Has anyone used Metal Magic without doing an AA treatment first? Was it successful? MM claims that it will remove stains from the surface as well as sequester them so I’m wondering if AA is necessary. I’ve attached a pic of my 20k gal iron stained pool.
Using Metal Magic without AA
- Thread starter Jeska
- Start date
Flbeachluvr
Bronze Supporter
I was just coming here to ask the same question. I did the AA treatment last year and while it did get rid of the stains it was quite a process.
I did it last year as well. Worked great but like you said - it was a process! I hope someone has had success with just MM.
Metal sequestrants will sequester the iron as the name suggests. BUT these do not remove the iron from the water! Whether you are doing AA treatment or sequestrants to get the brown stains to disappear, these are both temporary and you need to have a plan to remove the iron from the water. This could be with a water exchange, using Poly-fil, or some other method but stains will return if iron remains in the water.
I have used Natural Chemistry's Metal Free before where I just dumped in two bottles, with the brown stains disappearing immediately. Then within a week, the stains returned as soon as I brought up the FC level. So, yes sequestrants will help sequester the iron into the water but this is just temporary.
I deal with iron stains a lot and have "failed" multiple times because the stains return at some point. I fail less when I am able to make it 3-4 months without stains compared to 3-4 weeks. If you see my thread below, I was able to get a bunch of iron to precipitate to the Poly-fil which went into the trash. Even with that success, I am starting to see stains return. You just have to have a long term plan to frequently lower the iron content.
www.troublefreepool.com
I have used Natural Chemistry's Metal Free before where I just dumped in two bottles, with the brown stains disappearing immediately. Then within a week, the stains returned as soon as I brought up the FC level. So, yes sequestrants will help sequester the iron into the water but this is just temporary.
I deal with iron stains a lot and have "failed" multiple times because the stains return at some point. I fail less when I am able to make it 3-4 months without stains compared to 3-4 weeks. If you see my thread below, I was able to get a bunch of iron to precipitate to the Poly-fil which went into the trash. Even with that success, I am starting to see stains return. You just have to have a long term plan to frequently lower the iron content.
Iron water - proof Poly-fil works
I was changing out the Poly-fil in my pvc pipe contraption and thought I would share the color of the Poly-fil to show it really does capture the iron. The brown that is constantly on my vinyl liner is very concentrated into the Poly-fil. The one clump which is kind of white was brown like the...
www.troublefreepool.com
Wow - that contraption is pretty impressive! It’s amazing how much iron gets trapped in the Poly-fil. I’ve read about putting Poly-fil in the skimmer basket. Does that not work well? Also - I have a sand filter and was thinking of adding Jack’s Magic Filter Fiber to try to filter out sequestered iron that way. Is that possible?Metal sequestrants will sequester the iron as the name suggests. BUT these do not remove the iron from the water! Whether you are doing AA treatment or sequestrants to get the brown stains to disappear, these are both temporary and you need to have a plan to remove the iron from the water. This could be with a water exchange, using Poly-fil, or some other method but stains will return if iron remains in the water.
I have used Natural Chemistry's Metal Free before where I just dumped in two bottles, with the brown stains disappearing immediately. Then within a week, the stains returned as soon as I brought up the FC level. So, yes sequestrants will help sequester the iron into the water but this is just temporary.
I deal with iron stains a lot and have "failed" multiple times because the stains return at some point. I fail less when I am able to make it 3-4 months without stains compared to 3-4 weeks. If you see my thread below, I was able to get a bunch of iron to precipitate to the Poly-fil which went into the trash. Even with that success, I am starting to see stains return. You just have to have a long term plan to frequently lower the iron content.
Iron water - proof Poly-fil works
I was changing out the Poly-fil in my pvc pipe contraption and thought I would share the color of the Poly-fil to show it really does capture the iron. The brown that is constantly on my vinyl liner is very concentrated into the Poly-fil. The one clump which is kind of white was brown like the...
mguzzy
Gold Supporter
I am in the middle of this dance. The AA helps remove the iron from surfaces better than the MM can do it by itself. Once the iron is off the surfaces and in soluble form in the water the MM can react with it. MM is advertised to create a crystal precipitate that removes the iron from the water unlike a typical sequestrant that just binds it and then releases it back into the water when it breaks down. This way the precipitate can be filtered out. I followed @setsailsoon's recipe and it seems to be working for me. In all honesty I doubt I will tell if this worked until I go through a whole pool season.. but so far all the staining on the hoses and plastic surfaces are gone.
You can follow my progress here:
www.troublefreepool.com
And here is @setsailsoon's thread:
www.troublefreepool.com
And the this from the wiki that has lots of info about the chemistry that is going on
www.troublefreepool.com
You can follow my progress here:
What I thought were old iron stains on my cartridge filters, is iron my water!
Hi all Amazingly I found no posts on the forum about this. So I was the victim of the dreaded Iron contaminated Clorox Pool Salt about 3 seasons ago. Apparently it was worse than I thought. There is a nice darker area in my mottled dark plaster in the deep end from salt additions from that...
www.troublefreepool.com
And here is @setsailsoon's thread:
Iron stains AA plus Metal Magic?
Folks, I'm on my 6th year of a crystal clear TFP pool but noticing splotchy light tan stains - classic iron. Failed the chlorine tablet test but passed vitamin C test with flying colors. I read up everything I can find on AA, citric acid, oxalic acid. I'm pretty sold on AA because of so many...
www.troublefreepool.com
And the this from the wiki that has lots of info about the chemistry that is going on
Ascorbic Acid Treatment - Further Reading
www.troublefreepool.com
- Oct 25, 2015
- 5,128
- Pool Size
- 25000
- Surface
- Plaster
- Chlorine
- Salt Water Generator
- SWG Type
- CircuPool RJ-60 Plus
About a year after I treated with AA and MM per TFP procedure (extremely successful) I had a return of iron stains. Tried MM alone after reducing pH and it didn't work very well after 12 hrs. So I soaked paper towel with pool water and sprinkled AA on it then dobbed the spots. Within an hour they were perfect again. pH was about 7.4.
Hope this helps.
Chris
If you are proactively absorbing iron to prevent stains, put some Poly-fil in the skimmer and change out weekly. If you have just completed an AA treatment due to stains, just a little in the skimmer is not enough to absorb what is needed over a few weeks. If you shove too much in your skimmer and pump basket, it will choke your pump and restrict the water flow too much. I am able to get an entire bag of Poly-fil in my 7 feet of PVC pipe and since it is not in my main plumbing lines, I don't have to worry about it choking my main pump. Also, the Poly-fil in the skimmer gets nasty pretty quickly in spring with so much stuff blowing out of the trees.
I have only used that filter fiber years ago when I was clueless about pools my 2nd week into pool ownership. The pool guy put it in to attempt to treat the "mysterious stains" and I remember it clogging things up fairly quickly. The fibers turned green which means it absorbed the copper from the previous owners' pool care and then the iron stains came back in a week. I am not saying it doesn't work and I get iron stains again even when using Poly-fil but I would rather pay $3 for a bag of Poly-fil than $30 for the Filter Fiber.
Similar threads
