Yep...a new guy, probably not new problems

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ajw22 said:
You probably can use the SWG if you calculate the runtime carefully. Many folks have oversize SWG's that can raise the Fc by a lot in a few hours.

Don't put tablets in your skimmer as when the pump is off acidic water will accumulate int he skimmer and a slug of acid water will pass through your equipment when the pump turns on. Use a floater for tablets. With that said tablets doesn't give you much control over the FC created.

The key thing is you want to control the slow rise of FC and the SWG or tablets does not give you the control liquid chlorine dosing does.
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Okay, that makes sense. My SWG is on a separate switch so I can run it for say an hour, and recheck my FC...leaving the filter running as needed (continuous I believe?) Goal is to bring FC back to safe level...but SLOWLY...correct?

One other question...I did have to pickup some stuff at the pool store and they asked what I was doing....I told them, and then got the "you have to keep the FC down to zero for 10 days after the treatment". Where does that come from? I heard that from another PL as well. Every AA treatment report I've read on here said they started bringing up the FC level 24-48 hours after doing the AA treatment.
 
Well they are being overly cautious to not have complaints about the process not working.

Folks have had the iron redeposit when they raised the CL too rapidly. So take it real slow.
 
I hate to burst your bubble, but it might not be iron. I initially thought I had "iron" too. I did the vitamin C test, and it improved my stains. Then I discovered that the prior pool/house owner had been dumping "blue shock" (aka COPPER algaecide) into the pool. My stains have been brown/green, and they also have been coming up with Vitamin C treatment. I'm literally doing one right now, though it's not working as well as it did last fall. If you have a lot of free time on your hands, you can read about my initial challenges dealing with pool stains here. If you have "no iron" but stains that respond to Vit C, it might just be copper that's on the lining.

The moral of the story is, it's unlikely to be iron in your pool unless you have iron stains in your house where water stagnates/dries like the sink and a ring inside the toilet tank and maybe bowl. People see the bowl so tend to clean/scrub/scour/get rid of any toilet bowl ring.

Last tip: be careful about when you decide to raise the CYA. The only way to get it back down again is to drain the pool or if you have a high water table like I do, by doing partial drains and refills. For me, draining a foot of water then refilling several times is time consuming and a pain in the butt. I left my CYA level low since I did my last Vit C treatment in the Fall. It was cheaper (chlorine is cheap, drain and refill of thousands of gallons of water is expensive) to buy a few extra bottles of bleach than to raise the CYA for the Winter, then do partial drain/refill cycles to re-lower the CYA level before resuming Vit C treatments. And easier.
 
As long as you can find liquid chlorine locally, I would stick to that and turn off your SWG when you're ready to bring back your FC after adding the sequesterant. I usually put 3 to 4 PPM of chlorine in, and it is completely gone in less than an hour, so I hit it again to 4 PPM. Test every 2 to 3 hours for the first day or two or you'll run the risk of your pool sitting for long stretches with 0 FC in it. You will go through a lot of chlorine until the FC starts to hold somewhat, which is why it's not really a great idea to use the SWG. That will add FC very slowly. You need the instant gratification that liquid chlorine provides.

Also, definitely wait on adding the CYA if you haven't done so yet, because if you have an issue with an algae outbreak coming out of the treatment, you will have to SLAM the pool at a much higher shock level.
 
Okay, got a "back to pool 101" level question. Yard has a couple of trees that with the spring storms coming though tends to drop leaves into the pool. Some float, some sink...we dip, scoop everything but some start breaking down and kind of "stick" to the bottom of the pool. Have used the vacuum thing that you attach the hose pipe to that sucks them into the top mounted net...which gets most of them. The ones that try to stick to the bottom have to be vacuumed with the regular pool vacuum. I try to do them on vacuum to waste but that is costing me lots of water...can that stuff be vacuumed through the filter and then just backwash the filter?
 
BUT make sure the basket is in the pump front. AND if you notice your pressure is down aka returns not pushing as much water check to make sure no leaves got into the impeller of the pump. If you think this has happened turn the breaker off to the pump and take the pump basket off and clean out the impeller. My husband cannot do it as his hand/fingers are too big. My girl hands can do it. Some people use needle nose pliers to get them out as well.
 
So, thought I would catch up this thread on my pool adventure. So I gathered everything together to do an AA treatment on my pool...thanks to the crazy virus (and associated shipping delays) I had to use some local pool store AA. I used the plan outlined in the AA thread here:

Ascorbic Treatment to rid Pool of metal stains

So...I got my chlorine down to zero. Sprinkled in the AA, run the pump on circulate for a couple of hours and shut it off overnight. It went almost totally clear within 30 minutes or so. Worked like a charm...before and after pictures below.
20200305_111243.jpg20200305_111223.jpg20200407_130926trimmed.jpg20200407_130910_trimmed.jpg

So, yea...it looked great. So again thanks to the crazy virus, there was absolutely NO liquid bleach to be had locally. I started to bring up the FC 48 hours later by turning on the SWG. I did a FC check every 4 hours the first day...and never got a reading (any new FC was attacking the AA I assumed)...the next day, I added a chlorine tablet in the skimmer and again kept checking FC level every 4 hours...no joy...still flushing AA I assumed. On the 3rd day, I finally started to get a FC reading on my second 4 hour check. I removed the chlorine tablet from the skimmer and kept the SWG going. Since I basically had no measueable CYA I didn't have to bring the FC up too much. I kept the FC at or below a 2 and kept PH 7.2 +/- .1 . With the shipping problems I could not get ANY of the Jack's stuff any sooner than like 2-3 weeks so used a Natural Chenistry product from the local pool store called "Metal Free"...used 1.5 times the amount recommended for my size pool...and moved on to bringing up my CYA levels. Hung a sock in front of a jet and let it do its thing over a couple of days...did 2 smaller applications so I could ease the CYA level up slowly. 2 tests 24 hours after each application showed me a 30 and then a 50 reading. Looking good at this point and ALL measurements are within the appropriate ranges per the TFP app.

The Metal free sequestriant said to add a cap full every 2 weeks to top off the levels to counter losses to the original big dose. I set a 2 week reminder on my phone to add that booster dosage...1 day before that alarm would have gone off, I went out and discovered all the staining had come back. For the record, my PH never went above a 7.4 and the FC stayed between a 3 to a 5 (appropriate for the recently boosted CYA level). So I'm kinda bummed...not really sure what to do at this point. I know the best course of action is AA treatment followed by a drain and fill with metal free water. This is a liner pool at a leased house with an older liner. It is my understanding that a drain and fill on an older liner is somewhat risky as far as causing liner damage? Have read that a drain to around 6-12" of water left in the shallow end might be relatively safe and would actually get about 50% of the water volume (cutting my metals concentration by half after a metal free water refill. So considering that as an option. Could possibly find a pool company to setup vacuum pumps to maintain liner for a more complete drain? Just trying to evaluate options with all the variables (cosmetics of stains vs. money involved vs. risk of damaging the liner on a leased house/pool).

Input appreciated.
 
You either have to drain or filter. Jacks claims that iron with their sequestrant can be filtered. But I think a cartridge or DE filter may do better at that then a sand filter.

I you are up to rigging up some type of polyfill filter it may work. Read Iron Fill Water Filter - Further Reading

Does sequestrant mess with filtering out iron?

I have high iron well water. It turns brown in the pool. When I set up my above ground vinyl pool each year, usually I filter out the iron with a polyfil bucket. Usually it works great. This year I bought a larger above ground pool (went from 1700 gal to 5000 gal) and bought a much larger...
www.troublefreepool.com www.troublefreepool.com
 

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Well, I can't come to you guys with simple questions...so here is a new one. Pool had a "DIY" fix to a cracked molded seat in the pool. Come out the other day to a pool level down about 4 inches overnight. Short version of the story, die test shows water slipping out this crack. So what are my options? On the "fix it right" end is surely replace the molded seat...which would probably be a good time to replace the ancient liner...BUT it's a rented house, I'm not spending that kind of money on someone else's pool, so it would be up to the owner. On the "dumb as dirt but might work for a year or 2" end of the scale...what options are out there? Apparently the bondo (JB Weld?) job was done by the last tenant in the house...and surprise it didn't hold.

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