Stains on my walls

[boots]

OK, My pool has these stains on the walls that I would like to remove if I can, but I don't know what made them or what they are. They are brownish, just slammed my pool 2 days ago with great success. Now for the stains. Here are photos. Can you tell by these if it is copper or iron? I probably caused this by using the wrong chemicals.



Thanks, Judy

 

[YippeeSkippy]

Get yourself a puck and hold it against one of the stains and see if it changes it. If it does, that means it is organic.
then...
Get some cheap vitamin C and fill a sock with it and bang the pills up a bit to smash them. Put that against (a different) an area of stain and see how that changes it?

If the Vit C did the trick, you've got metal stains. Often from cheap algaecides that contain copper.

Let us know which it was and we'll help you fix it-

Maddie

 

[boots]

Thanks Maddie, will buy some vit C. I already have the 3" tablets, pucks.

 

[boots]

Won't the vitamin C dissolve in the water before it treats the stain? I don't want to drain my pool if I don't have to. Thanks.

 

[Richard320]

Do the vitamin C first. Pucks are acidic, so they will get the same reaction as the Vitamin C. You want the chlorine action to test organics, not the acidity. So rule out metals with the Vitamin C first.

And they take surprisingly long to dissolve if you're not disturbing them. Ot you could try being creative like this guy was:

 

[boots]

OK, did the vit C test yesterday and it worked. I now have 2 lines down the sides of my pool. I looked up what is in the water here in Jacksonville and we do have a high content of iron. Since this is my first time taking care of a pool, I am learning lots of interesting things. So my next step will be the ascorbic acid treatment.

Question: if after treatment of the ascorbic acid removes iron from my water and I don't have to refill my pool with any city water, just have the rain keep my pool water level, Why do I need to use the sequestrant for metals if I have treated the water? Or can I just treat the water maybe once a month or less than recommended? Thoughts?

 

[Richard320]

It doesn't remove it from the water. It removes it from the walls. Get the right conditions and the Iron will start staining again. The sequestrant prevents that. It's like the hard candy shell on an M&M. The chocolate is still there, it's just isolated.

 

[boots]

Thanks Richard, understood.