What do I have?

[sjoshi]

Have owned house and pool for 4 months. Cant say if anything happened between contract and closing (period of 3 months) but pool was clear at home inspection, and always has been sparkling clear since we have owned it. It is possible these stains have always existed in the recent past. We have not owned a house with a pool prior, and with pump running at high speed along with water features, the stains are not obvious. All I have collected during cleaning is a little organic (plant) debris now and then. FC is always beeen 5+, CC always zero, FC consumption overnight is zero, even during the day now is about 0.3 to 0.5 (guessing) now that crazy summer sun and heat behind us. The broad areas look like stains but the black / dark spots on floor, deep end at a tough corner to clean - could this be algae? It has always been there, may or may not have increased. Does not come off with nylon brush and the E70 dolphin is likely not reaching it well (i will test this further). Family enjoys pool, no complaints.

FC today 6 - but has been as high as 17 for a bit since i had IC40 running at 60% in the middle of the summer. CYA - roughly 50 to 60. Calcium 500.. it was 220 and I added a bunch, also expecting more rain in the hurricane season than we got. TA is about 50 but has been higher. When I have filled water in the summer, it has come from the whole house water softener treated with Morton water softener salt (40 lb bags).

How serious is this and what do I do?

 

[Bperry]

Have owned house and pool for 4 months. Cant say if anything happened between contract and closing (period of 3 months) but pool was clear at home inspection, and always has been sparkling clear since we have owned it. It is possible these stains have always existed in the recent past. We have not owned a house with a pool prior, and with pump running at high speed along with water features, the stains are not obvious. All I have collected during cleaning is a little organic (plant) debris now and then. FC is always beeen 5+, CC always zero, FC consumption overnight is zero, even during the day now is about 0.3 to 0.5 (guessing) now that crazy summer sun and heat behind us. The broad areas look like stains but the black / dark spots on floor, deep end at a tough corner to clean - could this be algae? It has always been there, may or may not have increased. Does not come off with nylon brush and the E70 dolphin is likely not reaching it well (i will test this further). Family enjoys pool, no complaints.

FC today 6 - but has been as high as 17 for a bit since i had IC40 running at 60% in the middle of the summer. CYA - roughly 50 to 60. Calcium 500.. it was 220 and I added a bunch, also expecting more rain in the hurricane season than we got. TA is about 50 but has been higher. When I have filled water in the summer, it has come from the whole house water softener treated with Morton water softener salt (40 lb bags).

How serious is this and what do I do?

If your CYA is 80ppm, then the absolute bottom that your FC should ever be is 6ppm and should be floating more around 9ppm during the day. Looks like the last few weeks it’s been 4-5 which may explain it.
If it’s brown or rust colored it could also be iron staining. You can get a stain ID kit to find out, or try rubbing some crushed up vitamin C tablets over a stain and see if it goes away. If it does, it’s iron.

 

[sjoshi]

Hi TY. FC has never been below 6 in recent times, and thats down from a high creeping up to about 17 that it was for a week or so - i had set IC40 to 60%, it only needs 10% to 15% for 9 hours as of now. I would say FC has been 8 to 10 on average. In terms of when i have owned the pool, yes - i have measured 5 but the stabilizer was lower when i got the pool. In terms of CYA, yes i had bumped it to 80 I thought but all recent measurements two weeks later point to 50 or 60.

I will try vitamin C tablets. TY.

 

[Bperry]

Hi TY. FC has never been below 6 in recent times, and thats down from a high creeping up to about 17 that it was for a week or so - i had set IC40 to 60%, it only needs 10% to 15% for 9 hours as of now. I would say FC has been 8 to 10 on average. In terms of when i have owned the pool, yes - i have measured 5 but the stabilizer was lower when i got the pool. In terms of CYA, yes i had bumped it to 80 I thought but all recent measurements two weeks later point to 50 or 60.

I will try vitamin C tablets. TY.

Your poolmath logs say your FC was at 5 yesterday and 4ppm about 3 weeks ago?

 

[PoolStored]

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Stains in Your Pool

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Try the Vitamin C = Iron
Try a trichlor puck = organics
Try dry acid = Copper

 

[sjoshi]

Your poolmath logs say your FC was at 5 yesterday and 4ppm about 3 weeks ago?

You are right! i must have fat fingered. It was 6 last night. Over the last two weeks, the FC numbers have trended like this (give or take)... 5, 6, 8... (and I did not catch cause of the rapid increase, the issue was with an old dying SWCG which i replaced with new IC40 and the setting on SWCG was higher than needed).... 10.. kept increasing,,, up to 17.5.. shut off SWCG at 17.5 with rapid change in weather.. down like this day over day... 16.5, a few more days... 12.. then 10 (roughly 0.5 to 1 per day depending on sun).. slowly down to 8... turned on SWCG at 8 at 15%, increased to 9 next day... shut off again, down now to 10% SWCG now after, bumped it up since it is about 6. I think am going to just leave it at about 13% (split the difference)... learning what settings will work.