orange/brown stain treatment, how long does it take

[2005phyllis]

I have orange/brown staining in my pool which is pretty extensive. I did the vit C test which took the stain out. I am now treating my pool with the recommended product after getting the chemistry of the pool to the recommended levels. Now what? How long till I see an improvement? Hours, a day, 2 days or more? The instructions were pretty vague. I did this once before but it didn't work. I don't think I had all the levels correct that time though.

[mbar]

What type of stain treatment are you using? How big is your pool, and what levels are your chemicals ? If you use ascorbic acid you should see the results right away - as soon as it hits the stain, the stain disappears, so I don't know what type of stain remover you are using, and remember you have to use a sequestering agent along with the treatment.

[leejp]

Say it ain't so... not another one!

Getting the stain off was easy... But I never managed to Keep it off. I've had good luck in getting the stain off the liner with:

Plain old Vitamin C (Ascorbic Acid - bulk, 3# cost something like ~$30)
Sparkle Conquest (~$20/quart)
United Chemical Pool Stain Treat (~$20/2#t)

Each of these products were very effective at removing the iron stain off of my Vynil liner. Drop the PH and FC an Bam! Stains lifted off the liner in ~12HRs and the pool never looked so good.

In each case I've put in a metal sequestering agent (Metal Free) so I could filter it out... No luck. Once the FC levels were brought back up, perhaps too quickly so the stains returned.

I've just had my fill water (city water) tested. Perfect, no iron! I have no metal components/parts in any part of my plumbing/pump/filter system so it had to have come from the fill water (pool came with the house, I did not install/fill the pool). If I can manage to get the iron out I think the liner will stay clean.

I have a plan this year! I will (modified from :

day 1. start pump/filter, run continuously, test every day, adjust Alkalinity, add polyquat.
day 2. add Pool Stain Treat (list iron off liner and suspend in water)
day 3. hit with a big dose of metal free (sequester iron)
day 4. slowly start to chlorinate with skimmer sticks (stain the filter/DE vs the liner)
day 5. backwash, more metal free, keep slowly chlorinating with skimmer sticks
day 6~10. Adjust CYA, Adjust pH
day xx. When FC reaches optimal level, backwash and switch to bleach.

[Maxout]

leejp If the city water is relatively metal free, why not reduce the metal content of your "old" pool water by partial drain and dilution, or perhaps several cycles of this? It seems that the only true way to permanently keep the metal(s) from redepositing on your liner is to get them out of the pool?

[mbar]

It all sounds good to me, but I have one more question - what is your ph? I had the same problem one summer - I would get rid of the stain, doing all you have done, and wham it would come back again. I then used the method of putting the puck in the skimmer, kept my ph no higher than 7.4, and brought the chlorine up very slowly leaving my filter running 24/7. I also put some DE in my sand filter. What is your calcium level? I still have a lot of unanswered questions on why the pool stains, even after 5 years. One year when the stains were coming back a lot, I was keeping my chlorine too high - I only had cya of 30 and kept the chlorine at 5 or above, so it seemed that as soon as I brought the chlorine up to that level, any iron that was left stained the pool. Then I did the treatment again, put the puck in the skimmer, and didn't raise my chlorine over 3 for about two weeks, keeping the filter running 24/7, and didn't have problems with the stains again. Last year when I opened,I used metal free as soon as I opened, ran the pump 24/7, and didn't shock the pool, but brought the chlorine up slowly putting pucks in the skimmer. I kept my ph at about 7.4, balanced the water, and I didn't get any staining. I live in norhteast pa, so when I open the pool (I have a mesh cover) I have a lot of new water so my stabilizer is really low, therefore I don't need a lot of chlorine in the water. By using the pucks I get my stabilizer up, and if there are metals in the water, the stains should come out in the filter. As you can see I am still learning - I will try the same thing when I open this summer. I am also very careful to never run my heater unless my ph is at least 7.4. I think that may have been how I was getting iron in my water, but I am still not sure. That's why I am interested any time I read about staining on the forum - we can all learn from each other - so keep me informed how everything turns out, because your plan sounds good to me.

[2005phyllis]

A couple of months ago we did the vit C test and there was immediate effect on the stain where the tablet was. We got a bottle of stain gone which I now know was citric acid. It didn't work at all, but I don't think we had the levels right for everything. Then we got busy with other things and have not been able to work on the pool again until now. The pool is 10,400 gallons with exposed aggregate. So we got another bottle of the same stuff .Instructions said to adjust alkalinity to 70 ppm, the calcium hardness to 400ppm and the ph to 7.4. We got the alkalinity to 65, ph to 7.4. , and hardness to 315. We added more calicium per the pool store's calculations. We put the stuff in yesterday evening (I used 1 pound) and nothing happened. Sooooooooooo back to the pool store today and now we have ascorbic acid.We had to readjust the alkalinity as it went to 95 and hardness was 310.These readings were done this afternoon from the pool store. We added 1 1/2 quarts of acid as calculated by the store and circulated the pool. . We tried a little on one pool step. Nothing appears to be happening. I then took a vit C tablet and put that in. That didn't do any thing either.We're a little hesitent to add too much calcium as last fall we had to drain the pool because it was sky high and so was the stabilizer. So now that the vit c didn't work, I'm really confused.

[mbar]

I'm confused too - I don't understand why the vitamin C worked the first time, and not the second. The only other thing I can think of is that it may not be an iron stain. There is a product by "Jack's Magic" that has 3 different tests to tell you what kind of stain it is. Stains can come from copper and magnesium too. I have only dealt with the brown iron stains. I wouldn't raise my calcium any higher if I were you 350 sound good enough. I just don't know - maybe someone else can chime in with some ideas? Don't throw any more chemicals in for now. Ascorbic acid ususally works right away, even if your chemicals aren't perfectly in sync. See if anyone else can come up with some ideas.

[leejp]

By using the pucks I get my stabilizer up, and if there are metals in the water, the stains should come out in the filter.

This is the new thing I'm trying this year... force the iron to stain the filter (DE or otherwise), then backwash to get it out of the pool. Will keep everyone posted.