White floating flakes

[blasker]

I have this floating on the top of my pool all over. It is a saltwater sand pump. I also added calcium and chlorine stabilizer few days ago and ran the pump for a few days. It looks like white flakes.

 

[JoyfulNoise]

It’s most likely calcium scale from the SWG and the calcium addition. Please post a full set test results. And, if you wouldn’t mind, please fill in a signature in your profile with all of your pool info.

 

[bere]

I have these too. I recently had to partially drain my pool to have a leak repaired, so when I refilled I had to add a lot of calcium chloride and soon after, I started seeing flakes floating around.

 

[Philo]

Pollen?

 

[beachcozy]

It’s tree pollen.

 

[splashpad]

I have this floating on the top of my pool all over. It is a saltwater sand pump. I also added calcium and chlorine stabilizer few days ago and ran the pump for a few days. It looks like white flakes.

I think you have a vinyl liner, no calcium needed.

 

[IMissNimoy]

It occurs in my plaster pool. Chem is balanced. I noticed it got worse after a series of winds last week. Based on the wind direction that occurred, it's likely pecan tree or podocarpus pollen.

 

[Bruiser]

I’m in Georgia and have the same thing going on in my pool right now. It’s pollen. If you run skimmer socks you’ll be able to catch all the nasty yellow pollen before it goes into your filter. You’ll also be able to see that those “white” flakes aren’t necessarily white.

 

[Razorhog]

I see that stuff on the water here this time of year too.

 

[IMissNimoy]

It occurs in my plaster pool. Chem is balanced. I noticed it got worse after a series of winds last week. Based on the wind direction that occurred, it's likely pecan tree or podocarpus pollen.
View attachment 99179

Replying to my own post here and attaching a better picture. I decided this is not pollen in my case. Most of the major pollen here has passed. The blotches are one piece with interconnections, not a collection of pollen spores. They are white and resemble poorly formed snowflakes. In discussing this with a geochemist at work, he suspects calcium phosphate but admits it's a longshot guess. Given we have surficial source water, this makes some sense. I found an article that seems to support his theory. Thoughts? I'm hoping one of the cool chemistry nerds has a go at this.

Background: Pool was drained last June due to high CYA, Pool Service stopped, and started back as a TF pool. I used PuriTech 100% calcium chloride during start up. Prior to that, Pool Service used Phos-free and whatever else as chems were included. This is the first season we've noticed this. We keep our pool open and balanced all year. I'm coming off a shock after a kids swim party this past weekend. I've only used fresh Liquid Essentials or Shock-IT chlorine.
FC 7
CC 0
TC 7
pH 7.6
CH 200
Alk 100
CYA 40
Temp 78F
CSI -.13 (assumes 1000 for salt)

 

[mknauss]

I believe calcium phosphate is quite difficult to form -- but -- lets ask @JoyfulNoise for his input!

 

[JoyfulNoise]

Highly unlikely it’s calcium phosphate. The chemistry of phosphate precipitation would require high pH, high CH and high phosphate levels. Phosphates are rarely greater than 3-5ppm in the worst case and so the chemistry would require a CH in the thousands of ppm to precipitate phosphates.

If it’s calcium carbonate it will “fizz” vigorously in MA. If it’s calcium sulfate, it will slowly dissolve in concentrated MA. Calcium phosphate will remain mostly undissolved even in concentrated MA. If you can capture these precipitates and acid test them, it will tell you a lot.

 

[IMissNimoy]

Thanks for the info. In the geochem's defense, I did state my water was balanced so it was not calcium scale hence his other longshot guess. I've not been able to catch any and get them into a glass vial with MA. I'll keep at it. If it matters, I've noticed they tend to appear overnight and on greater numbers after a shock. They skim off during the day.

 

[PoolGate]

Another vote for pollen. I have them too.

 

[maggs]

that looks like the white water mold I had in my hot tub that took some serious chemicals to fjnally irradicate.....they are resistant to most chemicals.