Think you may have iron in your water?

[funandsun]

I simply followed the directions on the bottle of a product called Metal Out (drop pH down and chlorine to 0). Pool service had used it in previous years for a couple of spots we had.

Our pool is 13k gallons, directions say 1 quart for every 10k gallons, I have 2 quarts, only used 1. Figured not to waste since I had such low expectations.


I did not expected these results.


June 23 <--most recent picture I had for reference


Today July 4th product has been in water for 24 hours


Not to take away from the Ascorbic Treatment going around.. just wanted to share my experience with Metal Out.

Hope this helps others,

 

[kimkats]

Well look at that! Sure does look nice now.

Have you raised your FC yet? PH?

Kim

 

[HOMELAND_POOL]

Wow! Im impressed. The first picture looks like my pool . Im waiting on my test kit before doing anything else.

 

[funandsun]

Thanks

End of last year we were saying... this liner is looking pretty "bleached out" of course this Spring with my new Pool Op Super Powers I said let's see how this year goes.

Opened it up and once we could see the bottom clearly I thought "oh doo doo" that staining has gotten worse, I wanted to try the ascorbic acid but could not find it anywhere in town and with family coming in I thought I will try the Metal Out since it worked last year and I don't recall the pool going cloudy so I thought "we'll see what happens" ... fast forward to yesterday and *Boom *Bang *Pow, it looks amazing.

Only thing I can think of is about 3 years ago, our pump died, we have a family friend in the pool installation biz, he said no problem I have a used one at the shop you can have.. so we accepted and used it.

Last year we had some pretty bad staining but never even wondered for a second where it may have come from, Metal out by the pool service cleared it up, they said "don't worry" so we didn't.

Now I am wondering if that "still working pump" (that passed away this Spring) was actually replaced because it was puking internally and the previous owners had staining issues and pinpointed it to the pump. Then we took it, installed it and it puked all over our pool. I have NO idea if that is even possible. Other than that, we have NEVER had a staining issue in the previous decade.

My avatar pic is from Aug 2015, I would see that pic and just weep because of what we had and seemed to have lost. I put that pic up against yesterdays pic and other than some lighting differences and pics being taken with different phones, the pool looks great. We are Thrilled to say the least.

Aug 2015


July 4 2017


I plan to do the ascorbic acid treatment when our social calendar slows down (just after Labor Day).

KimKats, my CYA is a little lower than I like, so what I did was add 1.5 pucks to my floater and put it in last night.. this mornings reading was

FC .6
pH 7.2

I won't do anything to the pH and the puck has not even had a dent put in it, so I am hoping with the floater sleeve on the smallest setting that the CYA and Chlorine will "trickle" into the pool and not cause an immediate disruption like it could if I overshot while adding the liquid chlorine, and let the pH rise on its own.

Any advice through this stage is appreciated, but my plan as of right now is just to take it slow and keep the pH around this 7.2 area and monitor that FC like a hawk.

Have a heavy load coming this weekend so not trying to do anything drastic, I was even concerned about this stain remover treatment... in past my luck would have been instant cloudy pool but I now understand Luck had nothing to do with it lol.

This whole year has been such a success for us personally, I just can't thank all of TFP enough for being here and being so willing to help me and everyone that asks.

 

[pooldv]

Nice work! We'll have to add Metal Out to the list with Metal Magic for lifting stains and sequestering Iron.

When are y'all gonna do something about that bleached out liner? LOL!!!! :-D

 

[funandsun]

HAHAHA!

Hopefully as FAR in the future as possible!

 

[lightmaster]

Dealing with iron myself, this what you used?

 

[funandsun]

That's it.

I put my filter on recirculate for 24hrs (actually ran it for 36hrs) just went to filtration today.

 

[lightmaster]

That's it.

I put my filter on recirculate for 24hrs (actually ran it for 36hrs) just went to filtration today.

Ive got a cartridge filter that doesn't have a recirculate setting. That just bypasses the filter, right? So guess I can just remove the filter itself for a day or so. Did you have to do any vacuuming or anything afterwards, of did your filter get it all out when you turned it back on?

 

[funandsun]

Filter is running now... nothing to vacuum.


Yes you could remove the cartridge... basically don't want anything to lessen the ppm of the product (debris in the filter).

Maybe we can get someone to chime in with a bit more scientific explanation of what is happening.. from my crude layman's perspective.. it lifted the metals off my liner and they are "bound" or sequestered and floating... not certain if they get filtered out or not. That package says to add more every month because chlorine breaks down the product and the metals can redeposit onto our surface.

I have been under the impression that the only "true" way to remove metals from water is to drain and refill... I have decided to at least clean up my liner until I can get more informed about my next move with these metals. Clearly, I have a ton of it in my water, so I will need to come up with a plan.

 

[lightmaster]

Filter is running now... nothing to vacuum.


Yes you could remove the cartridge... basically don't want anything to lessen the ppm of the product (debris in the filter).

Maybe we can get someone to chime in with a bit more scientific explanation of what is happening.. from my crude layman's perspective.. it lifted the metals off my liner and they are "bound" or sequestered and floating... not certain if they get filtered out or not. That package says to add more every month because chlorine breaks down the product and the metals can redeposit onto our surface.

I have been under the impression that the only "true" way to remove metals from water is to drain and refill... I have decided to at least clean up my liner until I can get more informed about my next move with these metals. Clearly, I have a ton of it in my water, so I will need to come up with a plan.

If this only binds to the iron and keeps it inactive (probably not the best way to phrase that, but you get the point), then this seems more like a temporary fix than and permanent solution. I assumed the Metal Out acted kind of like a flocculant and either sunk the iron to the bottom to be vacuumed, or bound to it and made it a larger molecule the filter could filter out easier. If this just leaves it in the pool indefinitely, doesn't seem like it actually fixes the issue of having iron in the pool, especially with a label telling you to buy more each month.

I've read about a method of helping your filter using polyfill to remove all the iron, making the polyfill a nasty brown color. Swampwoman also referred me to Metal Magic by ProTeam, which might work differently than Metal out since it says to keep your pH at 7.5 rather than reduce it lower.

 

[pooldv]

Metal Out and Metal Magic are both sequestrants that sequester the metal in the pool water to prevent staining. Chlorine oxidized the sequestrant and you have to continue to add more sequestrant forever as it breaks down very few weeks. Yes, not ideal. The only way to truly eliminate the iron from the water is to drain it and fill the pool with iron free water. And also top the pool up with iron free water.

More here, Pool School - Pool Stains