New here and just wanted to share a wonderful (finally!) pool experience that may hopefully help others.
In short since the start of the season we have battling stubborn algae (first time in 12 years), trying to remove dead algae, learning that our CYA levels were too high (thanks to this awesome forum!) and an increasingly yellow & brown staining of the pool liner and steps. My Husband has been at his wits end with the pool for weeks now.
We decided to drain the pool half way and have 10,000 gallons of water on order which will arrive in a few days.
So here is the AWESOME part. Having had to get rid of iron stains in the pool before, my Husband found on Amazon 5lbs of all natural, food grade 100% citric acid by Milliard for just under $15. He said the stuff he got previously from the pool store was called Stain Free and cost $25 for 1.75 lbs!!
While the pool is drained and the ugly yellow liner was exposed my Husband took a sponge and small bowl of citric acid mixed with water and scrubbed the liner to test and no more stain! He was ready to hand scrub all the exposed liner down but that just seemed like a lot of necessary work to me, but without the help of circulating pool water to distribute the citric acid, it would have to be applied by hand.
Then he remembered that we have a pump spray. I mixed a total of 3 cups of citric acid with 1 gallon of hot tap water making sure the crystals completely dissolved before pouring it into the sprayer. It readily dissolved too which was great! I did this twice so a total of 6 cups & 2 gallons were used in all.
The stains disappeared so fast!!! It was SOOOO easy and quick to apply!!! Maybe 10 minutes of spraying at the most and 10-15 minutes of mixing up the solution. It was so gratifying! We will add sequestrant once we get the new water in the pool to help prevent the stains from coming back.
So in short, if you are draining your pool and have ugly mineral stains exposed, go get some cheap 100% food grade citric acid from online, mix it up completely with some hot water, put it in a spray bottle and spray the stains away! If you have a pump sprayer, do a fist pump because that will make even more easier.
Also since we are on well water, we often get rust stains in the tub, toilet & shower. We normally buy iron out & lime away to treat those stains but I think all we will need to use from now on is inexpensive citric acid. Found my new favorite thing!
(No real science has been done here, so please be extremely cautious should you decide to try this with your pool and always use gloves and safety glasses. If you know that any of this would do more harm than good, please reply with that info.)
Sorry for the rambling post. Thanks for the great forum!
Sincerely,
Grace & Scott
before & a few minutes after
(link to my intro post https://www.troublefreepool.com/thr...h-algae-issues?p=1441882&posted=1#post1441882)
In short since the start of the season we have battling stubborn algae (first time in 12 years), trying to remove dead algae, learning that our CYA levels were too high (thanks to this awesome forum!) and an increasingly yellow & brown staining of the pool liner and steps. My Husband has been at his wits end with the pool for weeks now.
We decided to drain the pool half way and have 10,000 gallons of water on order which will arrive in a few days.
So here is the AWESOME part. Having had to get rid of iron stains in the pool before, my Husband found on Amazon 5lbs of all natural, food grade 100% citric acid by Milliard for just under $15. He said the stuff he got previously from the pool store was called Stain Free and cost $25 for 1.75 lbs!!
While the pool is drained and the ugly yellow liner was exposed my Husband took a sponge and small bowl of citric acid mixed with water and scrubbed the liner to test and no more stain! He was ready to hand scrub all the exposed liner down but that just seemed like a lot of necessary work to me, but without the help of circulating pool water to distribute the citric acid, it would have to be applied by hand.
Then he remembered that we have a pump spray. I mixed a total of 3 cups of citric acid with 1 gallon of hot tap water making sure the crystals completely dissolved before pouring it into the sprayer. It readily dissolved too which was great! I did this twice so a total of 6 cups & 2 gallons were used in all.
The stains disappeared so fast!!! It was SOOOO easy and quick to apply!!! Maybe 10 minutes of spraying at the most and 10-15 minutes of mixing up the solution. It was so gratifying! We will add sequestrant once we get the new water in the pool to help prevent the stains from coming back.
So in short, if you are draining your pool and have ugly mineral stains exposed, go get some cheap 100% food grade citric acid from online, mix it up completely with some hot water, put it in a spray bottle and spray the stains away! If you have a pump sprayer, do a fist pump because that will make even more easier.
Also since we are on well water, we often get rust stains in the tub, toilet & shower. We normally buy iron out & lime away to treat those stains but I think all we will need to use from now on is inexpensive citric acid. Found my new favorite thing!
(No real science has been done here, so please be extremely cautious should you decide to try this with your pool and always use gloves and safety glasses. If you know that any of this would do more harm than good, please reply with that info.)
Sorry for the rambling post. Thanks for the great forum!
Sincerely,
Grace & Scott
before & a few minutes after
(link to my intro post https://www.troublefreepool.com/thr...h-algae-issues?p=1441882&posted=1#post1441882)
