Water temp critical for Jack's copper?

[TheBandit]

Here we are after 1 week. It doesn't look much different from after 2days

 

[TheBandit]

Today I called Jacks Magic and spoke with a technician named Matt. He raised a concern as soon as I mentioned the precipitates I had observed the second day into treatment. He said this may indicate the calcium harness (CH) went above 400ppm and that above this the CH renders the Jacks Magic No2 inactive. Apparently I should have listened to the initial technician who recommended a partial water change before starting the treatment since my CH was at 620ppm and TDS were 3,500ppm. At this point the tech asked that I get a water workup from Leslies so he can advise on the next steps. He also said pH may have gone above 7.0 which also would keep the product from working. We didn't even discuss temperature, but I suspect that is working against me as well - my last measurement of temp was 58F and Jacks instructions 65F or greater. My plan now is to test the water myself first and see where I'm at, then I'll get a workup from Leslies. I may be in a situation of wasting about $150 on chemicals and still need to drain or partially drain the pool to get my CH and TDS into normal ranges while reducing my copper concentration as well.

*EDIT* checked a few levels. pH is still below 7.0 (bright yellow). TA is down to less than 10ppm. CH is too high to measure... got passed 1,000ppm and decided I should save reagant. Going to get a pool store test tomorrow and go from there.

 

[TheBandit]

Had the water tested by Leslies today. The treatment has definitely impacted pH, TA, and CYA.

1/28 vs pre-treatment 1/18
FC & TC: 0ppm (was 2ppm)
pH: 6.4 (was 7.2)
TA: 20ppm (was 70)
CH: 540ppm (was 620)
CYA: 0ppm (was 25)
Iron: 0ppm (was 0)
Copper: 0.5ppm (was 0.2)
Phosphates: 1000ppb
TDS: 4100ppm

Some observations:
FC/TC expected since I haven' added chlorine in 10days
pH drop is expected since jacks magic is 20lb of sulfamic acid plus 1gal of muriatic added for treatment
TA I assume this went down also due to acid addition
CH: not sure why this went down. maybe some precipitated out and is trapped in the filter now?
CYA: not sure why this dropped to zero.
Copper: I wonder if this went up from 0.2 to 0.5ppm due to removing copper stain?

I'm going to see what Jacks Magic tech has to say about the current results and see if I should salvage this water by partial replacement for the purpose of stain treating before dumping or just dump it and start over. Please let me know if you have any ideas.

 

[TheBandit]

After a few weeks there was no change in the stains but I started to notice blue/green color near where the pump discharges into the pool. I decided to bring my pH and alkalinity back up to normal using baking soda, because I needed to go on a trip. I added about. 8lb of baking soda and after a day I checked and was up to a pH of 7.2 and a TA of 50ppm. Then I added a gallon of chlorine. It immediately made the whole pool cloudy. My test is showed about 2ppm CC and no FC, although the Jacks Instructions warn this will happen. I keep the pool circulating while I was gone and came back noticing the pool had a distinctive blue/green/aqua tint. I ran the pool vac and the filter cartridgea came back aqua blue and filled with what seemed like aqua tinted salt.

I decided it was definitely time to drain this pool. Today I successfully pumped out all the water. The plaster has a blue tint in places and with the stains still there I think I'm going to attempt an acid wash.

 

[TheBandit]

Here are some photos. I got a Superior 1/3hp pump and got fittings at Home Depot to adapt to a 2" discharge hose. It was hard keeping the pump upright. Every so often it would fall over and I had to reposition the hose to help hold it up. Also I apparently got the short 10ft cord version of this pump not knowing there is a 25ft cord version. 10ft was barely enough to reach the deck.

The pump managed to drain my 20,000gal pool in 8hrs flat. Impressive! At the very end I waded to the deep end and used a small plastic table to support the hose and keep the pump upright. It managed to drain down to about 1in or less of water.

The photo below shows the blue staining that appeared at the discharge of the pool pump and is generally all over the pool. I'm thinking this is copper from the piping leading to the pump which was affected by the low pH during stain treatment.


Here is a zoomed in photo of the deep end where the main staining issue has been. It looks worse than it is in this photo due to debris that collected here during draining.



This morning I'm going to try locally treating the deep end stain with some sulfamic acid I picked up at Home Depot. Whether or not that works I will be following up with a full acid wash.

 

[TheBandit]

So I tried about 1.5lb of sulfamic acid in a 5 gallon bucket of hot water at the deep end. At best it may have lightened the stain but it's hard to pump it down to not be cloudy so I'm not completely sure. I went ahead and did a first round of acid wash over the whole pool. That took off most of the blue, but didn't do much for the stains. I used about 3:1 water:acid ratio in a garden can and worked about 6ft at a time, allowing the acid to sit about 30sec before rinsing. Here's how it looks now:


I plan to spend the rest of the afternoon on a second acid wash. I may try using a stronger ratio on the stained areas like 1:1. We shall see!

 

[TheBandit]

Here's what I ended up with after a few 1:1 water:acid passes with a scrub brush on the deep end and a second pass acid wash at 1:1 all the way around. Here it is still showing some wet streaks.



Most of the blue tint the plaster had taken on is gone. The staining at the deep end did not come out. I went after it with a couple gallons of acid in less than an inch of standing water, vigorously scrubbed, and even let it sit a while with only a little change. I guess I will just have to live with this stain. I'm refilling the pool now. I'll clean the filter tonight and hopefully it will be full by tomorrow night so I can get the pump going again and check chemistry.

I can not seem to find a basic article on where to start / order of chemical adjustments after an acid wash and refill. Can someone point me in the right direction?

 

[ajw22]

It’s like any fresh water fill. Partly depends on fill water pH, TA, & CH.

Get at least 3 ppm of liquid chlorine in once fill is done. Get at least 30 ppm of stabilizer dissolving using the sock method. Get pH in the 7s. Then test and adjust as needed for Recommended Levels - Trouble Free Pool

 

[TheBandit]

Thank you. What is the sock method? I'm imagining putting CYA into a sock and leaving it in the pool / skimmer to dissolve? Usually I make a bucket of hot water and predissolve whatever I can, but the CYA can be tough.

With two hoses going the pool nearly filled overnight. While I'm at work, my wife is going to get the pump circulating and add DE. I asked her to add half a gallon of chlorine (2.5ppm) and I'll check the chemistry when I get home this evening. Overall the pool is looking really sharp now. I didn't realize how good of a job we did with the acid wash.

 

[ajw22]

Thank you. What is the sock method? I'm imagining putting CYA into a sock and leaving it in the pool / skimmer to dissolve? Usually I make a bucket of hot water and predissolve whatever I can, but the CYA can be tough.

Solid/granular cyanuric acid (CYA) should be placed in a sock and the sock put in the skimmer basket or suspended in front of a pool return. After adding CYA you should leave the pump running for 24 hours and not backwash/clean the filter for a week. Squeezing the sock periodically will help it to dissolve faster. Test and dose chemicals in your pool assuming the amount of CYA added is in the pool according to Poolmath. CYA can be tested the day after it is fully dissolved from the sock.

 

[TheBandit]

Thank you for the tips. I'll give that a try this go around.

 

[TheBandit]

Last night I measured the following

PH 7.6
TA 170ppm
FC 0
CC 0
CH 425ppm

I did not measure CYA because it was starting to get dark. I assume it will be zero. From the numbers I'm frustrated about the high CH of my fill water but there's nothing I can do about it. TA was a little high and of course there was no chlorine yet.

I added half a gallon of liquid chlorine which should raise TC to 2.5ppm. Then after letting that circulate for 30min, I added 1qt muriatic acid in a single location at the deep end. I have the pump circulating 24hrs for now so I'm not sure if the acid addition will do much to lower TA but it should bring the pH down a tad at least.

Hopefully I can get home early enough to test in good lighting so I can confirm CYA and plan for CYA addition.

 

[TheBandit]

I've got the FC up now to 5ppm and a couple pounds of CYA are dissolving in a sock in the skimmer. The pool is looking great. I just need to get the TA down or wait a while for it to come down on its own. I have some Jacks Blue Stuff sequestrant on hand but I may have the pool store check for copper before I put it in. I don't knew if the copper from before came from an old 1960s heater or the fill water.

Here is what the deep end staining looks like now before and after all the efforts and acid wash. It's still there but much much better!


Now on to my next project... Seeing if I can come up with an affordable solar collector.