put one. I thought about a hose end filter but since it’s not visible iron I don’t think it would be that useful?" --- If you do have iron in your fill/auto-fill water, the softener will change that iron to sodium through an ion exchange process. So even if you don't -need- the soft water (0 CH), using a softener is a sure way to eliminate iron (search old posts from @Swampwoman as well). I added a softener to my fill/auto-fill water because of her past postings from years back (recommend dual-tank if you want 100% certainty of treated water even during regenerations) and I have zero regrets.

I do think my crushed concrete dust is a contributor to the staining. It is possible that its a mixture of slag & crushed concrete. It was originally used as a temporary material on a construction site. When I cleaned the steps with the barkeepers friend spray I also cleaned my dolpin pleated filter - it went back white but now it is stained again a month or so later. My robot picks up the orange dust every day. -- Very possible you're getting some iron from sources other than your fill water. Rocks/pavers/boulders/flagstone, etc. all that stuff can have minerals (like iron) in it too and end up in your pool. Especially if rains wash it in.??

When I rose to slam level upon opening my ph was 7.8 & there was no color change to the water. --- I don't know what to make of that. Maybe when you filled your pool and SLAM'ed you had no iron at the time, because (pure guess), maybe your fill water is really iron-free and you're getting some iron or other metals from the crushed concrete dust as you mentioned. (so the iron wouldn't have been in your pool right after you filled, and maybe slowly got it in over this Summer??)

Also, using a sequestrant for now, won't get rid of your staining or iron, but it will help from the staining getting worse.

Just tossing out ideas...
HTH!

 

[Mdragger88]

@jesse-99 I do plan to do the white bucket test soon with pool water & house water.
I have an above ground pool so nothing washes in but I get a lot of dust from the crushed concrete in the pool from people driving back & forth to my shop on the daily.
As you can see in this pic it basically surrounds my pool- the pic looks very beige but it is still quite orangey in person compared to most crushed concrete.

The pool has been filled since April of 2019. The crushed concrete went in not long after. Here’s what it looked like at first

I do drain below the skimmer each winter & refill that in the spring. I try to let the rain do most of my other top offs when possible. I intend to keep it full in the winter going forward with a skimmer plate/plug since it’s very buried on one side I ran into a problem with the wall due to the water going too low this winter.
I guess with lower levels of iron you just have to do the AA & sequesterant dance until they build to a level that turns the water funky then actually get rid of it with polyfill. I don’t look forward to that but I imagine it will eventually happen. I am curious to see how long it takes the stains I treated with vitamin C to return. I am going to get some more & do my pump basket & skimmer pot. It would be nice to have a whole house softener but it would have to live in my kid’s room lol
Most people around here have no need for one so it’s hard to find softener salt & when you do it’s more expensive than pool salt.

 

[Mdragger88]

Ok - a weird update..
yesterday morning I put several more vit c pills in a skimmer sock & went after a couple stains left from a bb that was in the pool (I assume this was in my son’s pocket or something).
It didn’t do much so instead I went around to the worst areas & also the skimmer until my crushed pills were depleted.
I also cleaned the pump basket with barkeepers friend & it looked gorgeous. I then put the empty sock in the skimmer.
Now it looks like this! Stained like coffee!




I also noticed a bit more “brown/orange dust than usual although it is possible that the robot missed some spots on his 9:00 run so I am running him again now.
2 questions:
Will iron settle like dust?
Do you think polyfill would be of use now since the skimmer sock seems to have caught some iron?

 

[duraleigh]

It probably is iron but somehow not as orangeish as it should be.

Could it be something else?

 

[Mdragger88]

It probably is iron but somehow not as orangeish as it should be.

Could it be something else?

In the sock it’s definitely mixed with dirt but there’s an orange line in the skimmer too. I put a fresh sock in there so we’ll see what happens. Also the bot filter is quite stained

 

[Mdragger88]

Today the new sock was somewhat dirty but rinsed right off. The other sock is obviously stained even after rinsing (looks like it took a coffee bath) so I threw it away.
Went to the pool store in town & tested my pool & house water.
They use a Lamotte spin touch I think.
Their cya was way off- no iron- but the copper numbers jive with my water report from the water department. Hmmm Can copper stains be brown? The vitamin c worked so well.

 

[Texas Splash]

Can copper stains be brown? The vitamin c worked so well.

Copper is usually dark, and Vitamin C won't do anything to copper.

 

[Mdragger88]

Update.
I originally decided in the fall to just wait until opening for the AA treatment since it means no slam for a couple weeks & I like to close at slam level & I didn’t want to wait to cover until late November.
I gathered all my stuff, aa, metal magic, poly quat & waited. But I ended up having a longer “soft opening” than I planned due to alot of travel & not being home to deal with debris. (cover on but pool operating since April 8)
I was unsure about trying to do the AA treatment with the cover still on.
The water temp was in the high 70’s by the time I removed the cover (may 11) so I decided based on some other member’s positive reports with light stains to just try the metal magic initial dose & forego the aa treatment for now.
Upon soft opening I added approximately 1/4 of the pool volume of fresh water & suspect my use of Morton’s professional salt to be at least a partial culprit in my stains. So hopefully I will only continue to dilute the problem. I discontinued the Morton’s at the beginning of last season after adding 1 bag that was visibly dirty. This season I used aqua salt (supposedly the cream of the crop).
Fast forward to yesterday. The fc had finally fallen to 8ppm then we had an impromptu pool party using up a little more fc so I took my chances, turned off the swcg & poured in 2 quarts of proteam Metal magic around the perimeter of the pool. A 20k gal dose. A little less than what is called for. To my surprise, this morning I woke up to no stains anywhere except the bb dot!

This was the worst area where I had written my “M” with vitamin c in the first post.

I have added a little de to my filter so maybe I’ll get lucky & benefit from the supposed “catching” of some sequestered metals with it.
I cleaned my bot filter with a soak in a bucket of water & aa. So I can hopefully see any return of stains there first & take the hint to replenish the sequestrant with a maintenance dose.